Torque 3D Video Tutorials

#1 Lara Engebretson is leading the charge with Torque Tech video tutorials. She recently finished up a batch of TGEA vids, and is now making Torque 3D videos.

Our official video tutorials are hosted on Vimeo: GarageGames Vimeo Page

If you click on our albums page, you will find links to full video tutorial series like our object creation series and scene construction series.

Lara is awesome. She's the video person, I'm the written person, and together we are making the best documentation/tutorial series for any Torque engine to date.

#2 I'm surprised you got those on Vimeo. They have pretty strict rules on the content they accept. We were posting gameplay videos of our own game on Vimeo when they asked us to stop.

Quote:
> Dear (My Boss):
>
> Your video 'Bug report video' has been removed from Vimeo because it violates our
> policies.
>
>
> Vimeo does not allow porn, commercial videos, gaming videos, videos
> that incite hatred, or videos that you did not make yourself ("I
> have permission from the creator" does not count as making it).
>
>
> Regards,
> Vimeo

#3 We have heard about that issue. If there is any artistic merit to your project, you can fight their decision and have your videos reposted. Don't let the video snob mods stop you from broadcasting your work.

So long as you are not posting just stock game play from an existing title, I think you can fight it.

GG belongs to the same parent company as Vimeo, and we have had e-mail exchanges with them.

#4 mmmmm Ah same parent company. That helps. Interesting to know mmmmmmm

#5 Dingo_Aus has a few vid tuts on DTS creation including one on Collision which I found real useful way back when. They're a bit old and are Blender specific but good in general. He never finished his series of vidtuts, but if you search around the interwebs you'll find a few sites like this, individual Torque tuts done a while back that are still up and available.
www.users.on.net/~symes/gamedev/videotuts/videotuts.html

edit: Also check the artist documentation page, there could well be listings there.

#6 This tutorial where Lara uses the Gimp plugin to generate a normal map is where the video sequence gets truely awesome www.vimeo.com/3274161.

Lara uses milkshape to create the vertex data and uvs.

I did catch a little bit of torque script in the video above.

material.cs

new Material (Lantern_Bump)
{
   baseTex[0] = "lantern";
   bumpTex[0] = "lantern_normal";
};

I'm hoping to use Torque script to dynamically create a mesh and add it to a mission.

#7 Okay now I'm ready for a tutorial video series aimed at the scripter.

Does Lara feel up to flexing some material and basic scripting skills for interacting with the camera, materials, textures, shaders, and dynamic meshes?

#8 I have no doubt that she could tackle any task presented. She has a list of tutorials to do right now, though.

#9 I'll start with TGEA for scripters (the text):
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Torque_Shader_Engine#script

#10 Why would you want a video tutorial of TorqueScript overviews? I think a guide or reference docs is plenty. Videos are best used for straight tutorials.

#11 From the Torque 3D Documentation:

There are three article types, which determine how the information is presented. The three types are Guides, Cluster Tutorials, and Reference. Guides are meant to show you a single aspect of the engine, which may or may not have any output. If there is any output, you usually will not need it for any other documentation. Guides will walk you through a feature, step by step, using text and screen shots.

Example Guides: Directory Overview, World Editor Interface, Introduction to TorqueScript, etc.

Cluster Tutorials usually show up at the end of a section and utilize the information you just learned. These articles are typically step by step guides, with screen shots, that will result in saved examples you might be able to use in your game.

For example, there are cluster tutorials at the end of the World Editor section that shows you how to create terrain, use the Terrain Editor to tweak the environment, paint specific valleys with a new texture, then populate the level with multiple objects. You might end up with a beach coast or mountainous valley that could be a sample mission.

Example Cluster Tutorials: Creating a Beach Coast (World Editor), Creating a Main Menu (GUI Editor), Creating a Health Kit (TorqueScript), etc.

Reference documentation is slightly more bland than the other two types. These articles are extremely text heavy, mostly utilizing charts or graphs instead of screen shots. The best way to describe this type is "technical documentation." You usually see this kind of writing in other APIs.

These are not meant to show you how to perform a task. More likely, you are simply learning about a feature for the sake of understanding how it works. This mostly applies to what you will find in the Engine section, but there are some articles in other locations that qualify.

Example Reference Articles: GFX Overview, Player Class Breakdown, Con Namespace Details, TSShapeConstructor Functionality, etc.

Video capturing TorqueScript seems a little tedious. Just covering the scripting itself should just be a written guide. Now, on the other hand creating a 3D game play based object might make a good video tutorial.

#12 Everybody learns in different ways. I'm a visual person. I get nearly instant recall visually. The video provides a base. And then I can use the script references more quickly.

I'm not finding enough information to just into the API yet.

Things are still somewhat disconnected.

One thing with TorqueScript made sense. And that was putting the torque script material in the same data folder as the model and lantern textures.

I'll take a look at that Creating a Health Kit that you mentioned. This one? www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/16029

#13 When I first looked at Torque back in 2004, so many of the examples were based on a full working mission FPS pack. When I was looking for a scripting example made in an empty mission. Something like With Torque Script create a textured cube.

Here's an outline of the steps that I think I'll have to go through:

1) First copy the example Torque project to a new folder.

2) Rename the "tutorial.base" subfolder - following this mac tutorial but on windows www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-BAqt624fM&feature=related

3) Update the main.cs Torque script file to point "$defaultGame" at the new "tutorial.base" renamed subfolder.

4) Delete a bunch of files since you want to start with an empty mission.

5) Delete a bunch of data files

6) Edit the mission file to remove everything

7) Create a torque script named CreateCube.cs

8) Code snippet: This will create a cube primitive with 1 uv set
www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/15224

9) Copy this texture to your data folder to use on the cube

10) This material.cs references the mainTex - main texture that the cube will use

11) Code snippet: This will assign the material to your cube primative

12) Compile and load the scene to see the textured cube

#14 I am glad to hear of the extra work going into the documentation. Keep up the good work everyone.

#15 The first documentation set is live. Check the Torque 3D Documentation feedback thread for details.

#16 A couple new video tutorials:

River Editor Walkthrough

Road Editor Walkthrough

Material Editor Walkthrough

#17 Very nice videos :)
Thank you Deborah

#18 Can this be a official T3D Video Tutorial Sticky?

#19 Done and stuck. :)

#20 We should have the top post edited to include all the videos, rather than having to look through all the posts as this thread grows....

Just my two cents...