can they compete?
does anybody know why one of them can be better?
matt.
does anybody know why one of them can be better?
matt.
BlitzMax v/s Torque
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/BlitzMax v/s Torque Torque is the more powerful but its a pain in the bum to use, the scripting is wierd as hell.
Torque is the more powerful but its a pain in the bum to use, the scripting is wierd as hell.
I think I can agree with you here.
Also, are you comparing TGB with BMax ?
Once you begin to really comprehend Torque ... it's amazing. Bottomline Torque "can be better" because you get the whole codebase to it. Initially Torque looks daunting and restricting all at the same time but the truth is with the right skills you can make it do anything. Additionally, a lot of Torque's architecture is stuff that you'll just end up learning about and trying to incorporate into Blitz once you begin to really understand programming so using Blitz is a good way to learn the conceptual aspects. Because of that a lot of people would choose Blitz over Torque. I personally wouldn't be using Torque if it weren't for Blitz. I think Blitz is a great step that many people need to take but it's not the end of the road, it's more of a gateway.
Of course now on the 2D front Torque Game Builder is actually very close to being as easy to use and Blitz and in some ways it's easier. I think for some people it might be hard to pick up because it is more modular and people like to be able to just look at the big picture often times. Blitz is very good at that.
Of course now on the 2D front Torque Game Builder is actually very close to being as easy to use and Blitz and in some ways it's easier. I think for some people it might be hard to pick up because it is more modular and people like to be able to just look at the big picture often times. Blitz is very good at that.
I really want to get into TGB - T2D, but there are a lot of tutorial discrepancies with version changes - naturally as it is still in EA - that puts me off a bit.
I am sure I will use it at some stage though.
I am sure I will use it at some stage though.
i hate this EA thing. garage games use it a way of selling licences to people saying it will have all these features when its finished, problem is they always miss there projected dates. take TSE as an example it should have been finished by now but there not even half way because they keep making new product and not finshing the ones they have already sold. i own TGE and TSE and i feel ripped off
Pete
Pete
I hate Torque products. They're unnecessarily difficult to use.
I think Pete Carter said it all. TSE looked promising when i bought it, but nothing happens. And TGE, it looks like relic from the past :/ ..
Nothing happens huh? What about Marble Blast Ultra on Xbox 360? That's the best selling Xbox Live Arcade game and everything that went into that is avaiable to developers if they can get to that level. If you can't make a good game with TGE then having top access to TSE isn't going to do you any good.
Additionally, they aren't hard to use but they do require that you learn how to use them whereas something like Blitz ... you just make your own way of doing things, the methodology isn't as strongly enforced. If you open your mind up just a little you might see that the programmers behind Torque have already invented many wheels for very good purposes. Often times the engine is so deep that you don't realize why something is the way it is until way down the line but keep on learning and you'll see they've already got a path sorted out that tackles most of the issues people struggle with around here.
It's really on a whole other level. DarkBASIC and Blitz are similar tools where Blitz is just the superior one. Torque isn't the same thing in my opinion. There's really no use comparing them. Unless you need what Torque has to offer you cannot appreciate it and it will seem unnessasarily complex. Most likely that's because you've never tackled and completed a complex project even in Blitz. Torque isn't very useful for minor tinkering but if you want to make a bulletproof game then there's really no comparison.
Additionally, they aren't hard to use but they do require that you learn how to use them whereas something like Blitz ... you just make your own way of doing things, the methodology isn't as strongly enforced. If you open your mind up just a little you might see that the programmers behind Torque have already invented many wheels for very good purposes. Often times the engine is so deep that you don't realize why something is the way it is until way down the line but keep on learning and you'll see they've already got a path sorted out that tackles most of the issues people struggle with around here.
It's really on a whole other level. DarkBASIC and Blitz are similar tools where Blitz is just the superior one. Torque isn't the same thing in my opinion. There's really no use comparing them. Unless you need what Torque has to offer you cannot appreciate it and it will seem unnessasarily complex. Most likely that's because you've never tackled and completed a complex project even in Blitz. Torque isn't very useful for minor tinkering but if you want to make a bulletproof game then there's really no comparison.
How many times has this discussion been had now?
Is is just me, or is it not in any way sensible to say that one is better out of an open-ended programming language vs. a modifiable game engine?
Since Torque could be something like a module for Max, I would have to say that Max is superior in the same way that Assembly is superior.
Anyway, over here, I prefer to make things that are oddly different (which is why you don't see many of them)... and so one of the ways to get myself into the mindset is by going from the ground up (well... raised ground) with something like Max instead of from the top down with something like Torque.
Since Torque could be something like a module for Max, I would have to say that Max is superior in the same way that Assembly is superior.
Anyway, over here, I prefer to make things that are oddly different (which is why you don't see many of them)... and so one of the ways to get myself into the mindset is by going from the ground up (well... raised ground) with something like Max instead of from the top down with something like Torque.
I prefer blitz personaly. However,Blitz3D is a bit long in the tooth, and torque relies heavily on you using the engine in the way garage games intended. And that way isn't really suitable for many types of games.
Toruqe was built for FPS primarily, and even out of the box it's bare bones and simplistic. The built in vehicle support is poor and in many cases broken. You can't easily tailor the engine to suit your way of working.
The editors are barely adequate, and the supported formats, even in TSE are somewhat limited. TSE is unfinished and over priced. The the ball physics tech in marble blast isn't avaliable to torque users.
Limited AI. poor collisions, weak physics, archaic old fashioned tools, and mesh formats that havent kept up with the times.
Map2Dif is full of bugs, and restricts you even more than it should due to a lack or precision when converting from common map formats to Torques own.
Torques strongest point is networking, which blitz currently can't compete with. But networking can also be a crutch as its an integral part of how the engine works and gets in the way of developing efficient SP games, and part of the reason why physics, and collisions are poor.
There are a lot of bad things in torque, but without a full blown 3D engine for Bmax, Torque still has the edge for 3D. But it is old fashioned, archaic, and behind the times compared to a good modern game engine. Even TSE doesn't even offer proper multitexturing in the traditional sense and only supports a single UV making it limited for advanced graphics rendering.
The best thing about TSE is that you can port quickly to the 360. However the cost is prohibitive for most, as you will need to come up with somewhere in the region of $40,000 per title to produce an Xbox 360 title once TSE is out of early Adopters.
I would have liked to have recommended Aurora, but that ended up being the usual half baked unfinished engine keeps cropping up from ants corner.
SOW is looking very promising, and developing at a slower but more considered pace with more attention placed in the details, rather than cheap flashy short lived tricks.
MiniB3D looks to eventualy become a solid alternative to blitz3D in Bmax.
There's the TV3D module Gabriel is developing, that I havent looked at yet, but have heard good things from.
And Coldsteel should be better once it has a unified format that will allow you more easily create assets compatible with the irrlicht engine.
Toruqe was built for FPS primarily, and even out of the box it's bare bones and simplistic. The built in vehicle support is poor and in many cases broken. You can't easily tailor the engine to suit your way of working.
The editors are barely adequate, and the supported formats, even in TSE are somewhat limited. TSE is unfinished and over priced. The the ball physics tech in marble blast isn't avaliable to torque users.
Limited AI. poor collisions, weak physics, archaic old fashioned tools, and mesh formats that havent kept up with the times.
Map2Dif is full of bugs, and restricts you even more than it should due to a lack or precision when converting from common map formats to Torques own.
Torques strongest point is networking, which blitz currently can't compete with. But networking can also be a crutch as its an integral part of how the engine works and gets in the way of developing efficient SP games, and part of the reason why physics, and collisions are poor.
There are a lot of bad things in torque, but without a full blown 3D engine for Bmax, Torque still has the edge for 3D. But it is old fashioned, archaic, and behind the times compared to a good modern game engine. Even TSE doesn't even offer proper multitexturing in the traditional sense and only supports a single UV making it limited for advanced graphics rendering.
The best thing about TSE is that you can port quickly to the 360. However the cost is prohibitive for most, as you will need to come up with somewhere in the region of $40,000 per title to produce an Xbox 360 title once TSE is out of early Adopters.
I would have liked to have recommended Aurora, but that ended up being the usual half baked unfinished engine keeps cropping up from ants corner.
SOW is looking very promising, and developing at a slower but more considered pace with more attention placed in the details, rather than cheap flashy short lived tricks.
MiniB3D looks to eventualy become a solid alternative to blitz3D in Bmax.
There's the TV3D module Gabriel is developing, that I havent looked at yet, but have heard good things from.
And Coldsteel should be better once it has a unified format that will allow you more easily create assets compatible with the irrlicht engine.
Since Torque could be something like a module for Max, I would have to say that Max is superior in the same way that Assembly is superior
LOL, that's a good one! Torque is C++, which is superior to Max like assembly would be superior in terms of flexibility to a properly skilled programmer. Aside from that Torque isn't a module it's a whole platform which consists of hundreds of modules.
Anything you can complain about in Torque can also be fixed just as easily. If you want to whine about lack of features then use Blitz if you want to move forward then use Torque or some other more open source tool and add your features.
That's why I was saying they aren't really comparable. If you've got some grand vision that doesn't fit into the stock Torque toolbox then you'll need considerably more skill to do your game in Torque ... bottom line though you can do it. The same is not true of Blitz ... there are some things only Mark can do.
As some people would say though ... what does it really matter? You can make a game with either one. That is what always seems to be the problem anyway. People like to complain about the tools rather than just take the crapiest one and make a cool game with it.
Maybe someone will actually make a cool game with torque some day. I have yet to see one though. Part of the reason that there aren't any, is that torque is nice to play with, tweak and mod. But doing anything with finesse is beyond the capabilities of most.
LOL, that's a good one! Torque is C++, which is superior to Max like assembly would be superior in terms of flexibility to a properly skilled programmer. Aside from that Torque isn't a module it's a whole platform which consists of hundreds of modules.
He didn't say it was. He said it could be. And he's right, you could write a module for BlitzMax which was just like Torque. Dunno if I'd want to, but you could.
That's why I was saying they aren't really comparable. If you've got some grand vision that doesn't fit into the stock Torque toolbox then you'll need considerably more skill to do your game in Torque ... bottom line though you can do it. The same is not true of Blitz ... there are some things only Mark can do.
The only things that only Mark can do are change the language itself, since everything else is a module or optional. And unless Torque allows you to rewrite your C++ compiler to work differently, the same is true of that.
Ah ... well are there any Blitz games you like? I'll avoid any of the really killers apps such as Tribes or Marble Blast and stick to 3rd party indies. Personally, Orbz is one of my favorite games of all time. Then you've got the popular Wildlife Tycoon, Tube Twist, and Rocket Bowl ... none of which are FPS's. Another really different title as far as going above and beyond the engine's stock abilities is Determinance with it's dynamic mouse/arm sword swing mechanics.
From the art point of view ... yeah I agree it's not as easy and dynamic but that's because it's freed up a lot of work on the programming end and for good reason because you can't be scripting everything such as nodes etc... it's better on large projects to use WYSIWYG tools like a 3DS Max or whatever you use so you aren't constantly checking for code errors and recompiling. It's just plain more efficient to unload as much as you can from the codebase change side of things since the tiniest errors can ruin the whole project that way. If one asset exports wrong no big deal ... if one module gets compiled wrong then the game doesn't work on many more levels.
The only things that only Mark can do are change the language itself, since everything else is a module or optional.
Perhaps if he just released the platform layer to us!
From the art point of view ... yeah I agree it's not as easy and dynamic but that's because it's freed up a lot of work on the programming end and for good reason because you can't be scripting everything such as nodes etc... it's better on large projects to use WYSIWYG tools like a 3DS Max or whatever you use so you aren't constantly checking for code errors and recompiling. It's just plain more efficient to unload as much as you can from the codebase change side of things since the tiniest errors can ruin the whole project that way. If one asset exports wrong no big deal ... if one module gets compiled wrong then the game doesn't work on many more levels.
The only things that only Mark can do are change the language itself, since everything else is a module or optional.
Perhaps if he just released the platform layer to us!
truth is any one of those games you mention could be done in blitz, and most of them could be done better in blitz 3D.
I disagree. Additionally, I don't see any Blitz3D games reaching the heights of Torque games. Blitz3D is a gateway tool for people just getting into game development or for some prototyping. You complain about a load of Torque features above ... none of which are present in Blitz3D at all. That's like complaining about another car's wheels and tires when your car doesn't even have wheels and tires.
If Blitz3D was really capable of delivering a top notch game it would have been done by now. The truth is that you can make some nice games of meager complexitiy before it falls apart because of it's structure. It does what it was designed to do extremely well. It was never designed to compete on the 'AAA' level, even of 2000. On the other hand Torque was and it's still making games that sell within the 'AAA' market space. Bill Gates spoke about Marble Blast Ultra in his speech at E3 ... that's about as far reaching as you can hope for in the current game industry.
Both tools have their reasons for being. I still feel that this comparison is a bit silly. Just pick one and make a game with it.
If Blitz3D was really capable of delivering a top notch game it would have been done by now. The truth is that you can make some nice games of meager complexitiy before it falls apart because of it's structure. It does what it was designed to do extremely well. It was never designed to compete on the 'AAA' level, even of 2000. On the other hand Torque was and it's still making games that sell within the 'AAA' market space. Bill Gates spoke about Marble Blast Ultra in his speech at E3 ... that's about as far reaching as you can hope for in the current game industry.
Both tools have their reasons for being. I still feel that this comparison is a bit silly. Just pick one and make a game with it.
so which games are AAA done in torque. NONE! not s single one. It's a 5 year old engine, and it looks its age. What sells torque games isn't the games, but the experience of garage games marketing team and good networking in the industry. Not the engine itself...
Orbz, marble blast etc could be done extremely easily in Blitz3D and are no where near AA quality, you could do them with any engine. Marble blast is a joke if you look at it from a technological perspective. But it isn't a bad game. It woudln't matter, you could write it in any language or engine and get the same result, so long as you have the right people selling the game for you.
One blitz game that was released recently and got 70% in PC Zone magazine was Master of Defence
http://www.towerdefence.com/
Orbz, marble blast etc could be done extremely easily in Blitz3D and are no where near AA quality, you could do them with any engine. Marble blast is a joke if you look at it from a technological perspective. But it isn't a bad game. It woudln't matter, you could write it in any language or engine and get the same result, so long as you have the right people selling the game for you.
One blitz game that was released recently and got 70% in PC Zone magazine was Master of Defence
http://www.towerdefence.com/
I was saying that back in 2000 Tribes 2 was a 'AAA' game. Not saying that Marble Blast Ultra is a 'AAA' game but it's up there at E3 getting attention from Bill Gates. No one but Mark could make a game like that with Blitz3D because no one has access to the whole of the codebase.
The Garage Games crew isn't really selling the engine on much more than the games they've made with it. Granted they had some very talented programmers conjure up the physics in Marble Blast but the truth is Torque allows for that to be done. Everyone always makes it sound like you can't just go in there and do whatever you want but you can.
If you're going to put in the hard work you might as well do it on the platform with the longest legs as far as the market is concerned anyway. Not that I don't do this for the love of making games but when it comes down to it making a game with Torque and Blitz really isn't that different. You create content you program it etc... even as a developer you've still got to think about the bottomline and I think Torque automatically increases your chances dramatically of being successful in the current mainstream market. Take the technical aspects out of the equation and what tool would you use thinking about what kind of backing you get?
I know both tools pretty well by now and I'm not using Blitz because I know that by doing so I'm only mulling around here not going where I think real success is. When I read about Justin Mette at E3 demoing Tube Twist for some award or Bill Gates talking about Marble Blast Ultra I know I want to go in that direction. Call it hype if you want but I don't see it as such. If you put in the work with Torque those are the results.
BTW, Orbz was rated as one of PC Magazine's Best Games of 2003 along with:
Halo
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
Savage
Madden 2004
Second Life
If we went game for game I think that the reviews would favor Torque games. Is that because the engine is just a better tool or because the developers that chose to use it are simply more capable? Let's put it this way ... a shade tree mechanic uses a lug wrench to change tires ... but a member of a pit crew uses a powerful air gun. Give the air gun to the shade tree guy and I'm sure he can take tires off just about as quickly. Likewise if you give the pit crew a bunch of lug wrenches they aren't going to be as good at changing tires. That's how I think of it. At first hooking up all those neumatic tools is scary and all but once you know how to do it you'd never want to go back to the more straight forward ... yet limited tool.
The Garage Games crew isn't really selling the engine on much more than the games they've made with it. Granted they had some very talented programmers conjure up the physics in Marble Blast but the truth is Torque allows for that to be done. Everyone always makes it sound like you can't just go in there and do whatever you want but you can.
If you're going to put in the hard work you might as well do it on the platform with the longest legs as far as the market is concerned anyway. Not that I don't do this for the love of making games but when it comes down to it making a game with Torque and Blitz really isn't that different. You create content you program it etc... even as a developer you've still got to think about the bottomline and I think Torque automatically increases your chances dramatically of being successful in the current mainstream market. Take the technical aspects out of the equation and what tool would you use thinking about what kind of backing you get?
I know both tools pretty well by now and I'm not using Blitz because I know that by doing so I'm only mulling around here not going where I think real success is. When I read about Justin Mette at E3 demoing Tube Twist for some award or Bill Gates talking about Marble Blast Ultra I know I want to go in that direction. Call it hype if you want but I don't see it as such. If you put in the work with Torque those are the results.
BTW, Orbz was rated as one of PC Magazine's Best Games of 2003 along with:
Halo
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
Savage
Madden 2004
Second Life
If we went game for game I think that the reviews would favor Torque games. Is that because the engine is just a better tool or because the developers that chose to use it are simply more capable? Let's put it this way ... a shade tree mechanic uses a lug wrench to change tires ... but a member of a pit crew uses a powerful air gun. Give the air gun to the shade tree guy and I'm sure he can take tires off just about as quickly. Likewise if you give the pit crew a bunch of lug wrenches they aren't going to be as good at changing tires. That's how I think of it. At first hooking up all those neumatic tools is scary and all but once you know how to do it you'd never want to go back to the more straight forward ... yet limited tool.
Compete on what, and better at doing what?
I agree with Evak, the strength of Torque is in Marketing and Industry contacts. Jeremys point about Orbz being a PC Magazine 'Game of the Year' actually serves to drive Evaks point home, rather than counter it.
Look at the other games:
* Halo is boring and repetitive, the first hour and the last hour being by far the best the game has to offer.
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 isn't even a game, it's a program for training would-be airplane hijackers.
* Savage? Never even heard of it.
* Generic Madden NFL licensed game of the unspecified time period. Isn't that the one with the 10 inch linemen?
* And don't even get me started on Second Life. It's kinda like Flight Simulator 2004, except you have to write the Flight Simulator part yourself.
Wasn't 2003 the year Sands of Time and Knights of the Old Republic came out? Aren't they still some of the best games ever, never mind for just 2003? Surely they would be on that list!
I agree with Evak, the strength of Torque is in Marketing and Industry contacts. Jeremys point about Orbz being a PC Magazine 'Game of the Year' actually serves to drive Evaks point home, rather than counter it.
Look at the other games:
* Halo is boring and repetitive, the first hour and the last hour being by far the best the game has to offer.
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 isn't even a game, it's a program for training would-be airplane hijackers.
* Savage? Never even heard of it.
* Generic Madden NFL licensed game of the unspecified time period. Isn't that the one with the 10 inch linemen?
* And don't even get me started on Second Life. It's kinda like Flight Simulator 2004, except you have to write the Flight Simulator part yourself.
Wasn't 2003 the year Sands of Time and Knights of the Old Republic came out? Aren't they still some of the best games ever, never mind for just 2003? Surely they would be on that list!
well... i think that Predator is more powerfull than Alien...
sorry 'Duck, i just couldn't let this one get by without objecting just a lil bit... i tried... i did try 'duck, but this one, this one above all the rest of the foolishness you posted above (i know, they're your opinions, and everyone is entitled to one... please don't hit me) really approaches a new low in the history of 'Duckisms...
first of all, The Flight Simulator is not supposed to be a game... no BFGs, no magic spells... sorrrrry, it's supposed to represent a simulation of the world of piloting aircraft... to a high degree of fidelity... for playback on personal computer hardware... by people who have some sort of awareness, interest, or love of flying...
second...i've licensed every one of em since the first ones came out on the C-64, and i've never planned to or imagined hijacking anything... neither has the majority of the thousands of other FSim licensees...
in one fell swooop, you've managed to categorize a large audience of aviation enthusiasts as sociopaths... and it is this reason why i've gotta say something... say something to alert those who are not familiar with the world of 'duck... or who are not familiar with the fact that your duckisms have nothing to do with anything closely resembling fact in the real world (or for that matter, the virtual one as well)...
hey... it just dawned on me... i get it now... you were just joking... right... just being your usual playful flaing duck... right...
nothing you said above was meant to be taken seriously... was it...
hey... ya got me...
--Mike
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 isn't even a game, it's a program for training would-be airplane hijackers.
sorry 'Duck, i just couldn't let this one get by without objecting just a lil bit... i tried... i did try 'duck, but this one, this one above all the rest of the foolishness you posted above (i know, they're your opinions, and everyone is entitled to one... please don't hit me) really approaches a new low in the history of 'Duckisms...
first of all, The Flight Simulator is not supposed to be a game... no BFGs, no magic spells... sorrrrry, it's supposed to represent a simulation of the world of piloting aircraft... to a high degree of fidelity... for playback on personal computer hardware... by people who have some sort of awareness, interest, or love of flying...
second...i've licensed every one of em since the first ones came out on the C-64, and i've never planned to or imagined hijacking anything... neither has the majority of the thousands of other FSim licensees...
in one fell swooop, you've managed to categorize a large audience of aviation enthusiasts as sociopaths... and it is this reason why i've gotta say something... say something to alert those who are not familiar with the world of 'duck... or who are not familiar with the fact that your duckisms have nothing to do with anything closely resembling fact in the real world (or for that matter, the virtual one as well)...
hey... it just dawned on me... i get it now... you were just joking... right... just being your usual playful flaing duck... right...
nothing you said above was meant to be taken seriously... was it...
hey... ya got me...
--Mike
hahah...Red..you'r king :)
what can i say NA... he keeps giving me so much material... i just gotta use some of it sometime :)
to let it all go to waste would be... well, let's just say, i'd have to hand in my Friar's Club Card...
to the poor guy who started this thing... and probably was serious with his question...
1- Torque is a fully modable game... Blitz is a programming language... like someone else said above, to compare the two on a one for one basis is absurdity at it's highest... or lowest... whichever... they are different beasts...
2- even ignoring what i just said immediately above, in the hands of a lack luster developer, both can be coersed into producing crappy games... ya just have to try hard enough...
3- this topic has been the subject of miles long explosive FDNY unstoppable threads... ya gotta do a search once in a while before you ask a wide open question like this...
to the rest of the guys who jumped on the Torque vs Blitz fireball... tsk, tsk tsk... this is equivilant to getting riled up about an Aliens vs Predator debate...
... and just as illuminating.
:)
--Mike
to let it all go to waste would be... well, let's just say, i'd have to hand in my Friar's Club Card...
to the poor guy who started this thing... and probably was serious with his question...
1- Torque is a fully modable game... Blitz is a programming language... like someone else said above, to compare the two on a one for one basis is absurdity at it's highest... or lowest... whichever... they are different beasts...
2- even ignoring what i just said immediately above, in the hands of a lack luster developer, both can be coersed into producing crappy games... ya just have to try hard enough...
3- this topic has been the subject of miles long explosive FDNY unstoppable threads... ya gotta do a search once in a while before you ask a wide open question like this...
to the rest of the guys who jumped on the Torque vs Blitz fireball... tsk, tsk tsk... this is equivilant to getting riled up about an Aliens vs Predator debate...
... and just as illuminating.
:)
--Mike
I agree with Red here.
Torque to me didn't feel like programming, and if I had got into the source, it still wouldn't. The reason being that I like to start from scratch, like BlitzMax/3D allows.
If i was to judge, I'd say Max is more powerful.
Also, on the ease of use scale- Torque: 3/10, Blitz: 8/10.
My judgement is foggy though because my brain *works* in Basic- it took forever to get how torque worked :)
Torque to me didn't feel like programming, and if I had got into the source, it still wouldn't. The reason being that I like to start from scratch, like BlitzMax/3D allows.
If i was to judge, I'd say Max is more powerful.
Also, on the ease of use scale- Torque: 3/10, Blitz: 8/10.
My judgement is foggy though because my brain *works* in Basic- it took forever to get how torque worked :)
I know the guys that made Orbz and that game didn't receive any special attention more than Aerial Antics got. It just happens to have sold better because it's simply a better game.
Anyway Red is right this whole debate is absurd. They both exist for different reasons. However, you can do anything with Torque you can do with Blitz if you know how it works. True, it doesn't give you that nice blank slate that Blitz does and it actually involves learning the ground work that someone else laid down but that doesn't mean you can't rearrange it once you've learned it.
Personally, I'm getting a lot of out learning that ground work because it was created by some very smart people, people who've already been where most of us are at with Blitz and have moved on to a higher level of understanding. You can still use the Torque platform to create any game you want.
I think it's mostly a difference of mentality. Blitz is designed to be used by one person for the most part. Something like Torque was designed to be used by a team. In order to use Torque as a single person you have to put in a lot more time to learn it, there's no easy command reference and you have to know what each module does. It wasn't ever made to be a bedroom coder's tool but it's getting pretty good at faking it. Torque Game Builder on the other hand makes 2D games absolute cake and I'd think would be any 2D bedroom coder's wet dream.
Anyway Red is right this whole debate is absurd. They both exist for different reasons. However, you can do anything with Torque you can do with Blitz if you know how it works. True, it doesn't give you that nice blank slate that Blitz does and it actually involves learning the ground work that someone else laid down but that doesn't mean you can't rearrange it once you've learned it.
Personally, I'm getting a lot of out learning that ground work because it was created by some very smart people, people who've already been where most of us are at with Blitz and have moved on to a higher level of understanding. You can still use the Torque platform to create any game you want.
I think it's mostly a difference of mentality. Blitz is designed to be used by one person for the most part. Something like Torque was designed to be used by a team. In order to use Torque as a single person you have to put in a lot more time to learn it, there's no easy command reference and you have to know what each module does. It wasn't ever made to be a bedroom coder's tool but it's getting pretty good at faking it. Torque Game Builder on the other hand makes 2D games absolute cake and I'd think would be any 2D bedroom coder's wet dream.
what i understand here is:
1. Torque is a engine (modding)
2. BlitxMax a programming languaje
3. Torque is more difficult to learn
and with the right skils you can create the next top ten game of the year.
am i right?
B!
1. Torque is a engine (modding)
2. BlitxMax a programming languaje
3. Torque is more difficult to learn
and with the right skils you can create the next top ten game of the year.
am i right?
B!
orbz or marble blast could be made quicker be better done with blitz3D. Allthough they could of course be done better in torque too.
Aerial Antics failed because the gameplay was boring,not enough variation or anything to maintain interest. Plus there was no marketing or drive behind it once it was released and barely sold.
If it was handled properly Aerial Antics could have done great. But no one wanted to invest the time in it. Simple as that. If it wasn't your baby, I'd have redone it myself and turned it around by now.
Garage Games is realy a big marketing machine, and works much like EA does, and if you use their engine well you can ride their wave and benefit from their promoting your game to sell their engine, whilst BRL is more like your average bedroom coder without any real marketing drive, little ambition to promote the products aggressivily. limited networking, no mutualy beneficial partnerships with hardware and middleware manufacturers, and to my knowledge no marketing budget whatsoever.
It's no surprise It hasn't made a name for itself when it hasn't even tried to get recognotion. Meanwhile Garage Games grows, has a carefully thought out plan, carefully maintained community etc etc.
Aerial Antics failed because the gameplay was boring,not enough variation or anything to maintain interest. Plus there was no marketing or drive behind it once it was released and barely sold.
If it was handled properly Aerial Antics could have done great. But no one wanted to invest the time in it. Simple as that. If it wasn't your baby, I'd have redone it myself and turned it around by now.
Garage Games is realy a big marketing machine, and works much like EA does, and if you use their engine well you can ride their wave and benefit from their promoting your game to sell their engine, whilst BRL is more like your average bedroom coder without any real marketing drive, little ambition to promote the products aggressivily. limited networking, no mutualy beneficial partnerships with hardware and middleware manufacturers, and to my knowledge no marketing budget whatsoever.
It's no surprise It hasn't made a name for itself when it hasn't even tried to get recognotion. Meanwhile Garage Games grows, has a carefully thought out plan, carefully maintained community etc etc.
I know the guys that made Orbz and that game didn't receive any special attention more than Aerial Antics got. It just happens to have sold better because it's simply a better game.
Well, thats simply BS! A lot of *SPECIAL* attention did go into the advertising/marketing campaigns to push Orbz! Just because it's a great game (which some say it's not) doesn't mean it will be fun or sell. Please...
Without any advertising/marketing this would have been another would-be-game. And don't be fooled that the costs were low either. I guarantee you garage games (the developers as well) spent thousands unlike your $200 marketing budget for aerial antics.
Blitz isn't designed to be used by one person, it just gets used that way, because of the way that the community has developed, and the strong Programming bias, without much incentive for non programming but still skilled developers to join the community.
Garage Games is free for all, and their community is built around attracting talent from every facet to game dev. Blitz is aimed almost squarely at programming.
Truth is you can make Blitzmax work much like torque. The only difference really is that Torque has done much of the groundwork for you if your willing to adapt to the use of their often archaic and outdated tools.
Did we even spend $200 on marketing? Aside from the web hosting, download.com and robosoft submission, we did almost none at all. And when garage games got some portals interested in our game, we got a list back and plenty of feedback on how to improve the game, and what was required to get on Yahoo. But we simply didn't bother.
Aerial Antics failure has little to do with the tools, but our lack of professionalism and motivation when things didn't work out as we had hoped.
Garage Games is free for all, and their community is built around attracting talent from every facet to game dev. Blitz is aimed almost squarely at programming.
Truth is you can make Blitzmax work much like torque. The only difference really is that Torque has done much of the groundwork for you if your willing to adapt to the use of their often archaic and outdated tools.
Did we even spend $200 on marketing? Aside from the web hosting, download.com and robosoft submission, we did almost none at all. And when garage games got some portals interested in our game, we got a list back and plenty of feedback on how to improve the game, and what was required to get on Yahoo. But we simply didn't bother.
Aerial Antics failure has little to do with the tools, but our lack of professionalism and motivation when things didn't work out as we had hoped.
My little experiences as 2 cents:
1.
If you want to use Torque, you're work based on built rules by those ppl in GarageGames, it's somehow harder to adept and you have to learn to use it. If you used to the rules buil by GG, it'll be not so hard.
In BlitzMax you can concentrate on programming, and build things that under your control, and you can learn many things that's pretty fun.
2.
We're indies, that means e have to do many things on lowest cost possible, a good engine can save a lot of time and money.
No one knows what Max3D'll be but we can predict it to be very powerful, before it's release, use the time torefine progrraming skill and you can get benefit when Max3D released.
3.
Although Torque is hard to learn, Torque2D rules! Learning the script is actually a pain but the editor is very nice.
1.
If you want to use Torque, you're work based on built rules by those ppl in GarageGames, it's somehow harder to adept and you have to learn to use it. If you used to the rules buil by GG, it'll be not so hard.
In BlitzMax you can concentrate on programming, and build things that under your control, and you can learn many things that's pretty fun.
2.
We're indies, that means e have to do many things on lowest cost possible, a good engine can save a lot of time and money.
No one knows what Max3D'll be but we can predict it to be very powerful, before it's release, use the time torefine progrraming skill and you can get benefit when Max3D released.
3.
Although Torque is hard to learn, Torque2D rules! Learning the script is actually a pain but the editor is very nice.
Whats MiniB3d?
MiniB3D
its Simon H's start at porting blitz3D to blitzmax. Has a very nice .B3D loader and renderer plus many of blitz functions in and comes with full source.
Early stages yet, but you can modify it to your hearts content, since you have complete control of the GL renderer, and the nice thing is it loads B3D's with all its local pivot rotations 100% accurately.
Should be a good starting point for anyone coming from blitz3D who wants to extend the capabilities beyond what Blitz3D is capable.
its Simon H's start at porting blitz3D to blitzmax. Has a very nice .B3D loader and renderer plus many of blitz functions in and comes with full source.
Early stages yet, but you can modify it to your hearts content, since you have complete control of the GL renderer, and the nice thing is it loads B3D's with all its local pivot rotations 100% accurately.
Should be a good starting point for anyone coming from blitz3D who wants to extend the capabilities beyond what Blitz3D is capable.
Aerial Antics failed because the gameplay was boring,not enough variation or anything to maintain interest. Plus there was no marketing or drive behind it once it was released and barely sold.
If it was handled properly Aerial Antics could have done great. But no one wanted to invest the time in it. Simple as that. If it wasn't your baby, I'd have redone it myself and turned it around by now.
Funny how hindsight is 20/20, keep that in mind! You were all about the game initially ... said on these very forums it's "a great little game". Jeff Tunnell thought it was good as did a lot of people before you even knew about it. I've put months more into the title as well ... long since you gave up and nothing's helped get it's conversion rate up. Bottomline it seemed like a good idea at the time to a lot of people but it just wasn't. It would never work without completely changing the game. There might be a jet pack in there somewhere but other than that it would be a completely different game.
Additionally, you make it sound like tons of people didn't know about Aerial Antics. People were picking that game up asking us to publish it, putting it in magazines, and on TV of their own accord because they thought it was cool. I didn't see any more coverage of Orbz ... it just sold better. Sometimes good stuff doesn't sell great, it's just a fact of life. I've heard some pretty good things though about the game from the people that got it.
And this:
orbz or marble blast could be made quicker be better done with blitz3D. Allthough they could of course be done better in torque too.
First of all any game could be done better ... since it's subjective. Second, I seriously doubt you could do Orbz quicker than they did it in Torque and achieve the quality they did. I think for Orbz 1 it only took them 6 weeks to make and when they brought out version 2.0 they put another 10 weeks into it. You'd never recreate everything in that game from scratch in BlitzMax and have it running stable and crossplatform with multiplayer and mod support in 16 weeks. Additionally, that was their first game done with Torque!
I understand too that they had to make a lot of changes because the 1st version didn't sell well since it was all multiplayer. But look at how quick the turnaround time is with something like Torque. With Blitz if you aim to make one certain kind of game you're basically stuck in that direction (especially back when we did Aerial Antics where we had that jacked up pipeline) it's not easy to change it and usually you just end up starting over which is a pain in the rear. If you miss your mark with Blitz you miss big time.
Anyway, that's just how I feel. For someone new coming in try them both and get the experience for yourself. I'm not knocking Blitz I just think Torque is far more likely to take you to the next level whether that's because Garage Games are more likely to help you doesn't really matter to me it's still a reason to use the engine. I suppose it's harder to use for a lot of people but it's not effort spent without great reward. I learned Blitz first which helped me out tremendously when it comes to comprehending computer programming in general.
Also, I though you knew what really happened with Yahoo!. It had to do with lack of professionalism sure but had nothing to do with motivation.
You just develop your engine in a more modular fashion, and add your own simple scripts where needed. How maleable it actualy is depends a lot on how you went around coding it in the first place.
It looks to me like AA is based on a set of switches, with minimal AI, which simply checks that all the switches were turned on in any order before the exit is enabled. This is the basic function of the game throughout all the gameplay modes.
And all feedback suggested that the simple chores were not varied enough to encourage people to want to play the game extensively.
The next level depends on the capabilities of the developers and how capable they are with their tools. Or how willing they are to put in the extra effort.
Using a generic engine produces generic games, thats the underlying problem of all torque games I have played, they have a very generic look and feel to them which seems to me to be the fault of the scripting language and the unwieldly nature of the C++ source itself.
Anyway, were going way off course talking about AA, so I'll let it go back to torque and Blitzmax
It looks to me like AA is based on a set of switches, with minimal AI, which simply checks that all the switches were turned on in any order before the exit is enabled. This is the basic function of the game throughout all the gameplay modes.
And all feedback suggested that the simple chores were not varied enough to encourage people to want to play the game extensively.
The next level depends on the capabilities of the developers and how capable they are with their tools. Or how willing they are to put in the extra effort.
Using a generic engine produces generic games, thats the underlying problem of all torque games I have played, they have a very generic look and feel to them which seems to me to be the fault of the scripting language and the unwieldly nature of the C++ source itself.
Anyway, were going way off course talking about AA, so I'll let it go back to torque and Blitzmax
True that!
I just want to say that I appreciate both Torque and Blitz. I understand the complaints against Torque but I also feel the pull that the engine and the people behind it have. Additionally, the only way I see to properly understand an engine is to work with a real one and know inside and out what's good and bad about it by creating a game with it.
I'm not in the business of creating engines either ... I just want to make games. When you use Blitz you end up creating a sort of half-baked engine with simple editors to create your game which is what I did with AA.
I'd like to take something that Cygnus said:
Torque to me didn't feel like programming,
Well, it certainly does involve quite a bit of programming but you can get decent game results without doing much. Still you're looking at the two tools as a programmer. Look at that signature ... you have one game listed, which is just algorithms. Perhaps if you're more of a programmer than a game developer then Torque isn't for you.
If you're looking at the end goal as making a game though then I would think you'd want to get there as efficiently as possible. With Torque currently supporting so many developers and the game concept I have fitting so well into it's architecture it just happens to be where I want to go. I wouldn't presume that to be the same for everyone. Hence the reasons you don't use Torque.
I just want to say that I appreciate both Torque and Blitz. I understand the complaints against Torque but I also feel the pull that the engine and the people behind it have. Additionally, the only way I see to properly understand an engine is to work with a real one and know inside and out what's good and bad about it by creating a game with it.
I'm not in the business of creating engines either ... I just want to make games. When you use Blitz you end up creating a sort of half-baked engine with simple editors to create your game which is what I did with AA.
I'd like to take something that Cygnus said:
Torque to me didn't feel like programming,
Well, it certainly does involve quite a bit of programming but you can get decent game results without doing much. Still you're looking at the two tools as a programmer. Look at that signature ... you have one game listed, which is just algorithms. Perhaps if you're more of a programmer than a game developer then Torque isn't for you.
If you're looking at the end goal as making a game though then I would think you'd want to get there as efficiently as possible. With Torque currently supporting so many developers and the game concept I have fitting so well into it's architecture it just happens to be where I want to go. I wouldn't presume that to be the same for everyone. Hence the reasons you don't use Torque.
well the TGE engine is based on tribes and is very out of date and limited unless you want to make a online FPS or maybe an rts with the optional rts pack. TSE shows no sign of being finished and to release a commercial game cost 10 times as much as blitz max. if you want to make anything other than the above even darkbasic would be a better choice. ;OP
ive not seen a amazing game in blitz3d, but ive not seen anything great in torque! some of the best games where writen in basic. i think people forget that it doent matter what you make the game with as long as the finished game is fun. blitz max looks like it could be easyer to make a finish product with than torque so it gets my vote. i do agree that they are very different products but if you goal is to make a good game using a engine thats designed for online fps when you want to make for example a one player football game its a bad move.
Pete
ive not seen a amazing game in blitz3d, but ive not seen anything great in torque! some of the best games where writen in basic. i think people forget that it doent matter what you make the game with as long as the finished game is fun. blitz max looks like it could be easyer to make a finish product with than torque so it gets my vote. i do agree that they are very different products but if you goal is to make a good game using a engine thats designed for online fps when you want to make for example a one player football game its a bad move.
Pete
Aerial Antics failed because the gameplay was boring,not enough variation or anything to maintain interest.
My biggest gripe with Arial Antics was joypad control. If it had been playable with a joypad, I would've definately bought it. Did we even spend $200 on marketing? Aside from the web hosting, download.com and robosoft submission, we did almost none at all.
That's not marketing, that's promotion, and it's this misconception that's the main reason so many indie developers are doing too great. use the time torefine progrraming skill and you can get benefit when Max3D released.
Programming skill is secondary. Like Jeremy says, a good product does not garuntee success. Instead I would suggest spending some time doing market analysis and forming a coherent marketing strategy, to better determine which game to make, and the most successful way to get it to market. dEtermine rollout procedures, tool development and all the other things you're going to need for success.Ultimately I believe that the proverb about a poor craftsman blaming his tools, probably has a lot of truth to it.
I agree with flameduck. business and marketing strategy is the key to success.
I didn't actually say that we spent $200 on marketing. We didn't spend any money at all. Those were the only things I do recall spending money on.
As for garage games, their biggest asset is their open community which embraces a far broader reaching audience, and brings in a lot more varies talent than Blitz does. In part to the closed forums, and the prohibition of general discussion.
These things make it hard to mingle and develop solid friendships and working relationships with other connunity members. It's part of what is responsible for the lone developer syndrome that in many cases leaves Blitz an under achiever.
I didn't actually say that we spent $200 on marketing. We didn't spend any money at all. Those were the only things I do recall spending money on.
As for garage games, their biggest asset is their open community which embraces a far broader reaching audience, and brings in a lot more varies talent than Blitz does. In part to the closed forums, and the prohibition of general discussion.
These things make it hard to mingle and develop solid friendships and working relationships with other connunity members. It's part of what is responsible for the lone developer syndrome that in many cases leaves Blitz an under achiever.
That's true ... I forgot you can't post on Blitz unless you own Blitz. I did spend $200 just on that stupid download.com thing. This year they charged me again ... stupid auto update. I took it off because you can manually submit anyway and you don't get any more hits by paying. Then there's the web page. I've put some money into keeping things online for Leadfoot. I'm realizing now with Mousetrap Arcade a lot of ways to get traffic for free though in addition to streamlining the order process and using a lot more php/MySQL to tie things together.
If we ever do another game I've got a lot more tools in the toolbox then I did 3 years ago ;)
Oh, I've been thinking about re-instating the gamepad support in Aerial Antics along with the old control mechanic. I took out a lot of things in an attempt to simplify the game because people thought it was so difficult to control initially. It turns out though that I think it did sell better with the original control method (and support for mouse or keyboard or gamepad support). I've updated the game once or twice a year and I'll probably revisit it again soon.
I remember hearing that Platypus didn't sell well from Idigicon's site back in the day. However, with a few changes it's become a hit for Retro64 so I'm hoping that I can eventually do the same thing with Aerial Antics.
If we ever do another game I've got a lot more tools in the toolbox then I did 3 years ago ;)
Oh, I've been thinking about re-instating the gamepad support in Aerial Antics along with the old control mechanic. I took out a lot of things in an attempt to simplify the game because people thought it was so difficult to control initially. It turns out though that I think it did sell better with the original control method (and support for mouse or keyboard or gamepad support). I've updated the game once or twice a year and I'll probably revisit it again soon.
I remember hearing that Platypus didn't sell well from Idigicon's site back in the day. However, with a few changes it's become a hit for Retro64 so I'm hoping that I can eventually do the same thing with Aerial Antics.
I thought the original controls were almost spot on to be honest, and hoped that the MP test demo would be similar paced, but with some more varies gameplay. Racing your buddies online, and perhaps some of those rescue missions we once talked about.
To be honest, with AA I think we concentrated too much effort in the first 3-4 months, and then all the uncertainties and indecisive release schedules from GG kind of burnt us out. And that, combined with less than stellar sales was a big factor in our lack of enthusiasm for the game.
I'm convinced it can be a successful indie game some day, it has the potential, but the magic just insn't quite there yet.
As far as tools go, things have inproved so much in the past 3 years, just for indies generaly. It's hard to appreciate just how decent AA really was back then, Just with the art, when we didn't have lightmaps, multiple UV channels, or the advantages of B3D pipeline extensions.
I do think that Blitz3D has had it's day for anything but casual games. Mostly because people expect more and better graphics with their gameplay and squeezing that out of blitz3D gets harder and harder as you try and compensate for its lack of basic features and optimizations.
BTW, I know I was hard on Torque, but as far as I'm concerned there really aren't that many proven tools out there, and Torque would definately be my second choice, and possibly my first if there weren't so many exciting opportunities to be had with blitzmax just over the horizon.
To be honest, with AA I think we concentrated too much effort in the first 3-4 months, and then all the uncertainties and indecisive release schedules from GG kind of burnt us out. And that, combined with less than stellar sales was a big factor in our lack of enthusiasm for the game.
I'm convinced it can be a successful indie game some day, it has the potential, but the magic just insn't quite there yet.
As far as tools go, things have inproved so much in the past 3 years, just for indies generaly. It's hard to appreciate just how decent AA really was back then, Just with the art, when we didn't have lightmaps, multiple UV channels, or the advantages of B3D pipeline extensions.
I do think that Blitz3D has had it's day for anything but casual games. Mostly because people expect more and better graphics with their gameplay and squeezing that out of blitz3D gets harder and harder as you try and compensate for its lack of basic features and optimizations.
BTW, I know I was hard on Torque, but as far as I'm concerned there really aren't that many proven tools out there, and Torque would definately be my second choice, and possibly my first if there weren't so many exciting opportunities to be had with blitzmax just over the horizon.
heh some interesting stuff from someone very experienced with engine coding who has been digging deep into torques rendering engine lately. Sure hope that they change a lot in how TSE works, I always wondered why it seemed kind of slow.
I've had a week of digging deep (and I mean deep) into the Torque rendering code (trying to fix a simply hellacious batch count in a rather simple game) and I have discovered the following (for those that did not know, like me before I got tossed on this project at work):
Torque Game Engine is geared towards support for old (Voodoo 3) level hardware. As a result, even its outdoor levels are rendered very BSP-like, in that they prefer tons of very small batches. The DTS exporter produces tristripped mesh data that creates tons of unnecessary tiny batches, and the terrain engine is no better: it's all trifans, and small ones at that (no more than 8 indices per fan). The heightmapped terrain in this game gets cut into about 140 chunks by Torque and those chunks were being drawn in about 10 pieces each (average). You can toggle a variable to fix the stupid tristripping in DTS objects but there is nothing I've seen to do the same for the terrain. I got it down from 11,000 batches/frame to what is now roughly (as of today) 2,450 by forcing Torque to use a single tristrip for its shapes, and by changing the way it draws terrain to send all of the indices for a single terrain chunk at the same time. The next experiment is to implement static geometry batching for all of the static objects in the scene.
However, I just had the realization tonight that this is almost entirely futile, unless I want to fix this very important problem: Torque has no support for VBO's. Every single thing that gets drawn has to go through the OpenGL graphics pipeline anew every frame. This means that you might as well have a Voodoo 3 in your machine for all the good that hopped-up 7950 GTX 2 will do for you, because it's all the same to Torque. The game is entirely CPU-bound right now, and there is nothing anyone can do about it without fundamentally changing the way Torque handles its vertex data. So guess what I get to do...
The seemingly very popular Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack must be used very cautiously by your designers: if you let them put dynamic lights all over the place (at least on outdoor scenes) and have everything cast and receive shadows, expect an enormous framerate hit (100% increase without shadows on our minspec machine, roughly 30% on the dual-core dev PCs).
Garage Games apparently is "very proud" of their "terrain occlusion" in outdoor scenes, whereby stuff that is behind terrain "won't be sent to be rendered". Frankly, that's bullshit. I have not yet found an instance of this, nor have I seen any code to back up this claim. Their outdoor scenes use zero culling (other than simple far clipping) and just send it all on to the drivers. Your only hope in an outdoor scene in Torque is to limit the local complexity: there is a reason the Tribes outdoor levels were designed the way they were.
Torque Game Engine's "Direct3D support" consists of a very thin layer over OpenGL and WGL. In other words, there is no D3D in Torque, no matter what anyone tells you. It's an OpenGL engine only (and the way the code looks, there is no hope of ever abstracting OpenGL from the rendering code). This is not a bad thing, of course, but if you don't look closely you might make the mistake of thinking TGE has D3D support.
I hope this enlightens a few of you who are considering using Torque for your project. I am not saying "don't do it", because there are a few good things about Torque (beyond its price), and their community is just as active as Ogre's, to boot. However, you just need to understand what it is you are getting, and getting into, when you start a Torque project: the Torque Game Engine rendering engine simply is not designed for modern hardware (and I have yet to meet one person with a good thing to say about the Torque Shader Engine, which ostensibly would include support for these modern features we take for granted in Ogre).
Torque Game Engine is geared towards support for old (Voodoo 3) level hardware. As a result, even its outdoor levels are rendered very BSP-like, in that they prefer tons of very small batches. The DTS exporter produces tristripped mesh data that creates tons of unnecessary tiny batches, and the terrain engine is no better: it's all trifans, and small ones at that (no more than 8 indices per fan). The heightmapped terrain in this game gets cut into about 140 chunks by Torque and those chunks were being drawn in about 10 pieces each (average). You can toggle a variable to fix the stupid tristripping in DTS objects but there is nothing I've seen to do the same for the terrain. I got it down from 11,000 batches/frame to what is now roughly (as of today) 2,450 by forcing Torque to use a single tristrip for its shapes, and by changing the way it draws terrain to send all of the indices for a single terrain chunk at the same time. The next experiment is to implement static geometry batching for all of the static objects in the scene.
However, I just had the realization tonight that this is almost entirely futile, unless I want to fix this very important problem: Torque has no support for VBO's. Every single thing that gets drawn has to go through the OpenGL graphics pipeline anew every frame. This means that you might as well have a Voodoo 3 in your machine for all the good that hopped-up 7950 GTX 2 will do for you, because it's all the same to Torque. The game is entirely CPU-bound right now, and there is nothing anyone can do about it without fundamentally changing the way Torque handles its vertex data. So guess what I get to do...
The seemingly very popular Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack must be used very cautiously by your designers: if you let them put dynamic lights all over the place (at least on outdoor scenes) and have everything cast and receive shadows, expect an enormous framerate hit (100% increase without shadows on our minspec machine, roughly 30% on the dual-core dev PCs).
Garage Games apparently is "very proud" of their "terrain occlusion" in outdoor scenes, whereby stuff that is behind terrain "won't be sent to be rendered". Frankly, that's bullshit. I have not yet found an instance of this, nor have I seen any code to back up this claim. Their outdoor scenes use zero culling (other than simple far clipping) and just send it all on to the drivers. Your only hope in an outdoor scene in Torque is to limit the local complexity: there is a reason the Tribes outdoor levels were designed the way they were.
Torque Game Engine's "Direct3D support" consists of a very thin layer over OpenGL and WGL. In other words, there is no D3D in Torque, no matter what anyone tells you. It's an OpenGL engine only (and the way the code looks, there is no hope of ever abstracting OpenGL from the rendering code). This is not a bad thing, of course, but if you don't look closely you might make the mistake of thinking TGE has D3D support.
I hope this enlightens a few of you who are considering using Torque for your project. I am not saying "don't do it", because there are a few good things about Torque (beyond its price), and their community is just as active as Ogre's, to boot. However, you just need to understand what it is you are getting, and getting into, when you start a Torque project: the Torque Game Engine rendering engine simply is not designed for modern hardware (and I have yet to meet one person with a good thing to say about the Torque Shader Engine, which ostensibly would include support for these modern features we take for granted in Ogre).
Torque has no support for VBO's
OUCH!
Evak- You still got that GF3? ;)
who resurrecteed this flame baited, fan boy call to arms, from the grave...
:)
--Mike
:)
--Mike
Why this again ! Torque is lame anyway. blitz is a programming lanuage, torque is a game engine. its like saying is C++ better than the quake 3 engine. lock this now!
Pete
Pete
But it is old fashioned, archaic, and behind the times compared to a good modern game engine.
Are you talking about modern and "affordable" game angine ?
Are you talking about modern and "affordable" game angine ?
TGE doesn't natively support VBOs but it's entirely possible to add support for them. In fact, there's been recent discussions on how to do this very thing (along with quite a few other rendering improvements; see cel-shading, CG water, hardware fogging, etc.).
But whoever wrote that is ultimately missing a very key point.
Simply put, TGE isn't meant to have a cutting-edge scene renderer. That duty has been relegated to TSE (which deserves an entirely different discussion). It's interesting to note that people will readily defend B3D's DX7 support as being a wise decision but dump on TGE because it doesn't (natively) support the latest-and-greatest. TGE is meant to be as compatible with as many computers as possible. That means (as the writer noted) supporting older hardware (or ancient, if you're talking about the Voodoo-series). The benefits of this should be obvious.
If the writer really wanted to make some comparisons between a Torque product and OGRE (which he/she seemed pretty eager to do), they should be looking at TSE. But even that really wouldn't be a fair comparison as TSE is still very much in-development.
And lastly, TGE isn't 'lame' nor is it 'archaic'. It simply serves a different purpose, by default, than the cutting-edge renderers.
Edit: Oh, and since I'm here, there's quite a few misconceptions about certain TGE features that I feel the need to clear up. In particular, I know Evak noted the vehicle support being broken and the physics support being limited so I'll address those.
My game makes extensive use of the built-in vehicle system and I've been nothing but pleased with the results. I've read out-dated thread after out-dated thread over at GG.com talking about vehicle collision issues and while there's certainly some problematic areas, by and large every problem is caused by abnormal values in the vehicle physics datablock. It's a simple (but tedious) matter of tinkering/tweaking these values to get a stable, error-free vehicle simulation. The parameters are even accessible via script so no compiling is necessary.
I do have to blame the TGE documentation for this complaint, though. The example datablock in the documentation results in an unstable vehicular nightmare so it's easy to see why people would assume vehicle support is broken.
As for the physics support being limited, that's not entirely true. There's several options available. There's a RigidShape class and several resources regarding ODE and Tokomak integration. Once again, it's all about how much effort you're willing to put forth.
But whoever wrote that is ultimately missing a very key point.
Simply put, TGE isn't meant to have a cutting-edge scene renderer. That duty has been relegated to TSE (which deserves an entirely different discussion). It's interesting to note that people will readily defend B3D's DX7 support as being a wise decision but dump on TGE because it doesn't (natively) support the latest-and-greatest. TGE is meant to be as compatible with as many computers as possible. That means (as the writer noted) supporting older hardware (or ancient, if you're talking about the Voodoo-series). The benefits of this should be obvious.
If the writer really wanted to make some comparisons between a Torque product and OGRE (which he/she seemed pretty eager to do), they should be looking at TSE. But even that really wouldn't be a fair comparison as TSE is still very much in-development.
And lastly, TGE isn't 'lame' nor is it 'archaic'. It simply serves a different purpose, by default, than the cutting-edge renderers.
Edit: Oh, and since I'm here, there's quite a few misconceptions about certain TGE features that I feel the need to clear up. In particular, I know Evak noted the vehicle support being broken and the physics support being limited so I'll address those.
My game makes extensive use of the built-in vehicle system and I've been nothing but pleased with the results. I've read out-dated thread after out-dated thread over at GG.com talking about vehicle collision issues and while there's certainly some problematic areas, by and large every problem is caused by abnormal values in the vehicle physics datablock. It's a simple (but tedious) matter of tinkering/tweaking these values to get a stable, error-free vehicle simulation. The parameters are even accessible via script so no compiling is necessary.
I do have to blame the TGE documentation for this complaint, though. The example datablock in the documentation results in an unstable vehicular nightmare so it's easy to see why people would assume vehicle support is broken.
As for the physics support being limited, that's not entirely true. There's several options available. There's a RigidShape class and several resources regarding ODE and Tokomak integration. Once again, it's all about how much effort you're willing to put forth.
It's about whether you want to Modify Torque, or Use it.
To get the best you need to modify AND use it- Change source code AND use script.
To get the best you need to modify AND use it- Change source code AND use script.
To make a game outside the 'Tribes' box you need to modify it. Not that it's really that difficult to do. You just need to get over any fears that you won't do it and just make sure to comment any changes to the engine. You can make it do whatever you want pretty easily especially now that the community over there has really dug into most common problems already.
chalk n chEese...
I dont know - all i can say is this - assembly code is only
as good as the person that wrote it..bad assembly level
programming is often worse than bad high level coding..
You can apply the same logic to bmax and C++, how hard
is it to master C++? how hard is to master bmax?
You may also want to consider the fact that bmax may well
produce very tight machine code...C++ compilers vary a
lot, some produce pretty naff machine code..even with
all the optimisation boxes ticked..you are not in control
when using high level languages..bmax or C++..
If your looking for a job in the industry - using torque
makes perfect sense..after all, the skills you aquire using
torque are directly transferable to other engines..
If however your looking to make yourself an indie name..
it doesnt matter what you use - good games are good
games...all you need to do is make sure whoever
publishes your game puts some effort into promoting it.
ok..thats my pointless opinion done with ;)
I dont know - all i can say is this - assembly code is only
as good as the person that wrote it..bad assembly level
programming is often worse than bad high level coding..
You can apply the same logic to bmax and C++, how hard
is it to master C++? how hard is to master bmax?
You may also want to consider the fact that bmax may well
produce very tight machine code...C++ compilers vary a
lot, some produce pretty naff machine code..even with
all the optimisation boxes ticked..you are not in control
when using high level languages..bmax or C++..
If your looking for a job in the industry - using torque
makes perfect sense..after all, the skills you aquire using
torque are directly transferable to other engines..
If however your looking to make yourself an indie name..
it doesnt matter what you use - good games are good
games...all you need to do is make sure whoever
publishes your game puts some effort into promoting it.
ok..thats my pointless opinion done with ;)
I love them both ;)
Initially Torque looks daunting and restricting all at the same time but the truth is with the right skills you can make it do anything.
Sounds a lot like gg.Irrlicht :P(Thank you gman and God, for IrrB3d!)
For lots of adventurous games, using Torque is excessive.
Why twist Torque (heh) to do what you want when you can do relatively the same amount of work with a multi-purpose 3d engine / physics engine that is only a 3d engine / physics engine without all those game engine bits and pieces that don't suit the game?
...And, cross platform is silly :P
If PCs and consoles are so similar that the same games can work on both without thinking about it, there is something seriously wrong.
Not to say that it hasn't always been the case, but remember the old days when Sonic was for Sega and Mario was for Nintendo and each console generally had its own unique style as a result?
Seems to have been lost a bit with all these cross-platform things.
(Which is why I think the DS is the way to go if you're interested in console-specific development and don't mind hardware restrictions; that thing has remarkable hardware for development! ...It took me a day to comprehend why the heck it was doing half my work for me when I'm working at such a low level as LibNDS :P
Sprites, rotation, alpha, etc. are all handled as if by magic).
Jeremy Alessi
Generally speaking I agree with you
Blitz is definitly the best "entry level" engine but if you want to make a step further you must look for something else
I have beem testing 3DGS for about 4 monthes and now I want to try Torque before taking the final decision
However I agree also with Mr Pickelesworth, saying
"Why twist Torque (heh) to do what you want when you can do relatively the same amount of work with a multi-purpose 3d engine "
If an engine makes to much for you , it is actually a drawback unless of course yor are targeting exactly the same kind of game
For example, Torque provides a built_in FSM, that's fine being the most popular AI tool.
However it has been originally designed for weapon selections.
Torque claim that it can be used for any other situation
it it true ?
In general, I want to design a SIM like game, no fps, no explosion , no particle system , no... etc
Based on your experience with Torque, can I expect serious problems
Thanks in advance for your comment
Generally speaking I agree with you
Blitz is definitly the best "entry level" engine but if you want to make a step further you must look for something else
I have beem testing 3DGS for about 4 monthes and now I want to try Torque before taking the final decision
However I agree also with Mr Pickelesworth, saying
"Why twist Torque (heh) to do what you want when you can do relatively the same amount of work with a multi-purpose 3d engine "
If an engine makes to much for you , it is actually a drawback unless of course yor are targeting exactly the same kind of game
For example, Torque provides a built_in FSM, that's fine being the most popular AI tool.
However it has been originally designed for weapon selections.
Torque claim that it can be used for any other situation
it it true ?
In general, I want to design a SIM like game, no fps, no explosion , no particle system , no... etc
Based on your experience with Torque, can I expect serious problems
Thanks in advance for your comment
SIM like as in Sim City ... or something of that nature? Anyway, with Torque it's mostly an issue of learning how/where something is done or is located. Just about every situation is covered already and it's more a matter of education than derivation.
I've looked at Torque a bit. I'm a bit more interested in the Game Builder as that is probably the most comparable to Max at the very moment in terms of capability. I've also been looking at Java.
Personally, I think cross platform capability is a pretty important feature. I know that is more of a political position than anything else. (There are certainly good reasons to focus on one platform over another)
However, if you target an audience, the OS should really be the last thing that audience should have to worry about. Can't help but think that a platform agnostic game is a bit more attractive to publishers as well.
Does anyone know how much can you accomplish with just Torque script when using the 2D game builder? How does the licensing across platforms compare to Max? Are TorqueScripts "compiled", or simply interpretted? How secure are the Torque Scripts from modifcation once you decide to publish?
It seems to me that the cross-platform "Write Once" bulletpoint is essentially thrown out the window the minute you have to resort to modifying the C++ source (unless you go through the trouble of ensuring that your modifications run correctly on the other platforms you're targetting) I guess one could argue the same argument against Max as well to a certain (lesser) extent.
Judging Torque on what you can accomplish only with TorqueScript seems to be the closest to equal footing with Max.
Personally, I think cross platform capability is a pretty important feature. I know that is more of a political position than anything else. (There are certainly good reasons to focus on one platform over another)
However, if you target an audience, the OS should really be the last thing that audience should have to worry about. Can't help but think that a platform agnostic game is a bit more attractive to publishers as well.
Does anyone know how much can you accomplish with just Torque script when using the 2D game builder? How does the licensing across platforms compare to Max? Are TorqueScripts "compiled", or simply interpretted? How secure are the Torque Scripts from modifcation once you decide to publish?
It seems to me that the cross-platform "Write Once" bulletpoint is essentially thrown out the window the minute you have to resort to modifying the C++ source (unless you go through the trouble of ensuring that your modifications run correctly on the other platforms you're targetting) I guess one could argue the same argument against Max as well to a certain (lesser) extent.
Judging Torque on what you can accomplish only with TorqueScript seems to be the closest to equal footing with Max.
TGB kicks BlitzMax to the curb for any typical 2D casual game just using the editor and a tiny bit of script. It's almost a point and click development system that's very powerful. Of course you've got the C++ code and the cross platform nature isn't a big deal when modifying the C++ code because there's a platform layer that converts all code to it's respective platform essentially. If you're going to do something funky in code that the TGB can't already do then I'd argue that it's easier to modify the already existing C++ codebase in TGB then to write a whole engine from scratch in BlitzMax ... which is basically just C++ with BASIC syntax.
Judging Torque on what you can accomplish only with TorqueScript seems to be the closest to equal footing with Max.
No, and TGB is leaps and bounds ahead of Max as far as a game development tool goes. BlitzMax is much closer to C++ more programming language and less game development tool.
Judging Torque on what you can accomplish only with TorqueScript seems to be the closest to equal footing with Max.
No, and TGB is leaps and bounds ahead of Max as far as a game development tool goes. BlitzMax is much closer to C++ more programming language and less game development tool.
Ah.. the deceptive "platform layer". Having done cross-platform business software, and seeing how well that concept works, I'm a bit sceptical. Especially when it's applied to performant-stressed applications such as games.
If you have to go through a platform layer, I wonder why Torque script doesn't expose up to that level on it's own unless the reason is to get performance by writing the torque-script bits as c++. (Which would answer my other question of if TorqueScript is compiled or interpretted)
Software development is my day job, and I typically use the syntax preferred by my employer (or what the majority of the team uses). So it doesn't matter to me if it looks like C++ or Basic or C# or Cobol or Joe Schmoe's Proprietary Code Language. I'm more concerned about what it does and how well it does it. If I'm pointing and clicking and programming a little bit to push it in the right direction, that certainly has some appeal to me.
That said, I'm also not entirely thrilled with the prospect of modifying the main codebase of something I've paid for to get it to do what I want it to do. In my eyes, if I've had to resort to that, the product has failed to deliver.
That's part of what's turned me off on Max. I've seen plenty of examples where the standard modules have to be debugged to "work correctly".
Debugging aside, I'm also a bit skeptical about the so-called flexibility that is offered by giving you the source. That sounds more like a cop-out to me. If Torque's source is one of those that is rigid in the "do it this way, or else" way, it isn't exactly flexible, and doesn't exactly promote great software design practices and can give would-be developers a misconception about how the real world of professional software development works.
Fine. I'm willing to acknowledge those risks while I'm jumping in (both for Max and Torque).
So, differences in style and design approach aside, what can be done in TGB that can't be done with Max + Grey's game framework, for instance. (Or vice versa) And what is the learning curve for beginners? what's it like for professionals? What is the performance like?
If they're comparable, then the toolset definitely gives the edge.
If you have to go through a platform layer, I wonder why Torque script doesn't expose up to that level on it's own unless the reason is to get performance by writing the torque-script bits as c++. (Which would answer my other question of if TorqueScript is compiled or interpretted)
Software development is my day job, and I typically use the syntax preferred by my employer (or what the majority of the team uses). So it doesn't matter to me if it looks like C++ or Basic or C# or Cobol or Joe Schmoe's Proprietary Code Language. I'm more concerned about what it does and how well it does it. If I'm pointing and clicking and programming a little bit to push it in the right direction, that certainly has some appeal to me.
That said, I'm also not entirely thrilled with the prospect of modifying the main codebase of something I've paid for to get it to do what I want it to do. In my eyes, if I've had to resort to that, the product has failed to deliver.
That's part of what's turned me off on Max. I've seen plenty of examples where the standard modules have to be debugged to "work correctly".
Debugging aside, I'm also a bit skeptical about the so-called flexibility that is offered by giving you the source. That sounds more like a cop-out to me. If Torque's source is one of those that is rigid in the "do it this way, or else" way, it isn't exactly flexible, and doesn't exactly promote great software design practices and can give would-be developers a misconception about how the real world of professional software development works.
Fine. I'm willing to acknowledge those risks while I'm jumping in (both for Max and Torque).
So, differences in style and design approach aside, what can be done in TGB that can't be done with Max + Grey's game framework, for instance. (Or vice versa) And what is the learning curve for beginners? what's it like for professionals? What is the performance like?
If they're comparable, then the toolset definitely gives the edge.
If you have to go through a platform layer, I wonder why Torque script doesn't expose up to that level on it's own
the hal is in the engine code... probably a lil deeper than what the script has access to... but i'm sure you could code in whatever your needs would require... which brings us to your second point... I'm also not entirely thrilled with the prospect of modifying the main codebase of something I've paid for to get it to do what I want it to
which i must say, i tend to agree with... heck, the whole point of licensing a game engine, or a higher level coding language, is to save you time and effort... if you've gotta delve into the code, why not forget most of it and code a brute force DX game yourself... the sdk is out there, and it's free...--Mike
which i must say, i tend to agree with... heck, the whole point of licensing a game engine, or a higher level coding language, is to save you time and effort... if you've gotta delve into the code, why not forget most of it and code a brute force DX game yourself... the sdk is out there, and it's free...
It might very well turn out not to be a big deal. I just know that from my own personal experiences, the time you take getting inside the head of the programmer of the code you're modifying could just as easily be spent re-writing it from the ground up. As you've said, that somewhat defeats the point of the time and effort saving. From that perspective, $100-$1200 for a "tutorial" on one team's interpretation of how a game app should be written seems a little... pricy to me. There are plenty of books out there that provide that type of insight for a fraction of the price, and you probably get a lot more out of it in the end.
I see there's a free trial of TGB. I guess I'll have to check it out and make a judgement free of rose-color.
Jeremy: Thanks for your responses thus far. I'm guessing that something that sits somewhere between Max and Torque is what a lot of people are looking for. Until that appears, it looks like we'll be using one extreme or the other.