Committee Meeting Notes: 06/03/2013
by David Wyand · in Torque 3D Beginner · 06/03/2013 (1:45 pm) · 33 replies
Important News
The big news from today's meeting is that this past weekend Ron Kapaun has resigned from the T3D Steering Committee. I'll leave it to Ron to talk about his reasons, but we're all good and he is welcome back any time. Ron was a critical part of the Steering Committee and will be greatly missed. I'd like to personally thank him for everything he has done over the last 8 months.
With this news we're now going to start the search for a new member of the T3D Steering Committee. In fact, given that my own availability has been greatly cut for at least the next few months, we've decided to look for two new Steering Committee members, to bring our total to four. We are hoping that at least one new member will be an artist that is familiar with Torque 3D's art pipeline, and should have access to 3DS Max given how common it is. I'll post a blog about our search this week, and the submission period will likely last a month.
Given this new development, portions of the T3D v4.0 plan will need to be postponed. Neither Mike nor I is really able to take on the Community Art part of the plan. And our ideas for the documentation, tutorials, and GitHub web pages will need to be scaled down for the time being. In general, the v4 roadmap may take longer than we originally planned.
Other Items from Today's Meeting
Pull Requests: Mike and I went through the existing Pull Requests and determined which of us would handle each of them. Unfortunately, most Pull Requests cannot simply be merged as we'll need to check their assumptions.
Modular Templates: Mike is working on the Modular Template system. Currently he is looking at the client/server communications.
- Dave
The big news from today's meeting is that this past weekend Ron Kapaun has resigned from the T3D Steering Committee. I'll leave it to Ron to talk about his reasons, but we're all good and he is welcome back any time. Ron was a critical part of the Steering Committee and will be greatly missed. I'd like to personally thank him for everything he has done over the last 8 months.
With this news we're now going to start the search for a new member of the T3D Steering Committee. In fact, given that my own availability has been greatly cut for at least the next few months, we've decided to look for two new Steering Committee members, to bring our total to four. We are hoping that at least one new member will be an artist that is familiar with Torque 3D's art pipeline, and should have access to 3DS Max given how common it is. I'll post a blog about our search this week, and the submission period will likely last a month.
Given this new development, portions of the T3D v4.0 plan will need to be postponed. Neither Mike nor I is really able to take on the Community Art part of the plan. And our ideas for the documentation, tutorials, and GitHub web pages will need to be scaled down for the time being. In general, the v4 roadmap may take longer than we originally planned.
Other Items from Today's Meeting
Pull Requests: Mike and I went through the existing Pull Requests and determined which of us would handle each of them. Unfortunately, most Pull Requests cannot simply be merged as we'll need to check their assumptions.
Modular Templates: Mike is working on the Modular Template system. Currently he is looking at the client/server communications.
- Dave
About the author
A long time Associate of the GarageGames' community and author of the Torque 3D Game Development Cookbook. Buy it today from Packt Publishing!
#22
something on the lines of UDK
but then again T3D is not udk and its not really wise todo that
especially since there is really no +pro
i mean atm we got a editor that is hooked up with the game itself
and that is perfect - at least for me
what ic here and understand is that ppl often tend to overlook T3D Editor as its not attractive (from color view) as it looks plain and gray
...maybe time to change the Editors skin to fit the theme of these days?
06/06/2013 (10:59 am)
guess he means to visually split the editor from the gamesomething on the lines of UDK
but then again T3D is not udk and its not really wise todo that
especially since there is really no +pro
i mean atm we got a editor that is hooked up with the game itself
and that is perfect - at least for me
what ic here and understand is that ppl often tend to overlook T3D Editor as its not attractive (from color view) as it looks plain and gray
...maybe time to change the Editors skin to fit the theme of these days?
#23
If CMake support will help people make their games with Torque 3D then I say go for it! I know this comes up every so often and all it needs is some expert to do it and create a Pull Request.
But something to be aware of is that T3D's Project Generator already does the things you mention, minus the automatic download of dependencies. I'm not even sure how that would work. If I want to compile T3D with PhysX, for example, I need to sign up on their site first in order to gain access to the SDK.
Torque 3D also has its Project Manager that provides (as of v3.0) a graphical interface to picking and choosing the components to compile. Does CMake provide something similar?
We also find that most people don't really need to touch any of the Project Generator files while working on their game. If they do need custom source files included in their project, they should be adding them under their project's source directory and then rerun generateProjects.bat.
- Dave
06/06/2013 (11:58 am)
@Nastase:If CMake support will help people make their games with Torque 3D then I say go for it! I know this comes up every so often and all it needs is some expert to do it and create a Pull Request.
But something to be aware of is that T3D's Project Generator already does the things you mention, minus the automatic download of dependencies. I'm not even sure how that would work. If I want to compile T3D with PhysX, for example, I need to sign up on their site first in order to gain access to the SDK.
Torque 3D also has its Project Manager that provides (as of v3.0) a graphical interface to picking and choosing the components to compile. Does CMake provide something similar?
We also find that most people don't really need to touch any of the Project Generator files while working on their game. If they do need custom source files included in their project, they should be adding them under their project's source directory and then rerun generateProjects.bat.
- Dave
#24
06/08/2013 (10:18 am)
If CMake were used, I don't think it would replace the Project Manager, it would be invoked by the Project Manager.
#25
The reason I asked was to see if there was a non-proprietary equivalent to our Project Manager. If there is no standard GUI interface to CMake that performs similar functions to the T3D Project Manager, then I would agree that the Project Manager would need to be updated to interface with CMake. I think that would be another requirement before CMake could take over for the Project Generator.
- Dave
06/09/2013 (11:48 am)
@Gerald:The reason I asked was to see if there was a non-proprietary equivalent to our Project Manager. If there is no standard GUI interface to CMake that performs similar functions to the T3D Project Manager, then I would agree that the Project Manager would need to be updated to interface with CMake. I think that would be another requirement before CMake could take over for the Project Generator.
- Dave
#26
I know T3D has the editor and the game together and they work.
I played over the years with Neoaxis, UDK, CryEngine FreeSDK and even T3D in it's early days.
I find very comfortable to start an application called Editor, that starts an editor and a separate application called Game that runs only the game(this can be generated either from the Editor or the Project Manager in this case).
In other words:
- remove the start screen with the buttons Play/Options/Gui Editor/World editor/Exit and go to the Editor directly.
- open no level by default let the user choose one.
- set the default camera in edit mode to free camera, not player camera.
- when testing the game (game mode inside the editor) switch to the game specified camera(it may be fps camera or third person camera or orthogonal)
- on exiting game mode and going back to edit mode swith camera back to free mode.
In my opinion these are just some cosmetic changes to make the workflow more appealing and easier.
Thank you.
06/10/2013 (3:24 am)
@RichardI know T3D has the editor and the game together and they work.
I played over the years with Neoaxis, UDK, CryEngine FreeSDK and even T3D in it's early days.
I find very comfortable to start an application called Editor, that starts an editor and a separate application called Game that runs only the game(this can be generated either from the Editor or the Project Manager in this case).
In other words:
- remove the start screen with the buttons Play/Options/Gui Editor/World editor/Exit and go to the Editor directly.
- open no level by default let the user choose one.
- set the default camera in edit mode to free camera, not player camera.
- when testing the game (game mode inside the editor) switch to the game specified camera(it may be fps camera or third person camera or orthogonal)
- on exiting game mode and going back to edit mode swith camera back to free mode.
In my opinion these are just some cosmetic changes to make the workflow more appealing and easier.
Thank you.
#27
Regarding downloading libraries, neither did I know it dose that until a found about http://polycode.org/
Regarding "picking and choosing the components to compile", CMake has that :D.
Lately I have seen a lot of open source projects using CMake and I have found it a really nice to use cross platform build generator.
06/10/2013 (4:18 am)
@David:Regarding downloading libraries, neither did I know it dose that until a found about http://polycode.org/
Regarding "picking and choosing the components to compile", CMake has that :D.
Lately I have seen a lot of open source projects using CMake and I have found it a really nice to use cross platform build generator.
#28
06/10/2013 (9:06 am)
I've seen a lot of discussion here that would be a perfect example of Community Additions... 
#29
Then I think we should just include a pre-built .exe with full example? So people can pull the repository and try it instantly and then hopefully decide to build it themselves.
@Nastase, that sounds like a mod or option to the current .exe, the benefits of which I don't fully see. But if you really like it, create a new sub directory "EditorOnly" with scripts that I suppose with a main.cs go straight to the world editor, you may need to make it open an empty .mis file on startup. And then create a shortcut called "Editor" that will run the .exe with -mod "EditorOnly" (I believe that is how it looks).
06/10/2013 (5:12 pm)
I don't really see the advantages of CMake, if we are concerned people are having issues compiling the source code by downloading VS and DirectX SDK and maybe Physx if they need it - a rather simple line of things to get together.Then I think we should just include a pre-built .exe with full example? So people can pull the repository and try it instantly and then hopefully decide to build it themselves.
@Nastase, that sounds like a mod or option to the current .exe, the benefits of which I don't fully see. But if you really like it, create a new sub directory "EditorOnly" with scripts that I suppose with a main.cs go straight to the world editor, you may need to make it open an empty .mis file on startup. And then create a shortcut called "Editor" that will run the .exe with -mod "EditorOnly" (I believe that is how it looks).
#30
06/10/2013 (7:40 pm)
@Nastase - Oh, well if that's your preferred workflow then have at it. Personally I'm fine with being able to switch between game and editor seamlessly, but to each his own.
#31
and besides I think Torque will be much powerful engine if have a Node-Editor something like let's say Visual-Script-Editor.
07/10/2013 (2:47 am)
Blender road-map shows that developers of Blender are going to change Blender Game Engine to Interactive mode, I think that would be much better that Torque 3D & 2D and Blender have more abilities to communicate with each other (importing and exporting),and besides I think Torque will be much powerful engine if have a Node-Editor something like let's say Visual-Script-Editor.
#32
And I'm not really sure how much interaction T2D really needs with Blender. You make your model, you render your sprite, you drop it in your assets and add the asset TAML file - done. Maybe a script that would generate the TAML asset description when rendering? I guess that would be helpful - and not too difficult to do.
07/10/2013 (8:39 am)
What "nodes" would you like to edit? Sort of a generic term. As it stands you can export your models to .DAE format and T3D picks them up pretty easily - though character setup could be more streamlined.And I'm not really sure how much interaction T2D really needs with Blender. You make your model, you render your sprite, you drop it in your assets and add the asset TAML file - done. Maybe a script that would generate the TAML asset description when rendering? I guess that would be helpful - and not too difficult to do.
#33
I think when Blender-Game-Engine goes Interactive mode and as Ton Roosendaal wrote it would be just good as prototype like and I think lots of users that want to learn Blender GE looking for another alternative and I should say that Torque is a best choice.
But yes as you said TAML or something like that would be awesome that easily we can send assets to Torque 3D.
Another thing despite TorqueScript is easy but I think it would be a good idea to have a Visual-Script-Node-Editor like Unreal's Kismet, with this way Torque will appeal to more users around world.
overall Torque in really good we can do everything, I am new to Torque and I am learning this nice game engine.
Thanks
07/11/2013 (12:04 am)
Yes thanks to Torque and Blender developers it is easy to export to Torque,I think when Blender-Game-Engine goes Interactive mode and as Ton Roosendaal wrote it would be just good as prototype like and I think lots of users that want to learn Blender GE looking for another alternative and I should say that Torque is a best choice.
But yes as you said TAML or something like that would be awesome that easily we can send assets to Torque 3D.
Another thing despite TorqueScript is easy but I think it would be a good idea to have a Visual-Script-Node-Editor like Unreal's Kismet, with this way Torque will appeal to more users around world.
overall Torque in really good we can do everything, I am new to Torque and I am learning this nice game engine.
Thanks
Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
I don't understand this. The way I read this is that you want the system to work the way that it already works. The system starts the game and you then hit F11 to open the editor for the current level. From the editor you can create/save new levels. You can hit F10 as soon as the main menu opens to access the GUI editor. You then simply unbind these keys when you deploy to remove "easy" access, or set up conditional compilation to remove the editor-specific functions from the final binary. I thought there was a command line option to start the system with a specific level loaded in the editor (isn't that how the old toolbox worked?).
Perhaps I'm not understanding this request.