TGE - Text Editor Recommendations?
by Daniel Cole · in General Discussion · 05/22/2009 (5:32 am) · 15 replies
I am fairly new to the Torque Game Engine and have only been working in it for about a week or so. I got into it from a book a friend loaned me (since his system is on the fritz) called "3D Game Programming: All in One version 2.0."
The book is cool and I was really happy to see the amount of power that TGE has. The snag I hit is just that the book uses UltraUdit-32, which has a really nice interface and all, but the trial runs out in just under 20 days now.
Since the last programming I did was with Quake 3 Arena, I did a search for "free text editor" and got like a billion results on Google, most of which were just free trials that last between 24 and 30 days...
Well, the project I am going to be writing (a demo/sample version of a 3d 1st person MMORPG that will hopefully become a full on game) will most assuredly take at least 3-4 months to get together enough to show off to prospective artists and get them in on it.
So, the question is: Is there a good free/demo text editor that I can compile from that won't expire before I get a decent chunk of the coding done for AND still have time to fix any major bugs?
One last query: Does the TGE trial expire? I didn't see any time limitations, only usage limitations, which is fine. I just want to be sure that TGE can handle the workload I am about to put on it before I make a purchase. Thanks for your time and responses in advance. :)
The book is cool and I was really happy to see the amount of power that TGE has. The snag I hit is just that the book uses UltraUdit-32, which has a really nice interface and all, but the trial runs out in just under 20 days now.
Since the last programming I did was with Quake 3 Arena, I did a search for "free text editor" and got like a billion results on Google, most of which were just free trials that last between 24 and 30 days...
Well, the project I am going to be writing (a demo/sample version of a 3d 1st person MMORPG that will hopefully become a full on game) will most assuredly take at least 3-4 months to get together enough to show off to prospective artists and get them in on it.
So, the question is: Is there a good free/demo text editor that I can compile from that won't expire before I get a decent chunk of the coding done for AND still have time to fix any major bugs?
One last query: Does the TGE trial expire? I didn't see any time limitations, only usage limitations, which is fine. I just want to be sure that TGE can handle the workload I am about to put on it before I make a purchase. Thanks for your time and responses in advance. :)
#2
05/22/2009 (6:41 am)
I concur with Drethon. I never purchased Torsion but I didn't see anything that it did that Codeweaver didn't do that made Torsion a better option. 
#3
Since you don't have a license or source access you don't need to worry about "compiling" as the scripts are separate from the engine code and "compiled" at run-time if no .dso files are found. So for general script editing: Any text editor that you are happy with. Plain ole notepad even works. Almost all of them allow you to setup syntax coloring, and quite a few even allow custom dictionaries for a function completion feature.
05/22/2009 (6:41 am)
Torsion is very suitable for beginners, and does aid in debugging your scripts, but is only useful for use with Torque. Me, I'm happy with Crimson Editor, it's very flexible for all kinds of languages, and with the availability of it's free source code you can add on to it.Since you don't have a license or source access you don't need to worry about "compiling" as the scripts are separate from the engine code and "compiled" at run-time if no .dso files are found. So for general script editing: Any text editor that you are happy with. Plain ole notepad even works. Almost all of them allow you to setup syntax coloring, and quite a few even allow custom dictionaries for a function completion feature.
#4
05/22/2009 (6:44 am)
Try a search for "Tribal Editor", or it might have been "Tribal IDE". It was created for use with Tribes 2 script, is free, and is still somewhat relevant for Torque. In fact with the availability of it's free source code you could easily make a home-made version of Torsion -- it already has almost the exact same layout and feature set.
#5
05/22/2009 (6:49 am)
And to answer your last question: no, the Demo version of TGE does not expire. I think that the only restriction with it is that you cannot use it for commercial purposes and of course it doesn't have source code. I've still got v1 of that book, which was using TGE 1.2 and it still works. 
#6
i also use Visual Studio very heavily because it has an insanely fast "find in files" feature. being able to grep your entire codebase for a string in one second or less is awesome.
05/22/2009 (11:20 am)
Crimson Editor +1i also use Visual Studio very heavily because it has an insanely fast "find in files" feature. being able to grep your entire codebase for a string in one second or less is awesome.
#7
05/22/2009 (12:54 pm)
Any suggestions for a Mac user? Codeweaver and Torsion are WIN only.
#8
05/22/2009 (1:01 pm)
i know some great TGE coders who user vim (vi improved) exclusively.
#9
05/22/2009 (1:11 pm)
Comparison of text editors on wikipedia: features, price, and OS being primary topic(s) of comparison.
#11
I will definitely check them all out.
I got the Torsion demo as well, just haven't installed it yet. I'm going to probably go with Codeweaver for the time being and if the proverbial Torque shoe fits for my project, I'll more than likely make a purchase.
I think it's awesome that the demo doesn't expire, not too many companies do that anymore. I was a little worried that I would have to shell out $150+ before I even knew if I was going to be able to finish up my demo presentation.
I do have a couple more questions now however:
I have also been checking out Unity 3d, has anyone else ever used it? It seems to be right about on par with TGE as far as features, but the demo is another only 30-day trial. The only reason I ask is that since I am making an MMORPG and already know that at least one MMORPG (FusionFall) was made on that engine, would it be a better fit for the size of game I will be making. Or, is Torque capable of doing the same thing? (any recommended games I should check out that use TGE/T3D?)
I was checking out a thread on Torque 3D, which looks much more intuitive since it does appear to have a real-time editor (even if the editor completely blew, it's better than trying to position objects in code, which is a huge bonus to me). I guess my questions there would be:
There was no set price on Torque 3d, but the general consensus was gravitating more or less around $1000-1500. Has it been announced when we might know more about it? Will there be a demo version of that? (even if it's a 30-day THAT would be fine since I can still do the majority of stuff in the TGE demo)
I think that's more or less it for now, thanks for all of your time guys. :)
05/22/2009 (4:27 pm)
Wow, I didn't expect that many replies so fast. Thanks guys. :)I will definitely check them all out.
I got the Torsion demo as well, just haven't installed it yet. I'm going to probably go with Codeweaver for the time being and if the proverbial Torque shoe fits for my project, I'll more than likely make a purchase.
I think it's awesome that the demo doesn't expire, not too many companies do that anymore. I was a little worried that I would have to shell out $150+ before I even knew if I was going to be able to finish up my demo presentation.
I do have a couple more questions now however:
I have also been checking out Unity 3d, has anyone else ever used it? It seems to be right about on par with TGE as far as features, but the demo is another only 30-day trial. The only reason I ask is that since I am making an MMORPG and already know that at least one MMORPG (FusionFall) was made on that engine, would it be a better fit for the size of game I will be making. Or, is Torque capable of doing the same thing? (any recommended games I should check out that use TGE/T3D?)
I was checking out a thread on Torque 3D, which looks much more intuitive since it does appear to have a real-time editor (even if the editor completely blew, it's better than trying to position objects in code, which is a huge bonus to me). I guess my questions there would be:
There was no set price on Torque 3d, but the general consensus was gravitating more or less around $1000-1500. Has it been announced when we might know more about it? Will there be a demo version of that? (even if it's a 30-day THAT would be fine since I can still do the majority of stuff in the TGE demo)
I think that's more or less it for now, thanks for all of your time guys. :)
#12
05/22/2009 (4:54 pm)
I would appreciate that TIDE update, Stefan!
#13
Maybe I should start a forum thread to check if people are using it still and if anything needs to be updated / fixed.
EDIT: TIDE discussion :)
05/23/2009 (6:19 am)
@Steve: I just checked with T3D and it's working fine :) Even the patching of main.cs and the debugging part. Don't know about TGB/T2D though... do you have any update / bug fix requests for TIDE?Maybe I should start a forum thread to check if people are using it still and if anything needs to be updated / fixed.
EDIT: TIDE discussion :)
#15
I would name price as the number 1 reason to use TGE over Unity, but with the inflated price of T3D, I can't imagine why anyone would pick it over Unity3D.
05/26/2009 (9:18 pm)
@Daniel: yes I've actually just spent the last couple days checking out Unity3d and it does look really nice. I downloaded the web plugin and played with some of the demos. Physics look nice and the lighting and shadows are very impressive.I would name price as the number 1 reason to use TGE over Unity, but with the inflated price of T3D, I can't imagine why anyone would pick it over Unity3D.
Torque 3D Owner Drethon
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