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TGEA Book?

by Matthew Smart · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 01/19/2009 (10:54 am) · 7 replies

Hey there!

I was wondering if this book: http://www.garagegames.com/products/gameprogrammersguide still applies to the TGEA. If not, are there any books that do touch on the subject?

Also, other than reading the documentation provided, what is anybodies best advice to getting started with coding in the TGEA.

Thanks for everyone's help.
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Torque Owner Andy Rollins
ZDay Game
#1
01/19/2009 (1:41 pm)
Matthew - What side are you trying to learn, Torquescript or C++?

The book is a Torquescript book written for TGE, however torquescript is virtually identical between TGE and TGEA so the learning should apply to both engines.

However, there are some differences between the two engines in how you do things and the editors so not everything will apply and you would have to alter some things to get the code to work.

Personally I'd suggest using the book with TGE and learn torquescript just working through one of the books and then start your project in TGEA with a basic knowledge.

As for learning TGEA itself then there realy is no substitute for jumping in and having a go at some simple changes, I'd start off with an FPS game as that's what the starter pack gives you and add a few features until you feel comfortable to tackle some more challenging ideas or to create a game of a different genre.

Torque Owner Matthew Smart
#2
01/19/2009 (2:08 pm)
I'm looking more at the C++ side of things, and I guess lacking an API reference I'm not quite sure where to start. Inside any of the examples project file which folders (filter) are not just part of the engine api? I've been reading through the docs, and I find it hard to read the code not knowing what any of the functions do or where they're defined. Thanks for your reply!

Torque Owner Andy Rollins
ZDay Game
#3
01/19/2009 (3:48 pm)
That books isn't going to help you at all with the C++ side of things as it's purely Torquescript, the one you want for that is www.garagegames.com/products/multiplayergamingbook as it's the only book on Torque that delves into the engine C++ code.

Again it is based on TGE rather than TGEA but a lot of the networking side is still the same and valid for TGEA and it provides a good intro to getting objects, ray casting, C++ changes, debugging, etc.... personally I find it invaluable when learning about the engine.

Torque Owner Matthew Smart
#4
01/19/2009 (5:58 pm)
Thanks a bundle! I think I will pick this one up! Also, is there an API or class reference anywhere for the TGEA? Should I just run doxygen on the thing and see what it generates?

Torque Owner Andy Rollins
ZDay Game
#5
01/19/2009 (11:51 pm)
@Matthew - there is already a doxygen generated API reference, although it has a fair bit of other information in there now as Michael Perry is now appointed documentation guru.

It comes with either the SDK when you download Torque or it's available on the website (see Documentation under the support heading), it's labelled as Official Documentation on that page.

Torque Owner Matthew Smart
#6
01/20/2009 (8:09 am)
Thankyou, I didn't notice that directory, but the 1.8 version of the engine doesn't seem to come with pre-generated docs, also, the batch file to generate the docs references a config file (engineDoc.conf) that doesn't seem to exist. Is this file generated by some other process or script in the engine source? Thanks again for your help - Sorry I missed that the project is set up for doxygen.

Torque Owner Andy Rollins
ZDay Game
#7
01/20/2009 (10:16 am)
@Matthew - 1.8 does come with pre-generated documentation it's in a folder called documentation which is off the root directory where you installed the SDK to.

It's also online at docs.garagegames.com/tgea/official/

Not sure about doxygen set or use as I've never generated them myself, but have a search for doxygen there are some tutorials for how to do it.