Torque Web Player - Open Source

#1 I clicked the thread expecting a link to download it...hehe.. Thought you were announcing one.

#2 You mean licensee-open, not open-open source, right?

#3 Actually, both. Or one. Or whatever it takes. ;-)

I was thinking open source to create the plug-in, whereby members of the Torque community could contribute to it (SourceForge-style), in the absence of GarageGames themselves creating it. And yes, I realize that an open source web plug-in presents security problems that would have to be resolved somehow.

And, I was also thinking open license, so that we could export our creations to the web format just as "easily" as we currently can to Win/Lin/Mac, without added expense or encumberance.

I am certain that Torque (its developers, players, etc.) would all benefit immeasurably from having a web-output option. And it's almost certainly doable, as somewhat-sorta-demonstrated by the folks at BraveTree with their Explorer/ActiveX version of ThinkTanks.

Anyone interested in taking up the cause?

#4 Anything that used the Torque source base couldn't be open-sourced, though a general purpose closed-source friendly open-source licensed web-redistributable package could be beneficial for Torque and other software packages.

That sentence is the reason that I shouldn't write.

#5

Quote:Anything that used the Torque source base couldn't be open-sourced, though a general purpose closed-source friendly open-source licensed web-redistributable package could be beneficial for Torque and other software packages.

That is the ugliest sentance I have ever seen heh

#6 Good point.

So, it would be "open source" in that it is open to everyone who owns a Torque license to contirbute and use - just as we can with the Torque engine code.

#7 I'm not sure your entirely clear on what kind of task is ahead of anyone who chooses to do this...

And while i'm sorry that im the pesimist here i fell that i personally haven't crushed enough dreams today so i'll post my thoughts.

A torque webplayer that is useable on all platforms would have to eithor be written for something that is already avaialabe on all platforms [java, flash].
Or
would have to be downloaded. Once downloaded it would still have to load up whatever resources are around, this means that while you would view it inside a web browser your download of it wouldn't be any smaller, In order for it to actually look impressive im Guestimating that it would be a 5mb download to just get a working engine running (this guess is baised upon the zipped size of the torque SDK demo, and the size of the actual .dll and .exe files in it)

Further more re-writing Torque in Java or Flash just doesn't seem practical, as the code really isn't portable so you are talking of your own sort of browser plugin, that you would have to write and compile on each platform you want it to run on.

Having said all of that i have to adknowledge that its the people who think up stuff like this and then impliment it that end up making shit loads of money, so good luck to anyone who undertakes it, but don't get your hopes up.

~Pauliver

P.S. i apoligise for my horrible command of the engish language

#8 Take a look at this.

http://www.anark.com/

#9 Most webbrowsers used to support vrml, with a plugin.
VRML was a pretty decent 3D modeling language in it's time.
If VRML could be read in a web browser back in the mid 90's I really don't see a reason why a web browser plugin couldn't be written that reads .dso
It is after all a cross platform byte code.

The real question I would pose, is WHY would anyone outside of GarageGames themselves WANT to create such a thing?

You would be MUCH better off IMHO designing a flash playalike demo of your game. I have seen some really nice flash stuff coming out lately.

#10 BraveTree has done this Java component for ThinkTanks before, I believe. But for (I seem to recall, not sure though) security reasons they can't release it for everyone, and well - it's theirs :)

#11 It was an ActiveX wrapper that tricked out IE to appear to be a web window rather than an app window, I believe.

But the thought of VRML brings back entirely too many contracting jobs where I had to show off "the wave of the future". OMFG. Trying to make Clik 'n Play load UT2k4 levels for fast network action is more appealing.

#12 It is actually an ActiveX control that installs the game, and launches a TGE window. It is seamless enough to appear to be in a window, but it is not actually in the browser. If you want to check it out, it is on the main games page.. just launch IE and click on the little tiny thinktanks icon.

#13 Thanks, Joe.

Joe, do you think it would be doable to write a generic web plug-in?

#14 Marty,

yes, but not as easy as the active x. Doing a generic plugin is way more involved than what we did (we have looked into what it would take). Other browsers, mac, linux.. etc.. enough to make ones head spin.

An example (and a reason why we did not release what we did). It took Clark two weeks to put together the ThinkTanks Actve X version, and he had ZERO experience with Active X before he started.

What the plugin does is actually installs and launches the game (a full TGE game) in a window. Through some trickery (popup box showing up in the same place as the app) it appears to be a web app. It is kind of a nasty thin when you think about it.. something downloading, installing and executing just when you hit 'OK" (wonders of activex)

this is another reason we did not release it.. it is a scary responsibiity to have that sort of power.

The slight of hand fools most people (as noted in this thread) and hit about 80% of the people visiting (when we checked the logs for the people visiting bravetree.com)

but it is possible, it would just be a ot of work and testing. Far more than we invested in the TT active X version.

#15 It is a lot of work. It can be done. It would not use Java or Flash.

GG would love to have it. If there is anybody out there that understands the task and has the "right stuff" to get it done, we would be willing to pay a bounty to get it done. Please contact me if you are interested.

-Jeff Tunnell GG

#16 Just reread the thread and noticed this:

Quote:Once downloaded it would still have to load up whatever resources are around, this means that while you would view it inside a web browser your download of it wouldn't be any smaller, In order for it to actually look impressive im Guestimating that it would be a 5mb download to just get a working engine running (this guess is baised upon the zipped size of the torque SDK demo, and the size of the actual .dll and .exe files in it)

The ThinkTanks activeX demo is 3.3 MB, with content, with no significant changes to the engine. we got it ths small jst by being aware of the content, which was the largest portion of the download. If someone were to really take this on and think about the download size (or stream game content as the game interface is coming up) then it could probably both be made smaller and load quicker.

#17 Shockwave (read: not Flash) does a good job of tackling this by putting just the necessary runtimes in the default download of the webplayer, which makes for a relatively small player download (under 2.5MB currently). Then, to keep things lean, when you mix your Director Shockwave project down to become a Shockwave web applet, it is super-compressed into a relatively teeny bytecode/datablock bundle. If you write your applet right, you can get a lot of impressive stuff done in just a MB or two of download.

I sure hope that someone is willing to take you up on the offer, Jeff. I can't imagine anything that would get Torque and Torque projects over bigger right now than a solid Mac/Win web player. It's a fact that shareware and casual gamers are a lot more apt to try a game that they can play/test without doing the download-install-reboot jig, as they can with Shockwave, Flash and Java. Plus, such a player would open up the whole "web only" game space (i.e. advergames and demogames for products and movies) for Torque.

I'd sure love to see this happen for Torque.

#18 Some thoughts for anyone thinking about taking this project on:

Every game released on the Torque up to this time uses custom code. For ThinkTanks we made a number of changes to the scenegraph and collision libraries, not to mention terrain and ts changes. Assuming we would want this kind of flexibility in a web player (how could we not given that no currently released game would work in it if we didn't allow such modifications) it seems a strategic decision needs to be made on the implementation:

1) It could be implemented by completely disregarding the customization angle, and simply assume that each product would be a different web player (and use a different trust certificate).

2) It could provide methods for downloading code, not just content. The web player could then simply provide a platform layer and all other code for a product could be downloaded the first time a particular product was played, at the same time that the content was downloaded. This way one could have one trust certificate for all Torque games and still have customization. It also allows the player to have default versions of each Torque module defering to the product as to whether the default or a custom version should be used, thus minimizing code download. Finally, Torque2D, TGE, and TSE could all share one player (and one trust certificate).

I believe that #2 is essentially what WildTangent does, at least that's the way it appears from the sturcture of their downloads.

#19 Hmm, if my plate weren't as full as it was I would look into it.

I've been thinking of the ways Torque (especially now with T2D) could be used as not just gaming specific tools... like a whole line of Torque editors like Shockwaves director, flash, etc....

#20 I should add, one could develop #1 on the way to #2. So if one wanted to tackle #1 and leave #2 to someone else that would work. I'd suggest contacting Jeff before embarking on any of this, though, so that you can make sure you aren't duplicating work someone else has already begun.