TSE Update - Milestone 3 release
by Brian Ramage · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 04/07/2006 (12:53 am) · 123 replies
It's all checked in, here's what you get:
TGE 1.4 merge!!
Marble Blast Ultra merge!!
Skinned meshes no longer re-calculate tangent space matrices constantly
Fixed misc tangent space generation problems on curved .dts shapes
D3D now running a Pure Device
LOD's now work for .dts objects
Optional D3D Lib check - makes sure user updates to latest D3D libs for shipping builds
Precipitation bounty in place
Materials have double sided rendering option
Fixed glow offset in editor
Interior debug rendering bounty in place
FXSunlight and FXFoliageReplicator bounties in place
Fixed WaterBlock creation in editor
Fixed misc world and Gui editor crashes / broken functionality
Fixed render target stack issues - made more efficient
Fixed misc D3D render state initialization issues
Added unicode support
Sun color affects procedural materials
... many bug fixes...
OK, so this is not everything that was posted in my blog, some features got pushed to MS4 because we have some extra development bandwidth coming. I think you guys will be happy when you hear what we are doing with the lighting there. The render batching did not make it into this build, but that is a high priority for MS4, so there is still a lot of performance work coming that will make TSE run much faster. I expect there to be more updates with MS4 as well, so hopefully you won't be waiting so long between updates.
There are a _LOT_ of changes in this update, so please download a CLEAN copy from CVS before you report any build problems, thanks.
TGE 1.4 merge!!
Marble Blast Ultra merge!!
Skinned meshes no longer re-calculate tangent space matrices constantly
Fixed misc tangent space generation problems on curved .dts shapes
D3D now running a Pure Device
LOD's now work for .dts objects
Optional D3D Lib check - makes sure user updates to latest D3D libs for shipping builds
Precipitation bounty in place
Materials have double sided rendering option
Fixed glow offset in editor
Interior debug rendering bounty in place
FXSunlight and FXFoliageReplicator bounties in place
Fixed WaterBlock creation in editor
Fixed misc world and Gui editor crashes / broken functionality
Fixed render target stack issues - made more efficient
Fixed misc D3D render state initialization issues
Added unicode support
Sun color affects procedural materials
... many bug fixes...
OK, so this is not everything that was posted in my blog, some features got pushed to MS4 because we have some extra development bandwidth coming. I think you guys will be happy when you hear what we are doing with the lighting there. The render batching did not make it into this build, but that is a high priority for MS4, so there is still a lot of performance work coming that will make TSE run much faster. I expect there to be more updates with MS4 as well, so hopefully you won't be waiting so long between updates.
There are a _LOT_ of changes in this update, so please download a CLEAN copy from CVS before you report any build problems, thanks.
About the author
#82
With TGE 1.4 and now TSE MS3, there were some changes in the way the Firstperson/Thirdperson calling is done in Scripts and Engine. So, I would expect that is the cause, as it is working fine for my scripts, but I had ported from 1.4 and left most of that intact to make sure it would cleanly work with MS3
04/08/2006 (10:57 pm)
You need a MS3 version of Starter.fps, which is being fixed up by Joesph. With TGE 1.4 and now TSE MS3, there were some changes in the way the Firstperson/Thirdperson calling is done in Scripts and Engine. So, I would expect that is the cause, as it is working fine for my scripts, but I had ported from 1.4 and left most of that intact to make sure it would cleanly work with MS3
#83
04/08/2006 (11:05 pm)
Thanks, just replaced that firstPerson function in default.bind with the TGE 1.4 version and it works.
#84
04/08/2006 (11:09 pm)
Just a note, the changes GG made to the camera switching seem to be equivalent to that in the advanced camera tutorial. It seems you can literally just drop the advancedCamera.cpp and .h into TSE now, compile and make use of it with the script changes ;)
#85
04/09/2006 (11:02 am)
Fresh install on a new computer(2 weeks old) and after fixing a couple errors, I got it to work!
#86
Oh well, what's the use. I guess we'll have to wait for that as well as the promised atlas changes that never made it.
04/09/2006 (3:10 pm)
Brian Ramage - The community (jacob) developed a new water shader that is not available in any form in the forums. He handed this off to Tim Aste who told us that we would see it in milestone 3. It was in the Legions demo. Oh well, what's the use. I guess we'll have to wait for that as well as the promised atlas changes that never made it.
#87
04/09/2006 (3:42 pm)
Well, if it's an issue for GG to get that working and released, I can always try to prep it up for release to everyone. Will take me a lil bit though, theres some changes in need though. But I'll look into it perhaps on Monday or Tuesday.
#88
I remember, when I bought TSE, reading somewhere... maybe on the TSE product page or FAQ, TSE is not simply TGE + Shaders but a complete engine rewrite.
So why is TSE now based on TGE 1.4...
Not that TGE 1.4 is a bad thing, just curios
04/09/2006 (3:52 pm)
Wasn't TSE supposed to be a complete rewrite?I remember, when I bought TSE, reading somewhere... maybe on the TSE product page or FAQ, TSE is not simply TGE + Shaders but a complete engine rewrite.
So why is TSE now based on TGE 1.4...
Not that TGE 1.4 is a bad thing, just curios
#89
04/09/2006 (4:26 pm)
I assume so that it will make porting over from TGE 1.4 easier. Scripting changes etc. 
#91
04/09/2006 (6:00 pm)
TSE was a rewrite of the rendering code, not the entire engine.
#93
Well I looked into the Datablock situation and with the number of changes to Rendering Pipeline now and forthcoming, its not too feasible to try and switch it around, unfortunately. Is there any plans to add some sort-of CRC'ing or such to Material or Shader settings?
I know this could be helped by putting all of the hlsl in a zip or some sort of package and forcing the engine to use it and not allow extra files.. but this also kills modability in some cases. There may be other ways that I have not thought about, but for any MP Game made on TSE, it should be a concern. Seeing as the current system allows any client to modify his shaders or material definitions, and pretty much allow cheating with ease.
04/10/2006 (4:22 am)
@Brian:Well I looked into the Datablock situation and with the number of changes to Rendering Pipeline now and forthcoming, its not too feasible to try and switch it around, unfortunately. Is there any plans to add some sort-of CRC'ing or such to Material or Shader settings?
I know this could be helped by putting all of the hlsl in a zip or some sort of package and forcing the engine to use it and not allow extra files.. but this also kills modability in some cases. There may be other ways that I have not thought about, but for any MP Game made on TSE, it should be a concern. Seeing as the current system allows any client to modify his shaders or material definitions, and pretty much allow cheating with ease.
#94
There are many things you can do to protect your data from cheating eyes, it's really on the edge of where game engine functionality leaves off and where the game developer begins to write things specifically for their game.
04/10/2006 (10:12 pm)
@Jeremiah - we'd like to add functionality like that, but it's just not a very high priority. For custom shaders and other data, the Resource Manager does support .zip files, so you could (theoretically) stuff all the .hlsl files in a .zip and the engine should be able to parse it and read them. Haven't tried it myself though. There are many things you can do to protect your data from cheating eyes, it's really on the edge of where game engine functionality leaves off and where the game developer begins to write things specifically for their game.
#95
Say if someone was to modify their materials to say 'make them invisable' to other players, because the materials aren't sent over the network the player would only appear invisable to themselves right? 2c's
04/11/2006 (3:54 am)
@Jeremiah's point. I took your point to be that a player could cheat my using an invisable material or by using camo etc. But then I thought about that point a little more.Say if someone was to modify their materials to say 'make them invisable' to other players, because the materials aren't sent over the network the player would only appear invisable to themselves right? 2c's
#96
04/11/2006 (4:40 am)
Invisable walls....
#97
04/11/2006 (10:04 am)
Even if people cant change the material, theres a way of modifying any D3D device render states, system wide, trying to stop people from cheating is a wasted effort. 
#98
Can anyone tell me if there's a difference in the waterblock/particles yet? ie. In my MS2 version, there are no splashes etc when a player or projectile collides with water. Is this in now?
cheers
harvey
04/11/2006 (1:12 pm)
Hi all.Can anyone tell me if there's a difference in the waterblock/particles yet? ie. In my MS2 version, there are no splashes etc when a player or projectile collides with water. Is this in now?
cheers
harvey
#100
04/11/2006 (2:00 pm)
Splash code was commented out/removed, and won't be making a return (was posted somewhere).
Torque 3D Owner Matt Huston