Torque 3D Beta 1 Known Issues

Beta 2 is the latest, you can find the release info here

Beta 1 Released!

Torque 3D Beta 1 has been released, you can download it from your My Account->My Products page. So noting that today, being April 30th, is the last day of April you can probably guess that we have been working around the clock to get this out. There are a lot of new features, systems, and tools in Torque and getting them all working together is definitely a lot of work. The first thing to keep in mind this is a beta (not a final release), and on top of that our first beta. That means there are issues (plenty of them, some of them we know, some we don't), there are some things that need to be improved, worked on, added to, and work flows re-worked. We wanted to get this in your hand as soon as possible though to have a more collaborative process of development. At this point you can share what's most important to you and we can factor your input into our priorities. On top of this being a beta (which in itself implies there are issues to be expected) we do realize this is the first time most of you have gotten your hands on this, we really hope you have fun and enjoy a lot of the new features, but while doing this just keep in mind that there is a lot of performance optimization to come, a lot of interfaces we are reworking to be smoother, and a couple of tools didn't make it in here (though the majority and the largest of them are). So be honest with your feedback (that will help us improve this to be the best product it can be) while realizing this is the first beta which means it's the first time so many people will be pushing it to it's limits in such a variety of ways. One of the advantages of starting this process at this phase is we can get feedback while applying a lot of the polish and finalizing of work flows, which means your voice gets heard and incorporated more. Personally, having taken part in a lot of the large MMO betas I'm very proud at the state of our first beta (even with the issues we have), everyone involved put a lot of work into it and we are continuing to put a lot of work into it. We also look forward to releasing more beta builds as development progresses.

Notes:

• You need the March 2009 DirectX
• You need the PhysX System Software and PhysX SDK to compile the PhysX integration
• The ActiveX plugin will not compile under Express versions of Visual Studios (has to do with files not included in Express)

Known Issues:

• Advanced Lighting Performance, plenty of performance optimizations to come.
• Resizing in the mission editor, in the Den and MBU levels - does not resize properly.
• Switching from Advanced lighting, to basic, then back - shadows are glitchy.
• Some seams in terrain detail textures reported on an ATI HD 2600M.
• Initializing Torque in Basic Lighting, then switching to Advanced Lighting; causes particle effects (noticeable when firing either of the stock guns) to lose their textures (the textures are replaced with white blocks).
• The player's gun doesn't render while pointing it at some angles.
• PhysX demo - the gun's projectile and explosion sometimes doesn't render.
• PhysX demo - won't play a web browser.
• Toolbox - When you click on a link to open torsion/visual studios you get a popup that notifies you it's loading, if you don't click "ok" before the app opens it will stay there (it should instead be set on a timer or some other method of removing it when the app loads).
• Toolbox - The comment system isn't fully implemented, no way to currently add, edit, or remove them.
• Toolbox - Web deployment requires the Torque Toolbox to be run as administrator under Vista with UAC enabled.
• Web Deployment - Keyboard accelerators being eaten under IE (Tab key and some others).
• Created decal roads have some z fighting display issues with the terrain.
• GuiEditor - Moving the camera in the EditorGui gui causes created decal roads to wander off their created points. Going back to the missionEditor fixes the decal roads positions.
• Material Editor - There is not currently a way to access the materials via an object (will be added in later betas).
• Water doesn't always reflect.
• Opening up the editor in the PhysX Demo causes the room to reset prior to destruction.
• Terrains appear without textures (therefore it renders black) inside of the PhysX Demo.
• Terrain Editor and Painters "Selected Info" shadow and main text are separated a great distance away from each other in some cases.
• Post FX shrink the screen down cumulatively due to a GUI docking issue (a bug in the system that is being resolved), with Edge AA this produces an offset smoothed edge render visual effect.
• FPS Genre Kit - Warrior Camp - Some of the hut/overhang model's textures aren't mapping or aren't mapped correctly.
• FPS Genre Kit - Warrior Camp - Most of the fxFoliageReplicators need to be set to not be placed on static objects.
• World Editor - Currently the fxFoliageReplicator is not listed under objects to add.
• Create new from template doesn't currently list new mission like it should.
• World Editor - If you set an object to be locked in the Tree View it won't immediately update the dynamic field to reflect this.
• Road/River Editor - Inserting and deleting nodes in the River and Decal Road editor can cause either anomalies inserting/deleting between the incorrect points; or crash the editor.
• Gizmo handles are incredibly hard to grab, and you cannot grab them by the arrows on some machines.
• Switching to an editor that requires a check (ex: terrain check),even if you create the terrain, the editor switches back to the object editor.
• Status bar text controls overlap eachother at certain extents.
• There are different icons for creating new materials in the MaterialEditor. They are both supposed to be the (paper/page) logo.

With all that said we really look forward to the feedback.