The most useful code ever
by Dave Young · in Arcane FX (Public) · 01/08/2008 (7:35 am) · 4 replies
As a longtime user, I have a pretty big opinion of ArcaneFX. Especially now with the TGEA release of ArcaneFX, many more people now have a good starting point to make shader based games with.
Suuuure it's for spectacular looking special effects and spells.
These are the 'extra' uses which might not be apparent but are extremely valuable to people making RPGs.
* Full blown mouse based RPG style selection and movement. Several resources try, this gets it right
* Custom selection (called selectrons) effects
* Massive animation choreography, use for playing animations at any rate you want. Perfect for social animations or dance moves when the animations are too fast or slow from the artist
* Simple and effective equipment mounting. Rotate, scale, transform, add effects, etc. You want flaming swords, acid dripping axes? Do it with ArcaneFX without making source code changes! Better yet, if the model came badly scaled and rotated the wrong direction, you can fix it while mounting in ArcaneFX without contacting the artist ;)
* Fine tuned object selection code. Select anything, simply by changing the masks
* Datablock caching! Woah
From a code perspective, ArcaneFX introduces a cornucopia of coding examples on how to accomplish various things. For example, the spellbook object and how it is scoped to a single client is an extremely useful example of a networked utility object which can be expanded upon.
I would not start an RPG or social world project without it, or any TGEA project!
Suuuure it's for spectacular looking special effects and spells.
These are the 'extra' uses which might not be apparent but are extremely valuable to people making RPGs.
* Full blown mouse based RPG style selection and movement. Several resources try, this gets it right
* Custom selection (called selectrons) effects
* Massive animation choreography, use for playing animations at any rate you want. Perfect for social animations or dance moves when the animations are too fast or slow from the artist
* Simple and effective equipment mounting. Rotate, scale, transform, add effects, etc. You want flaming swords, acid dripping axes? Do it with ArcaneFX without making source code changes! Better yet, if the model came badly scaled and rotated the wrong direction, you can fix it while mounting in ArcaneFX without contacting the artist ;)
* Fine tuned object selection code. Select anything, simply by changing the masks
* Datablock caching! Woah
From a code perspective, ArcaneFX introduces a cornucopia of coding examples on how to accomplish various things. For example, the spellbook object and how it is scoped to a single client is an extremely useful example of a networked utility object which can be expanded upon.
I would not start an RPG or social world project without it, or any TGEA project!
#2
01/10/2008 (12:23 am)
If i get AFX 1.0.2 will i have to pay to upgrade to 1.1? 
#3
01/10/2008 (6:13 am)
@Will Smith -- Upgrade from AFX 1.0.2 for TGE to AFX 1.1 for TGE is free. That does not include the TGEA version. Upgrading to the TGEA version has a $45 upgrade cost for Indie users.
#4
AANNDD... nevermind. If I had finished reading all the Public posts first, I'd have my answer already. My apologies.
****
I was actually coming here to post a question about selectrons that's answered in Dave's post above - thanks Dave!
Jeff, your final comment raised another question. What would I need to do to have both TGE and TGEA licenses? Would I purchase each separately? Or TGE, then upgrade to TGEA?
That's somewhat hypothetical, since it looks like TGEA 1.7 may be further developed enough that I can start to use it instead. (To clarify, I say that as a statment about my skills, not the state of TGEA now or previously.) I'm hesitant to say I would change for certain just yet, as I have a heavily modified TGE currently.
Thanks for your time, and to everyone for posting useful information about ArcaneFX.
04/07/2008 (12:00 pm)
EDIT:AANNDD... nevermind. If I had finished reading all the Public posts first, I'd have my answer already. My apologies.
****
I was actually coming here to post a question about selectrons that's answered in Dave's post above - thanks Dave!
Jeff, your final comment raised another question. What would I need to do to have both TGE and TGEA licenses? Would I purchase each separately? Or TGE, then upgrade to TGEA?
That's somewhat hypothetical, since it looks like TGEA 1.7 may be further developed enough that I can start to use it instead. (To clarify, I say that as a statment about my skills, not the state of TGEA now or previously.) I'm hesitant to say I would change for certain just yet, as I have a heavily modified TGE currently.
Thanks for your time, and to everyone for posting useful information about ArcaneFX.
Torque 3D Owner Edward
Heres some example of AFX spells that we have created for Fantasci: Hidden War.
blip.tv/file/362569
blip.tv/file/414662
For more information on our Game, and at some point you will note the switch over to the now familiar AFX gui before we moved to our own code.
www.mydreamrpg.com/community/showthread.phpt=1594