What a "game engine" is....
by Richard Ranft · in Torque 3D Beginner · 03/23/2014 (1:49 pm) · 39 replies
Stop. Before you start to even put it together in your head let's make an analogy.
"Engine" gets thrown around a lot but people don't stop and really think about it that way. If I hand you a V8 350 Vortec engine and say "here's a car engine, make a car" you'd think I was insane. "But Rich, I haven't the faintest idea how to build a car starting with just the engine!" I KNOW! I know, and just like most people couldn't build a car from just an engine, so most people can't build a game from just a game engine.
It serves basically the same purpose; it provides everything that "powers" the game, but alone it most assuredly is NOT a game.
So, given an "engine" you must now build a frame, suspension, drive components, body, interior, accessories, all of the rest that make up a whole "car" - your game. You need skills in story writing, cinematics, 2d and 3d art, rigging, animation, sound engineering and mixing, recording, programming (scripting and engine-side c++), math (most of this is handled already, but there are things you might want to add that require some higher trigonometry or calculus), UI design, and a whole slew of other disciplines if you intend to make a good game. This is why every AAA game out there has a team of 10 to 100 people working on it. If you're a solid Jack-of-all-Trades you can produce a great "indie" game on your own - expect it to take time. A lot of time.
I'm just trying to lend a little perspective to some of the ideas flying around here lately....
"Engine" gets thrown around a lot but people don't stop and really think about it that way. If I hand you a V8 350 Vortec engine and say "here's a car engine, make a car" you'd think I was insane. "But Rich, I haven't the faintest idea how to build a car starting with just the engine!" I KNOW! I know, and just like most people couldn't build a car from just an engine, so most people can't build a game from just a game engine.
It serves basically the same purpose; it provides everything that "powers" the game, but alone it most assuredly is NOT a game.
So, given an "engine" you must now build a frame, suspension, drive components, body, interior, accessories, all of the rest that make up a whole "car" - your game. You need skills in story writing, cinematics, 2d and 3d art, rigging, animation, sound engineering and mixing, recording, programming (scripting and engine-side c++), math (most of this is handled already, but there are things you might want to add that require some higher trigonometry or calculus), UI design, and a whole slew of other disciplines if you intend to make a good game. This is why every AAA game out there has a team of 10 to 100 people working on it. If you're a solid Jack-of-all-Trades you can produce a great "indie" game on your own - expect it to take time. A lot of time.
I'm just trying to lend a little perspective to some of the ideas flying around here lately....
About the author
I was a soldier, then a computer technician, an electrician, a technical writer, game programmer, and now software test/tools developer. I've been a hobbyist programmer since the age of 13.
#22
03/25/2014 (7:25 am)
I thought I'd best give an example of what I meant by a non-coder making a game because things got a bit out of hand. It was a very simple social game similar to mafia wars. The game logic was of the this or that variety. It was done pressing buttons. The player would press a button and it would end a message to the next game object which loaded a screen. The game was very similar to one of those Steve Jackson Dungeon Keeper books. There was no complex AI, the artist that made it didn't need to understand complex data structures it was literally pass this to that to that, oh, you've won. But it did have music and particles and decent art and it did not take very long to figure out. But it was done. The same game could just as easily be made in Flash and was but how easy would it be done in Torque if the guy making it takes one look at a game loop in C++ and runs screaming. I wasn't talking about anything that really would need a programmer, and clearly any programmer can make better use of any engine than that. I was just trying to point out that it is in the ability of someone to even produce 'shovelware' as was stated, where the success of Unity lies, because it's custom shovelware. The great majority of people doing that in Unity free are not making money, but that ability is what in a sense made Unity go viral. Plus the march of time is to make things easier. That's why T3D was produced, it's why we now program in C++ or C# because programming in punch cards or machine code is hard. So at every stage things are driven by a desire to include more and more people and for things to get easier and easier, and at the heart of everything every game is a point and click, point the gun and click to shoot the bullet. The difference between a flash game and Assassin's Creed at a fundamental level is just scale, money and time.
#23
I'm trying to say that a game is the sum of many parts - the engine being a large and important part, but not what will ultimately make the game memorable or enjoyable. Does anyone really look back on their favorite games, the most memorable events in them and say "wow - that HDR and Bloom really made that fun!"?
03/25/2014 (12:40 pm)
@JED - I agree with pretty much all of that. But none of that disagrees with what I was trying to get across. Awesome tools are great and can really make it easy to make a game - but they are not the game, the engine is not the game and the features thereof don't define what the game is. They make it easier to build the game - and I suppose your point is that awesome tools are a feature of the game engine. I'll put that in my 50% box - T2D is a great engine and it currently has no tools. The core of the engine isn't affected by their presence or absence. I will agree with you 100% that having the tools will make it far more accessible and thus far more popular.I'm trying to say that a game is the sum of many parts - the engine being a large and important part, but not what will ultimately make the game memorable or enjoyable. Does anyone really look back on their favorite games, the most memorable events in them and say "wow - that HDR and Bloom really made that fun!"?
#24
No one says that the engine will decide whether a game is enjoyable or not here. But do at least be fair here and admit that the more visual features a game engine offers the better the experience for a player will be as a whole.
The tools are about making the game production faster.
Let us talk Torque 3D for a minute.
Tools/addons such as:
T3D world Editor and all its built tools
T3D GUI editor
AFX 2.0(really makes the engine stands out)
Liman3D shader packs(I believe this to make Torque 3D very visually appealing and an eye catcher for real)
TUAISK
Walkabout
L3DT
Torsion
Are all something that makes Torque 3D a good tool for game production. But still other engines will from time to time come up with new ideas and tools that we Torque users might not think about.
A game engine is a tool to make games with, it is meant to shorten the production time and stop game developers/programmers/tool developers from reinventing the wheel so they can focus on the game design and actually ship a game.
Torque 3D is an awesome(like in Uber super awesome) tool but in some areas other engines have beaten Torque 3D.
Torque 3D is still the king(compared to Unreal 4) when we talk:
1. special effects(due to Jeff and his AFX 2.0).
2. A real Scripting language(Unreal 4 should not have removed UnrealScript)
3. Terrain setup simplicity(the many boxes and Blueprint stuff seems overkill)
4. The ease of working with the scattersky and daylight cycle(perhaps due to more experience with Torque).
5. importing avatars and working with them(Two options .dts and .collada while in Unreal 4 only .fbx as far as I can see).
6. Sculpting and painting the terrain(in Unreal 4 I need to hold down Ctrl and shift and then click on the mouse before anything happens)
7. Top down view games(Unreal has this annoying need to keep calculating the navigation spots whenever the terrain changes and that can make the Machine CTD or slow down to a speed where everything freezes).
8. L3DT maps works out of the box in Torque 3D(not in Unreal 4... they all become weird and twisted and one have to work with the terrains and set up the layers self)
9. Torque 3D is a old engine(many resources and plugins), Unreal 4 is pretty new and lack much of that at the moment(however that will change)
Yes the game is the sum of many parts(I would even dare say addons and plugins ha ha :o)). Try remove them plugins and see how Torque works(plenty of work would be needed to invent all that by oneself or a team).
@Ron
Unity developers ARE game developers. Some of them even damn good ones. Period.
Happy developing :o)
04/03/2014 (1:47 am)
@RichardNo one says that the engine will decide whether a game is enjoyable or not here. But do at least be fair here and admit that the more visual features a game engine offers the better the experience for a player will be as a whole.
The tools are about making the game production faster.
Let us talk Torque 3D for a minute.
Tools/addons such as:
T3D world Editor and all its built tools
T3D GUI editor
AFX 2.0(really makes the engine stands out)
Liman3D shader packs(I believe this to make Torque 3D very visually appealing and an eye catcher for real)
TUAISK
Walkabout
L3DT
Torsion
Are all something that makes Torque 3D a good tool for game production. But still other engines will from time to time come up with new ideas and tools that we Torque users might not think about.
A game engine is a tool to make games with, it is meant to shorten the production time and stop game developers/programmers/tool developers from reinventing the wheel so they can focus on the game design and actually ship a game.
Torque 3D is an awesome(like in Uber super awesome) tool but in some areas other engines have beaten Torque 3D.
Torque 3D is still the king(compared to Unreal 4) when we talk:
1. special effects(due to Jeff and his AFX 2.0).
2. A real Scripting language(Unreal 4 should not have removed UnrealScript)
3. Terrain setup simplicity(the many boxes and Blueprint stuff seems overkill)
4. The ease of working with the scattersky and daylight cycle(perhaps due to more experience with Torque).
5. importing avatars and working with them(Two options .dts and .collada while in Unreal 4 only .fbx as far as I can see).
6. Sculpting and painting the terrain(in Unreal 4 I need to hold down Ctrl and shift and then click on the mouse before anything happens)
7. Top down view games(Unreal has this annoying need to keep calculating the navigation spots whenever the terrain changes and that can make the Machine CTD or slow down to a speed where everything freezes).
8. L3DT maps works out of the box in Torque 3D(not in Unreal 4... they all become weird and twisted and one have to work with the terrains and set up the layers self)
9. Torque 3D is a old engine(many resources and plugins), Unreal 4 is pretty new and lack much of that at the moment(however that will change)
Yes the game is the sum of many parts(I would even dare say addons and plugins ha ha :o)). Try remove them plugins and see how Torque works(plenty of work would be needed to invent all that by oneself or a team).
@Ron
Unity developers ARE game developers. Some of them even damn good ones. Period.
Happy developing :o)
#25
04/03/2014 (7:08 am)
Quote:I agree with you and I never disputed this - but you know there have been posts here that have flat out said "if the engine doesn't have HDR then I can't make my game." That's just crazy-talk. My point is that if your game is crap it will be crap no matter how awesome the engine is. It'll just be really shiny crap. Don't believe me? PC Gamer game ratings Swamp Buggy Racing gets 6/100. UnrealEngine! IGN's take on it. Hell, just google "swamp buggy racing video game."
But do at least be fair here and admit that the more visual features a game engine offers the better the experience for a player will be as a whole.
Quote:I'm not missing it. If I were bringing a project from UE3 it would be an issue for me but I'm not so it isn't. With UE4's ability to compile and hot-swap the whole engine out "behind the scenes" there isn't really much need for scripting in the traditional sense. The programmer adds blueprints for the designers to use - engine is all in c++, designers have slick toys, everyone is happy. I suppose everyone will take issue with this paragraph, but Ron O'Hara and I had a discussion on "why have scripting languages" once and he made me realize that the traditional reasons are wrong these days. Code is code, you're still asking a "designer" to be a "programmer" (and some of them don't like it) - and C++ is faster than script. If you can do what UE4 does then using a scripting language just hampers your game. Just an opinion, take it for what it is.
2. A real Scripting language(Unreal 4 should not have removed UnrealScript)
#26
Unreal 4 annoys me whenever I need to rebuild the lights or when I click recompile and the error sign appears...(Torsion also needs to reload after each change so...) Hence I need to enter Visual Studio anyway and do a Game rebuilt etc. Also it is fast.
Perhaps I am way too much into Torque now(help I am Torquefied). It is not that I dislike Unreal 4 or anything(sightly annoyed though). I simply just prefer the scripting/programming(I admit that Blueprints are faster for non-coders and that programmers can make new Blueprints scripts are awesome, but here I am deeply inspired to use Torque Script packages some more instead). One can code in pure C++ in Unreal 4 and that I find absolutely cool, but I still get this feeling the whole engine is designed around these Blueprint scripts. I keep on bumping into them. They are everywhere from terrain to effects and even the editor is saturated with them(really need to get used to them). I guess at this time I am trying to convince myself they are good and makes everything more productive(they do in fact and especially in big teams I think). In no time I could set up a gold coin(actor) that would destroy it self on collision, play a sound and fire an effect and all that just by playing around with a simple Blueprint coding example(make your own Blueprint). Blueprint is some nasty tool to use.
Using Unreal 4 also made me do some more research on Torque 3D's eye candy benchmark and I am actually amazed what some shaders can do. Torque 3D with addons and plugins really stands out pretty well :o)
I actually think that I owe Epic Games a great thanks for showing me how great an engine Torque 3D is now that I think about it. But Unreal 4 is really something special.
Update: No longer uses Torque 3D for production. It was a great tool though.
04/04/2014 (5:16 pm)
Funny, I have always look at scripting as a tool to avoid needing to compile all the time(hence save some time), I have never seen scripting as a tool for artists. At least that is what I have been taught. Unreal 4 annoys me whenever I need to rebuild the lights or when I click recompile and the error sign appears...(Torsion also needs to reload after each change so...) Hence I need to enter Visual Studio anyway and do a Game rebuilt etc. Also it is fast.
Perhaps I am way too much into Torque now(help I am Torquefied). It is not that I dislike Unreal 4 or anything(sightly annoyed though). I simply just prefer the scripting/programming(I admit that Blueprints are faster for non-coders and that programmers can make new Blueprints scripts are awesome, but here I am deeply inspired to use Torque Script packages some more instead). One can code in pure C++ in Unreal 4 and that I find absolutely cool, but I still get this feeling the whole engine is designed around these Blueprint scripts. I keep on bumping into them. They are everywhere from terrain to effects and even the editor is saturated with them(really need to get used to them). I guess at this time I am trying to convince myself they are good and makes everything more productive(they do in fact and especially in big teams I think). In no time I could set up a gold coin(actor) that would destroy it self on collision, play a sound and fire an effect and all that just by playing around with a simple Blueprint coding example(make your own Blueprint). Blueprint is some nasty tool to use.
Using Unreal 4 also made me do some more research on Torque 3D's eye candy benchmark and I am actually amazed what some shaders can do. Torque 3D with addons and plugins really stands out pretty well :o)
I actually think that I owe Epic Games a great thanks for showing me how great an engine Torque 3D is now that I think about it. But Unreal 4 is really something special.
Update: No longer uses Torque 3D for production. It was a great tool though.
#27
04/04/2014 (5:26 pm)
@Dwarf King I agree with you on the scripting sense, and it's okay to be torquefied :) 
#28
04/04/2014 (9:19 pm)
Let's not forget that scripting is about rapid development, whether that means not having to recompile, not having to write out type signatures, or not having to hunt bugs in memory allocation. 
#29
04/05/2014 (10:01 pm)
Well after few weeks been out of the forum, i decide to check T3D and see where is standing and i found .......no change same old back and for arguments if these better then that if that is better then this but at the end not real progress on these engine and yes you do need a good engine or you car won't move and that is what i see here a car without a engine...ok how many of you have a game done with these engine in the last year or so and how populate is these game now on the market for win/xbox/ps/android/iphone 3d or 2d... and yes you don't need all the fancy tools ue4 and unity3d and cryengine have now to build a game but it will take you longer and hard it to build...is like i give you a few nails and point to few trees and ask you to build a house it will be build but by the time is done i have 100 done and better looking one too. today the players want to see real time / graphics with high end resolutions that is the reason nvidia and others making those killer video card so game developers build high end resolutions killer game can t3d do these??? i said no and is really sad because is a good potential engine to go head to head with others on the market that if the GarageGame dev desired to go back and work on it..
#30
@Daniel - sure, that is the intent. But have you really looked at how "blueprints" work - and how fast the compile times are? The down-side is that updating lighting in a level is slow and "cooking" assets for deployment is very slow.
@Ramon - I'll say it yet again. I agree that T3D would benefit from all of the improvements that people have been asking for. I also think that if you have a rotten idea for a game then it will be rotten regardless of how good the engine is. If your position is that a "perfect" game engine means that any game made with it will be a blockbuster then I have to disagree. And what's truly sad is that there are so many people who "need" this or that feature but so few who are actually contributing....
@Everyone else - there are a few people working very hard on getting more platforms supported and improving the rendering code, adding renderers, boosting script interpreter speed, adding extra scripting language features, and much, much more. Progress is being made - there are only so many hands to do the work. So if the engine doesn't meet your needs and you can't wait then perhaps you would benefit by selecting another engine for your hot project and checking back when you're ready to start your next one.
04/06/2014 (12:31 am)
Quote:No argument there - that recompile error thing is irritating. On the up-side, UE4 compiles very quickly - looks like they have the projects set up very efficiently to avoid compiling or linking anything that is not necessary.
Unreal 4 annoys me whenever I need to rebuild the lights or when I click recompile and the error sign appears... Hence I need to enter Visual Studio anyway and do a Game rebuilt etc. Also it is fast.
@Daniel - sure, that is the intent. But have you really looked at how "blueprints" work - and how fast the compile times are? The down-side is that updating lighting in a level is slow and "cooking" assets for deployment is very slow.
@Ramon - I'll say it yet again. I agree that T3D would benefit from all of the improvements that people have been asking for. I also think that if you have a rotten idea for a game then it will be rotten regardless of how good the engine is. If your position is that a "perfect" game engine means that any game made with it will be a blockbuster then I have to disagree. And what's truly sad is that there are so many people who "need" this or that feature but so few who are actually contributing....
@Everyone else - there are a few people working very hard on getting more platforms supported and improving the rendering code, adding renderers, boosting script interpreter speed, adding extra scripting language features, and much, much more. Progress is being made - there are only so many hands to do the work. So if the engine doesn't meet your needs and you can't wait then perhaps you would benefit by selecting another engine for your hot project and checking back when you're ready to start your next one.
#31
04/06/2014 (6:18 am)
Oh, I wasn't saying anything negative about blueprints as opposed to a scripting language. I was just making the drive-by observation that scripts/blueprints/what-have-you aren't just for non-coders.Quote:and yes you don't need all the fancy tools ue4 and unity3d and cryengine have now to build a game but it will take you longer and hard it to buildAbsolutely agree, but I have trouble believing this is down to graphics features. From what I've heard, Unity (free) has less graphical capability than Torque. That may be out-of-date info but it was true at one point, and it didn't stop Unity from becoming very popular. Making a game isn't just about how it looks.
#32
04/06/2014 (6:46 am)
Quote:no change same old back and for arguments if these better then that if that is better then this but at the end not real progress on these engine and yes you do need a good engine or you car won't move and that is what i see here a car without a engineYou should check the blogs Ramon. Torque 2D 3.0 update
#33
- Lights that cast shadows (you can fake it with blob shadows)
- Mecanim IK, but you still have access to the Mecanim system.
- 2d Animation curves. You can assemble 2d sprites as they showcase in the videos but no way can you get access to the animation curves which allow you to animate the sprite procedurally...unless you fork over 1500$.
These are simple features that have been disabled to justify the difference between free and Pro. That might not matter to most people but to me it's the main reason why I stick with Torque; 100% control over everything that goes on.
04/06/2014 (11:43 am)
@Daniel Buckmaster : For the record, You can do anything you want in Unity's free version!!! except- Lights that cast shadows (you can fake it with blob shadows)
- Mecanim IK, but you still have access to the Mecanim system.
- 2d Animation curves. You can assemble 2d sprites as they showcase in the videos but no way can you get access to the animation curves which allow you to animate the sprite procedurally...unless you fork over 1500$.
These are simple features that have been disabled to justify the difference between free and Pro. That might not matter to most people but to me it's the main reason why I stick with Torque; 100% control over everything that goes on.
#34
Again Im using now at work Unity3d and we got 6 license for UE4 we don do games we used for engineering simulations and training. So I'm not a expert on game development but i play games on my console and pc and I'm very impress with these game when it came to graphics and of course intent design. I really like to see T3D go on that direction and if ever get close or equal to UE4 and Unity3d Ver 5 i will get a seat also.
@Michael I check the link you point here and my congratulations on that seen like the 2D is doing there job better here. To bad I don't do 2D.
But again impress with the development there. By the way here are some tools for Collada for those insisting and using these award app.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladarefinery/
https://twitter.com/collada
04/06/2014 (11:55 am)
@Richard I don't implying the with a perfect game engine you can make a blockbuster game. First is no such "perfect game engine" all application have there bugs here and there. I'm a register Autodesk Developer and i know how application are...Autodesk, Microsoft and other have hundreds of developer and resources and yet they have there bug too that is why the release "patch".... Also to make a blockbuster game you need several key that one person along won't have Script, Music, Modeling FX, Material, Coding etc etc making a game is like filming a movie that is for a blockbuster game. Now for some thing like break block, top-down angry bird and other like it all you need is a good imagination a good idea.Again Im using now at work Unity3d and we got 6 license for UE4 we don do games we used for engineering simulations and training. So I'm not a expert on game development but i play games on my console and pc and I'm very impress with these game when it came to graphics and of course intent design. I really like to see T3D go on that direction and if ever get close or equal to UE4 and Unity3d Ver 5 i will get a seat also.
@Michael I check the link you point here and my congratulations on that seen like the 2D is doing there job better here. To bad I don't do 2D.
But again impress with the development there. By the way here are some tools for Collada for those insisting and using these award app.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladarefinery/
https://twitter.com/collada
#36
Unreal 4 is beyond our hardware budget, and Unreal 3 has a pretty steep learning curve. I give pretty long evaluations of each engine that I have considered and all but 2 are too confusing and take too many steps to get anything done. Those 2 are Torque 3D (of course) and Cryengine 3. I have spent hours playing in each engine, trying to create the first tutorial level to our game, and I have to say that T3D is a far better engine for my needs, and I have been able to build an actual prototype of the level in T3D and have yet to get the exact looking map I want in CryEngine.
Anyway as a new developer just starting out I have chosen Torque 3D as the engine for our first game, if for nothing other than the pure ease of use. The only obstacle I have encountered so far is importing objects from Blender 2.7, I am sure it is just my lack of experience. I like T3D and think it will fit the needs of our first game just fine. Torque 3D is like the Code::Blocks of game engines. Has a nice user friendly user interface that is easy enough for a beginner to pick up within minutes.
04/09/2014 (9:00 am)
As someone new to game development, I have been searching far and wide for the perfect game engine that fits the needs of my studio. My studio is just my wife an I, my wife is the artist and I am the programmer. I have come to the conclusion that Torque 3D is the best for our needs. Unreal 4 is beyond our hardware budget, and Unreal 3 has a pretty steep learning curve. I give pretty long evaluations of each engine that I have considered and all but 2 are too confusing and take too many steps to get anything done. Those 2 are Torque 3D (of course) and Cryengine 3. I have spent hours playing in each engine, trying to create the first tutorial level to our game, and I have to say that T3D is a far better engine for my needs, and I have been able to build an actual prototype of the level in T3D and have yet to get the exact looking map I want in CryEngine.
Anyway as a new developer just starting out I have chosen Torque 3D as the engine for our first game, if for nothing other than the pure ease of use. The only obstacle I have encountered so far is importing objects from Blender 2.7, I am sure it is just my lack of experience. I like T3D and think it will fit the needs of our first game just fine. Torque 3D is like the Code::Blocks of game engines. Has a nice user friendly user interface that is easy enough for a beginner to pick up within minutes.
#37
T3D is far from perfect - don't get me wrong. The art pipeline needs a lot of work, the material system is "quirky," the shader system is "quirky," hell, the whole thing is a little "quirky." So I guess where I would really like to see things go is toward smoothing the quirks before adding new toys - that will probably behave oddly because of bugs elsewhere in the engine.
Still, I'm with Michael (above) - the artists are the ones who make your game shine no matter the capabilities of your engine. The designers make your game fun regardless of the engine's awe-inspiring power (or lack thereof).
04/09/2014 (3:18 pm)
Quote:It's free - so really you already have a seat....
I really like to see T3D go on that direction and if ever get close or equal to UE4 and Unity3d Ver 5 i will get a seat also.
T3D is far from perfect - don't get me wrong. The art pipeline needs a lot of work, the material system is "quirky," the shader system is "quirky," hell, the whole thing is a little "quirky." So I guess where I would really like to see things go is toward smoothing the quirks before adding new toys - that will probably behave oddly because of bugs elsewhere in the engine.
Still, I'm with Michael (above) - the artists are the ones who make your game shine no matter the capabilities of your engine. The designers make your game fun regardless of the engine's awe-inspiring power (or lack thereof).
#38
http://www.villagersandheroes.com/credits/
Not much more to say than good games are built upon good tech and peoples' skills. Torque is fine good tech that is battle tested. No one can argue about that :o)
04/19/2014 (5:42 pm)
This awesome game is built upon Torque techhttp://www.villagersandheroes.com/credits/
Not much more to say than good games are built upon good tech and peoples' skills. Torque is fine good tech that is battle tested. No one can argue about that :o)
#39
Now that does lead to some more meaningful questions -
What questions remain unsolved that could benefit a large number of folks? (Highly game-specific ones are an exercise for the reader. They have to be, or there's no real game there.)
What solutions are either obscurely demonstrated, or documented?
What solutions could be clearer?
What solutions need to be corrected?
Really wish I had time to take a stab at more than the third and fourth as I run across em.
04/20/2014 (3:04 pm)
I'll stick to my definition: A collection of solved problems.Now that does lead to some more meaningful questions -
What questions remain unsolved that could benefit a large number of folks? (Highly game-specific ones are an exercise for the reader. They have to be, or there's no real game there.)
What solutions are either obscurely demonstrated, or documented?
What solutions could be clearer?
What solutions need to be corrected?
Really wish I had time to take a stab at more than the third and fourth as I run across em.
Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
Actually, I think a few other people (just in this thread) have hit on what Torque needs more than anything - more tutorials. And in a logical sequence, too - a million repeated questions all because the documentation is not all that well laid out.
I really do appreciate all of the work everyone is putting into adding features to both of the engines, by the way. I know it might not really sound like it, but it's true. But I feel core improvements (like Jeff's arrays, James' TorqueScript improvements) will go a long way to making the engine easier to use, which I feel is more important than the stuff you would normally see listed on the back of the box....