TGE Demo 1.2 and Turrets ?

#1 Mr. Burch,

I have noticed your name a few times especially in these forums.
I want to ask you a question.
But first, so that you know that I am not complaining, I own both T.G.E. 1.4 and T3.d 1.2. Plus I keep myself updated with the open sourced versions on git.hub which last version is 3.5.
I still use 1.4 because I know my way around the engine code( by that I know which instruction to use to start a mission 'loadMymission') over the code in T3d.

1. Why do you use 1.2 when T3d 3.5 is free?
You claim to be a beginner, so it seems logical to start learning the current platform from the get go than to spend (waste) time learning a discontinued product and then converting.

2. Which area of torque are you most interested in?
(Scripting, artist, level design, or all of it 'like me')

#2 Mr. Roberson , Im happy to meet you Sir ,
Long story short , I dont own a very powerful machine nor one with decent graphics hardware . I had the book 3DGPAI1 and the disk with TGE demo 1.2 before acquiring my spiffy laptop . Sempron 2100 Mhz 1 core , Nvidida 8200M G 256 Mb , so Basically , it is my understanding that I cant use it to run the Torque 3d , or believe me I would be learning with that instead , though Im not complaining , I think the 1.2 demo is awesome but answers seem to be hard to come by .
2. 'like you' but Im not going to set my goals high , just have some fun .
en resumen , If I find a good deal on a real machine , T3D will be one of the first programs on it , :)

Youve made me think a little , and I think that it would be a good idea to learn a little about developing with T3D . Its sure to help me with TGE even if I never make the upgrade :)

I appreciate the interest Mr. Roberson and have a good day Sir .

#3 James - If you're using the demo version and don't have access to the engine source then I think getting vehicle turrets working correctly will be a real challenge. Even in Tribes 2 the vehicles didn't really have turrets - just a spot for a player to stand, turning the player himself into the turret.

I can't say it is not possible, but I believe it will be very difficult.

#4 Muchas Gracias Mr Ranft , for your very valuable time
Yes , Ive noticed some old posts related to a turrent resource , somewhere , and , frankly , as Ive been "learning" TGE rather consistently since I joined here , I have encountered with great regularity what one at my level of experience should unashameably dub difficult (please know that Im making the models , structures , sounds , so forth ). So , I was scared into seeking this help from you that I might had encountered a brick wall ordeal .

Well , Mr. Ranft , Sir , I shall try and , again , thank you .

#5 Mr. Burch,
Thanks for the reply.

'not powerful machine' makes it very clear why you stay with 1.2
I own a slimline using XP MediaCenter as my main workhorse pc. That is one of the many reasons why I stay with 1.4. Another reason is that if my finished game runs on a low-end machine, it should run on a machine with advanced capabilities.

One resaon on why I am so slow in developing product is that I do a lot of time researching other products on the market (Blitz3d, Unity, 3dGamestudio) to see what they can do! (I'm doing a a couple of small games in Blitz3d at the moment that should be ready in a couple of months)

On the art side of things, for my level editor at the moment I use Quark as it is the only editor that a person can still download that DIRECTLY supports the .dif interior that 1.2 and 1.4 uses. Other editors that I'm looking into are GTK Radiant and something new called Trenchbroom. those editors save levels in the .map format that can be converted to .dif using the maptodif program.

What type of game do you like programming?

#6 Mr Roberson ,
Thank you for your time Sir .
Its nice to have some correspondence with someone here however , I must tell you that I am in NO WAY , NO WAY a skilled game programmer
for example :
When you say "lot of time researching other products" I just envy the fact that people have such skill and knowledge in this field as to "research" things ..
I greatly enjoy CG and the chance to piddle in it that the demo has afforded me .

It is interesting to know that you chose a less powerful computer for that reason . Thats encouraging :) .
I am using the quark 6x that was on the 3dgpai1 disk , but what you said about the level editor rebaffles me as I presume that means mission editor unless 'level' is another word for structure , but when I looked at it I was unable to see how it might work with TGE . <if thats confusing please just forget about it :)

I imagine , RTS or strategy , RPG , FPS , simulations (racing flying etc etc etc) would be rather stimulating . :)

best wishes for your current project , Ill check out your profile to see whats up with CJW . and have a great day Sir .

#7 The profession of video game design has only existed since 1970, and only became popular with the introduction of low end 8-bit computers such as the Commodore 64 (my fav, the one I learned BASIC on), TRS-80, and of course the Apple II and Atari 400/800.
So anyone who could buy a computer and fancied themselves a game programmer thought they knew much of the language.
The term 'level' is either not clearly defined or not clearly understood.
As you said, it could mean a structure (if by structure, you mean the interior of a building), or it could be the whole mission area. It all depends on what the game designer wants in his game.
I do not know if there is a definitive guide or book that defines gaming terms.
Mission editor is a term unique to the Torque programming engine, unless you know of a gaming engine that uses mission areas as well.
The term level can be applied to any game engine.

#8 I've never used the 1.2 demo version before. If you are interested in the TGE 1.5.2 demo, it apparently can still be downloaded from Garage Games. I *think* it is similar in terms of performance on low-end computers. There are definitely more resources created for the 1.5.2 release.

www.garagegames.com/products/download/111

In 1.5.2 it should be possible to attach a turret/gun (or any shapebase) to a vehicle by mounting it on a node within the model (skeleton joint). Not sure if this is true in 1.2 or not. The turret/gun object itself would need to be properly created and also control buttons would need to be mapped in the driver/passenger scripts.

#9 @Mr. Butler,
thanks for the link to the 1.5 download.
Have you used it much?
Are the folders any easier to navigate than 1.4?

@Mr. Burch,
have you downloaded the 1.5 demo yet?

#10 Thank you Mr. Butler , Mr Ranft. and Mr. Roberson ,
Your responses are very much appreciated . Every tiny bit is helpful to me .

Mr Roberson , I do have the 152 demo .

I think Ill have to back down from trying to do this with v112Demo the scripting for mounting something to the vehicle just seems too complex to rely on a lucky guess :)

You fine gentlemen have been far too kind . Much Thanks !.

#11 Mr. Burch,

What type of computer do you have?

I have a HP Slimline purchased way back in 2005, running Media XP. Sorry, I forgot at which speed it runs.

My point is: even though I don't use it much, T3d operates good. I play around with the camera speed, and I can adjust the gameplay to run at an acceptable speed.

#12 Mr Roberson , this is the machine I am using .
first , Id like to clarify that even though Ive said its not very powerful computer , I think id rather say its not exactly a very modern machine and it does have a 16xexpress expansion slot which is what the Radeon 2600GT , mentioned below , uses .

E-Machines Gateway
celeronD 3.2Ghz
1 GB system RAM
XP home edition svc pack 2
Radeon 2600XT 256 Mb
*ATI XPress 200

in the beginning I had trouble using the 2600XT video card , TGE would crash once I began to use the keyboard or mouse , so the the graphics are handled by the ATI XPress200 graphgics that came installed on the computer . Probably needless to say that I would much prefer to use the 2600GT .
nonetheless , I am completely unaware that T3D should run on a system such as this .
Thank You ,

#13 1.5.2 Is the final stable release before the engine moved to TSE(TGA). This was the engine that the bulk of TGE Indie licenses were sold under (including mine). The demo and script engine were released free of charge for anyone to produce mods for - that's the download I linked. Yes, I have used it extensively.

At the time, the full codebase was licensed for a damn reasonable cost; which I took advantage of. So my engine is pretty heavily modified by this point - with both personal hacks and TDN resources - sometimes I lose track of what came stock and what's been added (I know polysoup *isn't* in 1.5.2). But all of the mounting, vehicle animation (and nodes), etc. is there for sure. In fact, a whole mess of the Gamebase/Shapebase subclasses seem to be damn near unchanged between 1.5.2 and T3D (the vehicle code for certain). The ability to draw on more current docs and get relevant answers from other forum users is probably better with 1.5.2 than any other TGE release.

I don't know that the folders are any easier to navigate - not sure what the specific difficulty is - but they certainly aren't any more difficult. For someone working with only the scripting side of things in TGE it has a lot of improvements over the earlier editions. Based on memories of forum conversations, 1.4 had *most* of the features but wasn't entirely stable (and lacked the lighting pack IIRC); everyone was moving into 5.x when I came on the scene. I imagine 1.2 is several steps behind that ... I don't recall anyone talking about using it before this.

Performance-wise, it is possible to dog an older system with TGE just like with TD3. But it seems to take far less with T3D to bog my older tests platforms(haven't played w/ T3D much yet though) - a lot depends on the design. Things such as too many particles degrade performance quickly ... the environmental stuff, in particular, has the ability to be a serious clock-killer in that regard. Dynamic lighting can be a bit intensive in some cases too. But between TGE 1.2, 1.4, and 1.5.2 I think performance on older systems generally improves. There are incremental optimizations that should often make the newer versions perform more effectively. It's just also more possible to bog the game down with lighting and stuff that wasn't in the older version.

If I understand it, licensing is the same (or substantially similar) between all of these. I'd go with the 1.5 series for TGE script mods unless there is a seriously specific reason the older versions are a better fit for the situation. Most (if not all) of the work done in 1.4 should drop in without modification unless you've been seriously hacking at the netConnection or something. Not sure about 1.2 in that regard.

#14 Back on-topic with your question. What do you mean by a vehicle-mounted turret?

I'm pretty sure the *basic* Shapebase structures came directly from Tribes as did the vehicle. There is Tribes-specific stuff built into shapebase (AIRepairPoint, etc.) that only exist because of that previous game. The point being this stuff indicates that the basic mounting functionality *should* be there in 1.2.

For every shapebase-derived object, a specific set of nodes/animations is defined in the datablock to handle generic game situations (or Tribes-specific situations). This is where the mount stuff is set up. I am *almost* positive that the following should happen even in 1.2.

The model is processed for nodes (joints) named mount0, mount1 ... mount[max-1], which are stored in the array mountPointNode[]. There is a special mount point "AiRepairNode" which is stored in mountPointNode[max].

These are also processed:

eyeNode = shape->findNode("eye");
cameraNode = shape->findNode("cam");
if (cameraNode == -1) cameraNode = eyeNode;
hulkSequence = shape->findSequence("Visibility");
damageSequence = shape->findSequence("Damage");

The game provides defaults or ignores functionality if any are missing. So when making a model that other things should attach to, you define mount0(driver default), mount1(passenger default) and so forth to indicate where you want things attached. The Shapebase object provides console functions to handle mounting/unmounting both Shapebase and ShapebaseImage objects to these mount points (called slots). And there are functions to help find who's attached to what.

Both Player and Vehicle are shapebases that can be controlled by the player (through the controlObject) and behave consistently in many regards. Bringing that together, a general outline of one approach to making a turret might be:

Model:

1. Create vehicle model with mount for turret (mount5 let's say).
2. Create an animation that rotates mount5 on the z axis across desired range.

Script:

1. Extend vehicle.cs (or whatever) to provide control of the rotation animation.
2. Copy code that automatically mounts the crossbow from game.cs into vehicle script and modify it attach the crossbow to our mount5.
3. Add a function fireGun() to the vehicle object that calls crossbowImage::onFire() using the shape we attached to slot 5.
4. Map keyboard controls to implement the rotation function and fire.

In theory, that would give you a vehicle with a crossbow attached to the top that can be rotated and fired. Change the art on the crossbow and tweak the behavior a bit ... viola, it's a turret.

{Update: Take a look at this resource, it gets in to using the vehicle in a FPS context and has some nice example code. That's where the vehicle.cs I mentioned comes from.}

#15 well , gentlemen , Thank you all for your attention to this post .
I assure you that I am impressed by your generosity .

mr Butler , Thank you sir ,
I am hoping that information can be used with the v1.1.2 as I've been having quite a fun experience learning with it and really I don't want the surprises to end , it has been much more than I expected at a cost of just a reasonable amount of whining now and then :) . I still would like to advance into seeing some specular mapping or similar graphics techyness at work in the v1.1.2 before moving on to later versions but I'd hate to wonder just what it was capable of . It'd be kind of hard to surprise me , now , but I imagine that for those with the right mind set , skills and experience , that those must've been some rather fervent off times :) .
Thank You , I beg to try now some of this new knowledge and hopefully be able to provide you all a break from my ? what is it when you bug people for something you want :)
Have a good day Gentlemen and Thank You .