Some questions about the engine
by Mihai Vitega · in Torque Game Engine · 01/25/2007 (1:14 pm) · 1 replies
Hi to all.
I need to know what differences are between Indie and Educational licenses - prices, limitations for the game engine.
In the same time I have some technical questions:
- a detailed description for the export possibilities from 3DS Max and other 3D software (especially Blender) like supported objects/geometry, animations, textures types, if the exporter has WYSIWYG capabilities and so on
- support for 3D stereo rendering (3D glasses)
- support for instance geometry
- types of animated textures supported
- support for vertex paint
- support for voice chat (multiuser)
- 3d surround sound
- support for LOD (level of detail)
- existence of a web plugin or if you plan one, if so support for external references (especially textures)
Best regards.
Mihai Vitega
I need to know what differences are between Indie and Educational licenses - prices, limitations for the game engine.
In the same time I have some technical questions:
- a detailed description for the export possibilities from 3DS Max and other 3D software (especially Blender) like supported objects/geometry, animations, textures types, if the exporter has WYSIWYG capabilities and so on
- support for 3D stereo rendering (3D glasses)
- support for instance geometry
- types of animated textures supported
- support for vertex paint
- support for voice chat (multiuser)
- 3d surround sound
- support for LOD (level of detail)
- existence of a web plugin or if you plan one, if so support for external references (especially textures)
Best regards.
Mihai Vitega
Employee Michael Perry
ZombieShortbus
Licensing
The TGE Indie EULA can be found Here. As far as I have heard, there isn't much different between the two licenses, except that you can get a discount price for bulk purchases, considering the intention is for education and not sells.
GG provides the number and e-mail address to talk about the educational license, and Davey Jackson has set up a Torque in Education Landing Page.
Model Exporting
Exporter plug-ins exist for 3DSM, Maya, and Blender. As far as their capabilities, you can get a fully animated and textured model exported as long as you set everything up properly (this info is found alllll over the site, so just search for it (= ). Once the model is in .dts form, you can use Showtool Pro which now comes free with TGE 1.5 to see how the model would look in the engine without having to do any coding first. There is so much public info available on GG and Danny Ngan's site on this subject, that I would take up at least 5 pages describing it.
Feature Question
- 3D Rendering - Not available in stock TGE, but possible to do (good idea btw)[li]Instancing - Some features take advantage of this (foliage and shape replicator). Other geometry is damn close enough to have this fully implemented[li]3D Sound - OpenAL is used, so support for 3D surround sound is available[li]Voice Chat - Not available out of the box, but a resource is being worked on to implement it right now[li]LOD - Fully supported for 3D models and interiors[li]Web Plugins - Exists and is amazing to see in action
The thing is, once you own the SDK, you have full access to the source code, so ANY feature is possible to implement. I know this sounds like a cheap answer, but it's the simplest of truths =). Use the search bar in the top right to look up some key terms from your post, and you'll start finding more answers immediately.Anything I didn't cover is best left for those who know more about the features.