TGEA starter.kits (Download)

#81 Why are you telling this to me tell it to the guy that has been almost done for months.

Aside for basic scripting or cutting and pasting engine patches this kind of stuff is over my head. I'm a designer/artist. From my eperience though these things move faster when there ar emore people involved and no one person trying to go it alone. Going it alone is only justifiable if you are doing something for profit or proprietary.

Not saying that Alienforce is not a talented guy but often times real life just gets you bogged down. Besides there are a lot of really great programmers here and a fresh pair of eyes might be just what it needs.

anyway that is my 2 cents.

#82 I don't own TGEA however when I downloaded the demo which only contained a guided tour style demo I decided to port the starter.fps module from TGE, so I could better evaluate the product. It took me all of 25 minutes to get the scripting side of things working, i.e. spawning into a world, controlling a player object, got the crossbow in there and firing etc. I did all that without reading an ounce of TGEA documentation as I don't have access to it. The only thing I didn't do was port the mission stuff over.

What's the hold up here?

I'd be happy to grab the latest TGEA demo and merge the 1.5 starter.fps kit in there. I don't have access to the source so if there are any bugs it would be tough luck and I don't believe the TGEA demo is current.

#83 Here's a quick port as done by me. I haven't done the mission stuff as I have no idea how TGEA works in that regard, so I've just included the simple testbed mission that ships with TGEA.

What I have done is all the basic script stuff. Long story short, you can spawn in as the space Orc player and shoot your space gun. All of the other basic script functions (inventory, various commands, GUI etc) are all there too. Basically, the entire 1.5 starter.fps game module minus the actual missions are present.

I stripped out most of the stuff from the Data folder to keep the download size down, it took long enough to upload as it is.

Download: starter.fps.rar (22 MB)

Install Instructions

- Copy starter.fps folder to your TGEA example folder
- Change $defaultGame variable in main.cs to "starter.fps"

Some things didn't work and seem to require source code modification. Such as footstep decals and lift off emitters, water splash emitters, the renderFirstPerson bool has no effect etc.

To go further with this I'd need a license to TGEA and I have no intention of ever getting one so the rest is up to you. If you're an artist/designer then you should be able to manage it.

Took me half an hour to do, the longest part was waiting for the archive to upload so I could provide you with a download link.

#84 Hi guys,

For anyone who is curious, the TGEA demo is now up to 1.0.3.

I tried Tim's starter.fps pack and it works great. Just drop it in and change one script. There's no reason not to give it a try. :)

However, I should mention that Tim's advice to jump in and get our hands dirty is a good idea. Especially when he and others have been very willing to help people out when they get in over their heads.

Trying, failing miserably and then getting some expert guidance from friendly folks is a great way to learn.

Thanks Tim (and Joseph and David and . . . )

#85 This isn't the right place for this however it's something that's always bothered me and I keep forgetting to bring it up:

System Requirements:

OS/Specs
Windows XP
Pentium 1 GHz
256 MB RAM
DirectX

P1GHz and 256 MB RAM, really?

#86 I know its taking to long time :(
But there is many good starting points right now for converting the TGE starter kits to TGEA.

The basic script and art part of porting the starter kits are easy, the hard/time consuming part is adding missing TGE features to TGEA engine itself and making sure it really works and will survive the next GG engine update.

I am still working on it and there will be updates.
But right now i have been of focus and done research on xbox arcade live project.
I will get back on the starter kits soon.

#87 Any updates/progress?

#88 Ehh with the announcement of T2 I have really just givin up on TGEA. I was not planning on a my project being deliverable till late 09 anyway so I'm just gonna work on producing my art assets for it until prolly late next year when T2 is ready.

#89 I have been getting an error when running starter.fps. It happens on 3 of 4 machines that run TGEA. The error is "Failed to intialize Direct3D! Make sure you have DirectX 9 installed, and you are running a graphics card that supports Pixel Shader 1.1."

With the help of others (thanks azaezel) I have tracked it down to the following: the setting "client\prefs.cs\$Pref::Video::Resolution = "800 600 0";". I am not sure if the 0 is ment to mean "default bit depth" or if it is entirely in error. When it is changed from 0 to a 16 or 32 everything is good. The setting "client\defult.cs\$Pref::Video::Resolution = "800 600 32";" is clearly good.

#90 I have been getting an error when running starter.fps. It happens on 3 of 4 machines that run TGEA. The error is "Failed to intialize Direct3D! Make sure you have DirectX 9 installed, and you are running a graphics card that supports Pixel Shader 1.1."

With the help of others (thanks azaezel) I have tracked it down to the following: the setting "client\prefs.cs\$Pref::Video::Resolution = "800 600 0";". I am not sure if the 0 is ment to mean "default bit depth" or if it is entirely in error. When it is changed from 0 to a 16 or 32 everything is good. The setting "client\defult.cs\$Pref::Video::Resolution = "800 600 32";" is clearly good.

#91 A: can you delete one of those?

B: did you make sure they all have the latest DirectX runtime?

#92 @Keith

800 x 600 is the default screen size. The third number is bit depth. Clearly a bit depth of zero is not possible. Set it to 16 or 32. Sixteen is for very, very old video cards you would use this if you want the widest possible range of systems. 32 bit depth is the current video setting for all manufactured video cards and should be the default.

Not sure why you are seeing 0 as a default at all, I would check the default.cs file and change it there.

#93 What I've wanted. :-) Great resource.

Thank you Alienforce and Tim Heldna for your efforts.