The Garage Games Engine (Tribes2)?

If you're that lazy...
http://www.garagegames.com

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-WarMage
...ever want to feed your boss some "back-bottom gristle lumps"?... See "the ladies man" and tell me what you think...


Edited by - WarMage on October 10, 2001 5:48:17 PM

Garage games I dont like their policies, hell if you were to make a blockbuster game (not likely I guess) you might as well bend over while they pull into your garage. Well I suppose that just about any publisher will try to take it to you.

Anyway, yes you do get the source code and I believe you get tools as well.



"You will be consumed.."

quote:

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Original post by the burn
Garage games I dont like their policies, hell if you were to make a blockbuster game (not likely I guess) you might as well bend over while they pull into your garage. Well I suppose that just about any publisher will try to take it to you.

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Compare the cost in man hours to produce the Tribes II engine compared to 100 bucks? Last time I looked I was not John Carmack, and judging by the fact you are posting on this site suggests that you aren''t either.

How much would it cost you to write your own engine? Think about it. What do you earn at work. Say for arguments sake you earn 25 an hour, the Tribes II engine must have taken at least 3000-4000 hours of coding and testing, (2000 hours in a wrking year, 50 5 day weeks)

Are you so sure you will write a blockbuster on your first attempt?

IMHO 100 bucks is a steal.

Anyway, yes you do get the source code and I believe you get tools as well -the burn

OK, bud, first of all check your facts to make sure you are correct before answering. A couple of guys and I licensed the TORQUE engine (it was used to make Tribes 2, renamed to the V12 engine, then it ran into some copyright road blocks and they renamed it the Torque game engine).

Yes you do get the source code and YES you do for sure get the following tools: 1)a tool to build WorldCraft texture wad files from a collection of .jpgs and .png files (very helpful for your level designer!), 2)a Map to Dif tool that exports WorldCraft MAP files to Torque Engine .dif interior geometry files, 3) a Max2dts exporter, to export 3D Studio files to Torque DTS files (used for characters and static game objects), 4) Max2Map exporter: convert 3D Studio Files to Worldcraft MAP, 5) and another tool to export PNG files to 8 bit palletized textures.

Ok, now before I rave on and on about how this is a great package that you should donate your own liver for, let me say that you should really consider how much you really love your liver. You DO get all the source code for the engine MINUS THE PROPRIETARY STUFF. GarageGames fails to note (or buries the fact deep) that Tribes2 used a third party sound engine. READ: there is no sound support as of this post. It probably will come later (right now, I am looking at a file called OpenAL...hint, maybe?) also note that a lot of the projectile code is ripped out as well, but that one I couldn''t tell you why. i just know it''s very broken.

So what does the source code give you that''s very helpful, you may ask? a very decent physics engine, good graphics support, and an EXTREMELY POWERFUL SCRIPTING ENGINE. that''s not an understatement. it really is a beast. it''s basically C++ with a few minor differences and it compiles when the .exe is run. very cool beans if you ask me.

Above all, however, the reason you shell out 100 clams isn''t for the code, you do it for the support. the online documentation really does a good job of explaining how the engine works and where it everything goes and ends up and so on. but I can really say that so far, whatever problems or questions my group has had so far (i should note that we haven''t really got much of a game going, just really making minor mods and seeing what we can really do. but we are in the process of making a decent game) we have found or gotten an answer from the very helpful forum. GarageGames employees answer the forums on a frequent basis, and a lot of questions you may have are probably already on there and answered.

I tried to write this really long post to give you a good explanation of what you get for you cash. for an extra 40 bucks, you can pick up a copy of Tribes 2. this is an excellent example of the script. other than the forums, this is a great place for examples on the script (i should note that pretty much the entire game is done in the scripting engine. the c++ stuff handles all the underlying graphics and crap like that. oh and about c++ and APIs, it uses DX and OGL, but prefers OGL for graphics).

for 100 bucks, the package is a fantastic. I just have the first snapshot of the engine, and more updates are apparently on the way. "the burn" has the nerve to say "I Don''t like their policies." ok fine, he can license the Q3A engine for a quarter million bucks. but Id won''t take as much in royalties Yes, GarageGames does take 80% of what your game sells if it actually does, but I''m using it for experience and for fun. If this guy is gonna use it to make the next Q3 killer, he should have looked into the matter a little bit more before bashing this great deal.

crap, i forgot to note: if you actually do create a AAA title game like Tribes 2 with the engine, GarageGames will distribute it. If you only sell it online, they take 80%. If it''s really spectacular, they say they''ll box it and publish it with their partners and take 50% of what you make. Just thought i''d mention that as well.

Great, I am not after money anyway

But my question is, how good do you have to be in C++ to get anything out of the Torque Engine.
I know all the basics of C++ and I am like, Intermediate in OpenGL and has no knowledge of DirectX. Is it still a good buy?

Thank a lot for the help, timeiscool

Well, I''d hate to lie to you, but you do have to be pretty comfortable with C++. You don''t have to be an Uber-programmer, but if you are pretty good with OpenGL you should be able to work with it. The whole trick to the Torque engine, my group and I are just starting to really realize, is that EVERYTHING is scripted. You really don''t do a whole lot with the engine''s c++ code, unless you are trying to implement a totally unsupported feature.

I should probably mention here that the Torque engine is like (this is their number) 300,000+ lines of code. This may seem overwhelming when you first purchase it, and you may spend the first couple hours in Visual C++6 just scrolling up and down saying "Wow, where the F*!# do I start?" But if you aren''t implementing 3D positional sound and a neural network AI, you won''t spend any time in the engine code, you''re gonna change that all with the script. I can''t stress this enough: THE SCRIPTING ENGINE IS A BEAST. It''s looks very much like c++ or java, and the engine compiles it very fast at runtime.

So to answer your question, you could probably do decent. I don''t consider myself very good with C++. I''ve only had about a year and a half of formal (school) education with it, but I''ve been programming on and off for the last 5 or 6 years (go QBASIC and plain old C). The great thing about the Torque engine is the support. For example, I was having a problem with the exporter for 3D Studio Max Files to the .DTS files that the Torque engine uses. I put a post on the private Torque forum (the forum you can only use if you''ve licensed it) about 4days ago. I just received an email today from Tim Gift, one of the indivuduals actively working on the Torque engine.

Or here''s another one: at first we thought that our game would use vehicles in kind of a crazy dash for items in a level (if you''re thinking along the lines of Smuggler''s Run for PS2, your on the right track). Now we all knew that Tribes had vehicles, so that functionality should be pretty easy. If you do a search on the forums for "vehicle," I ended up with 17 different threads about vehicles, wheeled vehicles (which is a bit of a problem right now because of the way the physics engine only updates like 60 times a second, so if you do use wheeled vehicles you may have to wait to implement those till later).

Um, well to close it off, if you got the cash, go for it. You''ll get actual experience. I think that really trying to figure out this engine for say three months will give you more experience than three months in a college programming course. And the more you program the more you just get better at it. If you can handle pointers, classes, structs, it shouldn''t be a problem. And if you can, buy Tribes2. This is probably the best "show by example" you can get for the Torque. But it is fun to actually work with, and you don''t know how drop jawed my team and I were when we followed a tutorial and found out how easy it was to just put in a flying vehicle (providing that you used the Tribes 2 vehicle model and a file from the game describing the vehicle properties).

Good luck, Moogle (god i love the Final Fantasy games. 1-1-02: FFX will be out and all will be good).

ok crap, I kind of made one of my first statements unclear. if you are just making a gameplay change type mod and just making new graphics, you don''t have to actually touch the OpenGL code. i was just saying that if you are that good with OpenGL and you consider yourself intermediate, then you''d probably be ok. you really shouldn''t have to touch the OpenGL or DirectX code.

oh and if you buy it and you start crying ''cause you see and asm folder and you''re like "why in God''s great name are they using ASM?" it''s for processor specific functions like mmx, and for simple functions like division and stuff. Just to get that out, cause i started swearing at my computer when I saw it.

Ok, thats sounds nice,
but lets say I am not going to do first person but third person and have a completely differnet GUI than Tribes 2 and other functions (dialouges, inventory of items, a moneysystem and stuff), Would I acctually do this in scriptning?

How limited is the Torque engine to a specific genre? Say I want to make a RTS? Can I just script it to show everything form above and have different camera controls and have another GUI?

THanks In Advance
//Sebastian Jensen

The engine does allow a lot of flexibility. For instance, implementing a third person view wouldn''t be hard at all because in the example program that comes with the engine, if you hit "tab" the example program goes into 3rd person mode. if you hit F8, you get a free roaming camera mode. Dialogues, inventory, and a money system would all be implemented in the script. Um, as far as making your own GUI, it wouldnt'' be difficult at all, because I forgot to mention that the example comes in with a built in GUI editor It works like a more pain in the ass version of Visual Basic, where you place a button, or a HUD component, or a dialog box where you want it, then you tell it what to do (if you don''t know VB, you''ll still figure it out pretty quickly because you can edit the controls already in the example program and see what GarageGames did). But just about everything is done in the scripts, which may not sound good to you, but it''s actually a godsend so you don''t have to recompile the engine everytime

It seems pretty flexible. I mean it''s basically like any other 3D engine. Look at Unreal and look at Deus Ex. or Look at Q2 and then look at Anacronox. If you are creative, you could probably get a lot out of the Torque engine. The actual engine just handles all the underlying graphics and input and all that (but not the keyboard binds, that''s in the scripts as well ) you script it to actually make the game.

Given that this topic is pretty broad (and definitely not Game Design) I''m moving it to the Lounge.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

I should probably note here that GarageGames updated the Torque engine, and it now supports some audio, and cleans up a lot. It''s getting pretty cool