Any tips from veterans?
by joshdb · in Torque Game Engine · 01/15/2007 (9:20 pm) · 3 replies
Hello everyone. I bought Torque 1.4.2 a year or so back (maybe more), played with it a bit, and sit it aside for higher-level (*cough* easier *cough*) toolsets and eventually decided to mod other existing games like Oblivion and Half-Life 2. Modding for these games is very fun and produces quickly, without much real coding time. I get in, create a world to wreak havoc upon, and feel good. I came back, though, wanting to delve in deeper and create a truly unique game. I don't have much C experience, only having created homebrew games for the PSP. These were small and most of the code was copied from a tutorial to fit my game's needs.
I'm primarily a graphic designer, with lots of programming background in high level languages. I'm going to upgrade to the 1.5 SDK soon and pick up the recommended book on Torque Programing (A to Z, I think it was called) by Ken Finney. I'm already reading tutorials to grasp what to do, but I'm waiting for the upgrade to 1.5 until I start implementing my ideas. I'll of course go through all the guides, documentation, and other tutorials I need before asking for help. I've programmed long enough to know to RTFM... But my main question is this:
Aside from the areas I've said I'll look into myself, what do you, the GarageGames and Torque community, recommend I do in a general sense? Any tips, suggestions, states of mind, voodoo jinxes and superstitions you have will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading,
~joshdb
I'm primarily a graphic designer, with lots of programming background in high level languages. I'm going to upgrade to the 1.5 SDK soon and pick up the recommended book on Torque Programing (A to Z, I think it was called) by Ken Finney. I'm already reading tutorials to grasp what to do, but I'm waiting for the upgrade to 1.5 until I start implementing my ideas. I'll of course go through all the guides, documentation, and other tutorials I need before asking for help. I've programmed long enough to know to RTFM... But my main question is this:
Aside from the areas I've said I'll look into myself, what do you, the GarageGames and Torque community, recommend I do in a general sense? Any tips, suggestions, states of mind, voodoo jinxes and superstitions you have will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading,
~joshdb
About the author
#2
Design on paper first, don't design in engine, game, photo shop, torque script.
Design in chunks, chinks that you can research before attempting to implement.
01/16/2007 (11:44 am)
Don't design Big. You will never get it done.Design on paper first, don't design in engine, game, photo shop, torque script.
Design in chunks, chinks that you can research before attempting to implement.
#3
Getting the book is a great start. Reading the documentation on the GG site and TDN is also a good way to go. Reading about the engine and its concepts allows you to better understand how everything is put together.
Reading code is a little more fun. Just go to the Community->Resources->Torque Engine Technology And start searching for things that interest you. I personally love the Dynamic Gamma and CG water resource. . .changes the way you view Torque.
By reading through the code, you can get an idea of how other developers approach the engine. How they add new code without breaking server/client architecture, expose functionality in script, ect.
Finally, code. . .Try to add some resources into the engine. Even if you don't plan on using them, you can have a test solution used for experimenting.
Once you get a good grip on how others add functionality in Torque, research some non-torque related ideas. Your final test consists of adding completely new functionality without the aid of pre-existing resources.
When you feel like you are ready to start a game project, think SMALL and think FUN. An MMORPG is not the best starting place. "The next Halo" should not be in your vocabulary.
The current game I'm working on is large in scale, and quite ambitious. However, I've completed two mods in TGE. Also, my last team wrote an engine from scratch. We used this engine to make a Doom 3 clone (which I think looked damn close with exception of lighting) and a game similar to Marvin Spectrum (check newgrounds.com for that game).
The point is, if I had started my Torque education and usage with an over-scoped, overly ambitious concept, I probably would have gotten frustrated and stopped using the engine a long time ago.
Good luck.
01/16/2007 (11:46 am)
A college teacher pretty much beat this saying into me:Quote:
Read. Read Code. Code.
Getting the book is a great start. Reading the documentation on the GG site and TDN is also a good way to go. Reading about the engine and its concepts allows you to better understand how everything is put together.
Reading code is a little more fun. Just go to the Community->Resources->Torque Engine Technology And start searching for things that interest you. I personally love the Dynamic Gamma and CG water resource. . .changes the way you view Torque.
By reading through the code, you can get an idea of how other developers approach the engine. How they add new code without breaking server/client architecture, expose functionality in script, ect.
Finally, code. . .Try to add some resources into the engine. Even if you don't plan on using them, you can have a test solution used for experimenting.
Once you get a good grip on how others add functionality in Torque, research some non-torque related ideas. Your final test consists of adding completely new functionality without the aid of pre-existing resources.
When you feel like you are ready to start a game project, think SMALL and think FUN. An MMORPG is not the best starting place. "The next Halo" should not be in your vocabulary.
The current game I'm working on is large in scale, and quite ambitious. However, I've completed two mods in TGE. Also, my last team wrote an engine from scratch. We used this engine to make a Doom 3 clone (which I think looked damn close with exception of lighting) and a game similar to Marvin Spectrum (check newgrounds.com for that game).
The point is, if I had started my Torque education and usage with an over-scoped, overly ambitious concept, I probably would have gotten frustrated and stopped using the engine a long time ago.
Good luck.
Torque 3D Owner mb