Some questions...
by Mitovo · in General Discussion · 03/21/2004 (4:14 pm) · 7 replies
Hello..
I was checking out the Torque engine some time ago for a project I had in the planning that got sorta side tracked. However, I'm back into the pre-pre-production phase right now, where I'm checking out the options for 3D tech and an overall base toolset to work with. Thus far, Torque is looking like the winner in the 3D engine dept.
I downloaded the Torque demo again, and can swear that it has more features added and looks better than I remember.. which is not a bad thing! I checked out the terrain editing, texture painting and was immediately hooked.. I just sat there modifying (read: destroying) the terrain for the demo game..
In doing so, I came up with a few questions as they would relate to a project I'm considering starting back up... and here they are!
1. I noticed in the terrain editing demo that you can sort of "erase" polys from the terrain. I know there's a similar function in the Unreal Editor for when you want to transition to an underground area that cuts into the terrain. Is this the same function for the poly erasing in the Torque editor?
2. Continuing with the underground area theme, how would one go about creating something like an underground series of tunnels, or caves, or a grotto, etc. Something that the player should be able to enter, but that would be pretty difficult, if not impossible, to do inside an editor like QuARK or Worldcraft because of its more organic nature? Can such areas be modeled in a 3rd party program and then imported? Do collision detection, dynamic LOD and culling apply to such objects? Or does Torque provide some homegrown way of acheiving this? Does anyone have a link to a screenshot or a webpage describing how such a process would be handled?
3. I noticed the "shoreline" highlights around the lake in the demo.. is that something that's "painted in" or is that handled dynamically based on where the water plane intersects the terrain, etc? What of BSP-based structures with water in them.. does a similar effect apply? And, can those "edge" sections be setup to have an animated "small waves lapping on shore" effect?
4. I tried to find "the end of the world" in the demo and after about 15 minutes of running, gave up. Is there an "end" to the world in that demo? Is the world just *that* huge, or is there some kind of "loop-back" function in place that brings you back to the opposite edge you exit from automatically?
5. Thinking in terms of resource management, it seems as though you could effectively have a world that never has a loading screen in the case of an RPG, etc... but I'd think that the loading time could be insane for such a setup. Is there a method in which this can be done dynamically, due, perhaps to how the Torque engine handles the loading and unloading of geometry, etc? Or, at the very least, is it possible to have new areas dynamically loaded as the player nears a "transition"? Something similar to Dungeon Siege's engine?
6. For terrain painting.. I noticed that if you try to paint something like a trail, you are more or less "snapped" to a grid that gives you limited "wiggle room" when painting a path. Is there a way to adjust the fineness of this grid, or is it based off the terrain mesh itself and implemented using some sort of vertex-painting technique to maintain proper texture mapping, etc?
7. Trees, foliage, boulders and other "ground details"... How is this handled? Is there some way to randomly "spatter" a group of trees to make a forest, for example, around a defined region? Same for boulders and such.. Or is everything hand-placed?
Hmm.. that's about all the questions I can think of at the moment, but those are the key ones that I was wondering about.
Thank you in advance for any information anyone can provide!
Take care,
Mike
I was checking out the Torque engine some time ago for a project I had in the planning that got sorta side tracked. However, I'm back into the pre-pre-production phase right now, where I'm checking out the options for 3D tech and an overall base toolset to work with. Thus far, Torque is looking like the winner in the 3D engine dept.
I downloaded the Torque demo again, and can swear that it has more features added and looks better than I remember.. which is not a bad thing! I checked out the terrain editing, texture painting and was immediately hooked.. I just sat there modifying (read: destroying) the terrain for the demo game..
In doing so, I came up with a few questions as they would relate to a project I'm considering starting back up... and here they are!
1. I noticed in the terrain editing demo that you can sort of "erase" polys from the terrain. I know there's a similar function in the Unreal Editor for when you want to transition to an underground area that cuts into the terrain. Is this the same function for the poly erasing in the Torque editor?
2. Continuing with the underground area theme, how would one go about creating something like an underground series of tunnels, or caves, or a grotto, etc. Something that the player should be able to enter, but that would be pretty difficult, if not impossible, to do inside an editor like QuARK or Worldcraft because of its more organic nature? Can such areas be modeled in a 3rd party program and then imported? Do collision detection, dynamic LOD and culling apply to such objects? Or does Torque provide some homegrown way of acheiving this? Does anyone have a link to a screenshot or a webpage describing how such a process would be handled?
3. I noticed the "shoreline" highlights around the lake in the demo.. is that something that's "painted in" or is that handled dynamically based on where the water plane intersects the terrain, etc? What of BSP-based structures with water in them.. does a similar effect apply? And, can those "edge" sections be setup to have an animated "small waves lapping on shore" effect?
4. I tried to find "the end of the world" in the demo and after about 15 minutes of running, gave up. Is there an "end" to the world in that demo? Is the world just *that* huge, or is there some kind of "loop-back" function in place that brings you back to the opposite edge you exit from automatically?
5. Thinking in terms of resource management, it seems as though you could effectively have a world that never has a loading screen in the case of an RPG, etc... but I'd think that the loading time could be insane for such a setup. Is there a method in which this can be done dynamically, due, perhaps to how the Torque engine handles the loading and unloading of geometry, etc? Or, at the very least, is it possible to have new areas dynamically loaded as the player nears a "transition"? Something similar to Dungeon Siege's engine?
6. For terrain painting.. I noticed that if you try to paint something like a trail, you are more or less "snapped" to a grid that gives you limited "wiggle room" when painting a path. Is there a way to adjust the fineness of this grid, or is it based off the terrain mesh itself and implemented using some sort of vertex-painting technique to maintain proper texture mapping, etc?
7. Trees, foliage, boulders and other "ground details"... How is this handled? Is there some way to randomly "spatter" a group of trees to make a forest, for example, around a defined region? Same for boulders and such.. Or is everything hand-placed?
Hmm.. that's about all the questions I can think of at the moment, but those are the key ones that I was wondering about.
Thank you in advance for any information anyone can provide!
Take care,
Mike
About the author
#2
2. I have no tutorials to give but I can tell you that Quark works great, and 3D Studio MAX too.
3. It's a code change from the original engine. I think it's in the latest builds as of a few months ago though. It's applied dynamically, and you can change the values inside the mission editor if you wish. I do not think this works against interiors, but don't quote me on that.
4. No comment. I don't know.
5. The Torque engine uses culling, thus it does not render things that you do not see. On top of that, it has LOD meshes. My team acomplished what you asked for by making zones and different servers. When the player moves onto a trigger he get's transfered to another server while keeping connection with the database. The database on the other hand, requires C++ editing.
6. Not sure what you mean mate, sorry.
7. I'm sure foliage can be done this way, Melv May accomplished this a while ago. Trees are mostly DTS shapes (think models) or DIF interiors and thus need to be placed manually. If you want random stuff then you would need to code a seed that the server has, I think.. since all the clients would get different results otherwise.
Sorry for my lacking information, I'm sure someone else can answer these questions better than me in the middle of the night.
I hope you will like Torque, I do!
Sincerely
Stefan Lundmark
Edit: God Alex :P I didn't even need to write all this.
03/21/2004 (4:35 pm)
1. Practically yes, code-wise.. I dunno. :P It clears the path so that you can stick an interior in, for example.2. I have no tutorials to give but I can tell you that Quark works great, and 3D Studio MAX too.
3. It's a code change from the original engine. I think it's in the latest builds as of a few months ago though. It's applied dynamically, and you can change the values inside the mission editor if you wish. I do not think this works against interiors, but don't quote me on that.
4. No comment. I don't know.
5. The Torque engine uses culling, thus it does not render things that you do not see. On top of that, it has LOD meshes. My team acomplished what you asked for by making zones and different servers. When the player moves onto a trigger he get's transfered to another server while keeping connection with the database. The database on the other hand, requires C++ editing.
6. Not sure what you mean mate, sorry.
7. I'm sure foliage can be done this way, Melv May accomplished this a while ago. Trees are mostly DTS shapes (think models) or DIF interiors and thus need to be placed manually. If you want random stuff then you would need to code a seed that the server has, I think.. since all the clients would get different results otherwise.
Sorry for my lacking information, I'm sure someone else can answer these questions better than me in the middle of the night.
I hope you will like Torque, I do!
Sincerely
Stefan Lundmark
Edit: God Alex :P I didn't even need to write all this.
#3
03/21/2004 (4:37 pm)
Sorry :P
#4
03/21/2004 (4:38 pm)
Lol, np. Hope this guy got what he wanted :D
#5
2. If you don't use quark, it'll be very difficult to get collision and stuff working right. you could build it out of many DTS shapes, I suppose.
3. It's done based on terrain height. You could tweak it to do other things. There is currently no such effect; it might be possible to add it.
4. Terrain wraps forever. But it's the same square over and over, so you don't get infinite working area.
5. You would probably want to implement some paging of world geometry to save yourself from obscene loading times and slow frame rates.
6. Yes. The terrain blending is fairly course. You shouldn't try to do fine details like trails with that.
7. There are resources that address this.
Best of luck with your decision. What you see in the demo is pretty much what you get.
Ben
03/21/2004 (4:38 pm)
1. Er... Yes. You can make squares empty. Just like in the demo. That's why it's in the demo. :)2. If you don't use quark, it'll be very difficult to get collision and stuff working right. you could build it out of many DTS shapes, I suppose.
3. It's done based on terrain height. You could tweak it to do other things. There is currently no such effect; it might be possible to add it.
4. Terrain wraps forever. But it's the same square over and over, so you don't get infinite working area.
5. You would probably want to implement some paging of world geometry to save yourself from obscene loading times and slow frame rates.
6. Yes. The terrain blending is fairly course. You shouldn't try to do fine details like trails with that.
7. There are resources that address this.
Best of luck with your decision. What you see in the demo is pretty much what you get.
Ben
#6
Thanks for the feedback! Very informative :-)..
The erasing polys is what I'd thought it was for. Very good. That would come in quite handy, I think :-).
And thank you for the link to MelvMay's page.. I'm looking through some of what he's done and it looks quite helpful... definitely something to bookmark for the right time.
Thank you again for all the responses..
Take care,
Mike
03/21/2004 (5:22 pm)
Hey all,Thanks for the feedback! Very informative :-)..
The erasing polys is what I'd thought it was for. Very good. That would come in quite handy, I think :-).
And thank you for the link to MelvMay's page.. I'm looking through some of what he's done and it looks quite helpful... definitely something to bookmark for the right time.
Thank you again for all the responses..
Take care,
Mike
#7
01/31/2005 (8:48 pm)
Off the top of my head (meaning I could be wrong) I think that the collisions could be turned off/on. I think that the reason for this was if they don't need to collide then the objects only need to be replicated on the client and not on the server. Melv's doco on fxShapeReplicator should mention this. 
Alex "IkoTikashi" Zappe
2. Either you invest some time and do it Quark/Hammer - or I think Stefan "beffy" Moises had a link to a tool that would create caves and such (but I might be wrong on that).
3. Shorelines are drawn where water and terrain intersect. Just select the waterblock and move it around or relight the scene (ALT-L) to update the shore.
4. Terrain repeats itself.
5. No clue on that.
6. You can set a "squareSize" per mission. Terrain resizes according to how low/high you set that.
7. Melv May's fxShapeReplicator would be the "tool" of your choice. Lets you "spatter" a group of .dts-shapes (trees, rocks, buildings ...). The fxShapeReplicator is accessible by pressing F4 in the editor (under System I think). There is also a fxGrassReplicator for ... grass :)