Why is Torque so underrated?
by Ozi · in Torque 3D Professional · 05/12/2013 (9:44 am) · 25 replies
So if you guys have seen my other threads you know that I am a newbie. I am not very tech savvy but I have been pushing myself to learn code and become better around computers.
My question is: why isn't Torque as popular as other engines like Unity?
I have used Unity, for about a few weeks actually, and without a tutorial, it is harder than you think. I did not know what to do, the interface was a bit confusing. The only thing I liked about was how the scripting idea worked.
Torque on the other hand was pretty easy to pick up. The interface was simple, there wasn't any "under the hood" type stuff that you have to figure out. The only issues (or I should say difficulties) I have are with the importing models from Blender. Other than that it is a pretty darn good engine.
Another thing, ITS FREE.
I was just looking at the reviews and people were like "ENGINE IS CRUD, UNITY IS BETTER" and I sorta beg to differ.
How come Torque doesn't get the recognition it deserves?
My question is: why isn't Torque as popular as other engines like Unity?
I have used Unity, for about a few weeks actually, and without a tutorial, it is harder than you think. I did not know what to do, the interface was a bit confusing. The only thing I liked about was how the scripting idea worked.
Torque on the other hand was pretty easy to pick up. The interface was simple, there wasn't any "under the hood" type stuff that you have to figure out. The only issues (or I should say difficulties) I have are with the importing models from Blender. Other than that it is a pretty darn good engine.
Another thing, ITS FREE.
I was just looking at the reviews and people were like "ENGINE IS CRUD, UNITY IS BETTER" and I sorta beg to differ.
How come Torque doesn't get the recognition it deserves?
#22
So yeah, anyone saying Unity is better than T3D. . .
A) Is spending (wasting?) $1500 to get Pro (which does give a handful of features that T3D doesn't have).
B) Is an artist that can't code (thus having engine source code is pointless to them).
C) Has no freaking idea what they are talking about.
D) All of the above.
That sounded kinda fanboy-ish, so let me just say: Unity's art pipeline is easy. The option to script with C# is huge. But that's not to say that T3D is bad; e.g. static shapes drop right in and are updated automagically. It's the animated shapes that are kind of a pain in the ass; yes, I would like to see some additional love put towards making animated shapes easier to bring in and work with in T3D.
And yeah, it would be great to have an alternative to Torquescript: Lua or Javascript would be nice. But Torquescript gets the job done, even if it is a bit clunky.
@Netwyrm: Good search tips! I didn't realize you could specify dates like that in a Google search query.
05/14/2013 (12:38 pm)
I took a look at Unity a year or so ago and was immediately turned off. Top two issues were 1) half-assed terrain system, and 2) half-assed GUI system. Not to mention, all the cool stuff that I was excited about (e.g. Beast and Umbra) is locked up behind Unity Pro, and I'm not ever paying $1500 for a game engine when T3D is already very good and completely free. (I know there are 3rd-party add-ons that bring Unity (not Pro) up to par with T3D, but once again they cost additional money.)So yeah, anyone saying Unity is better than T3D. . .
A) Is spending (wasting?) $1500 to get Pro (which does give a handful of features that T3D doesn't have).
B) Is an artist that can't code (thus having engine source code is pointless to them).
C) Has no freaking idea what they are talking about.
D) All of the above.
That sounded kinda fanboy-ish, so let me just say: Unity's art pipeline is easy. The option to script with C# is huge. But that's not to say that T3D is bad; e.g. static shapes drop right in and are updated automagically. It's the animated shapes that are kind of a pain in the ass; yes, I would like to see some additional love put towards making animated shapes easier to bring in and work with in T3D.
And yeah, it would be great to have an alternative to Torquescript: Lua or Javascript would be nice. But Torquescript gets the job done, even if it is a bit clunky.
@Netwyrm: Good search tips! I didn't realize you could specify dates like that in a Google search query.
#23
I'm personally a fan of Lua, but C# and JavaScript are nifty too.
05/14/2013 (1:06 pm)
Somebody around here has a fully functional C# implememtation in Torque 3D - <cough Lukas cough> - maybe they could drop us another link?I'm personally a fan of Lua, but C# and JavaScript are nifty too.
#24
DNTv1.1 online repo
Not updated for MIT3D 3.0 tho, think Vince will get to update it soon enough.
Online product page
Does cost a lil' bit of money for the DNTC tho, but if you are not doing a whole lot of changes to the engine, then you should be able to get by with the free codebase ;)
05/14/2013 (1:15 pm)
Want a link for DotNetTorque?DNTv1.1 online repo
Not updated for MIT3D 3.0 tho, think Vince will get to update it soon enough.
Online product page
Does cost a lil' bit of money for the DNTC tho, but if you are not doing a whole lot of changes to the engine, then you should be able to get by with the free codebase ;)
#25
Would it be fair to say that a lot of the clunkiness in Torque animation system is in the code, not the interface? As far as I remember, adding animations to an object is a matter of lining them all up in the shape, then selecting frame ranges in a TSShapeConstructor.
But, for example, Player's action thread is difficult to use when it interacts with the default movement animations (or, more to the point, doesn't).
05/14/2013 (2:45 pm)
Netwyrm: I never knew that date range option existed. This will save me many future frustrations. Thanks!Would it be fair to say that a lot of the clunkiness in Torque animation system is in the code, not the interface? As far as I remember, adding animations to an object is a matter of lining them all up in the shape, then selecting frame ranges in a TSShapeConstructor.
But, for example, Player's action thread is difficult to use when it interacts with the default movement animations (or, more to the point, doesn't).
Torque Owner Netwyrm
Canopic Games
Scripting is most folks entry point--I think most people think "game programming"=="level building". And I don't mean to knock the TGE writers' work--my current door open/close code started off as a recipe in Ken Finney's book and evolved from there.
There's still useful information to be gleaned there, but for a beginner it was quite difficult to translate across the engines because it took years to build the context. Michael's efforts have really helped me a lot, and I appreciate them--it must have been quite the test of fortitude.
My trick for Google searching on this site is this:
1) type "site:garagegames.com" to narrow the search specifically to GG.
2) then type query keys ("melee", "dts", "whatever")
3) then use the "< >" operators to narrow the result by the range of dates the engine version of interest was prevelant.
So "site:garagegames.com melee >2010" stops bringing up TGE references and narrows down the result list to surprisingly usefulness. I'd never argue that the TGE stuff should be removed--I believe a surprisingly large number of folks have vast worlds they are still playing with and likely use that stuff, but I'd rather mask it out when I'm looking for T3D information.