Andy Peterson
Game Engine Review
CS 5961: Networked Gaming
Torque
Overview
The Torque Game Engine (TGE) is a fully featured AAA game engine with award winning multiplayer network code, seamless indoor/outdoor rendering engines, state of the art skeletal
animation, drag and drop GUI creation, a built in world editor, and a C-like scripting language.
Unlike most commercial game engines, as part of the low cost license, you receive all C++
source code to the engine, so you can make any additions you need for your game.
Torque is a complete cross platform gaming solution which greatly increases your money
making ability without additional development costs. Create your product on the PC, then port
to Mac or Linux within hours. To further reduce development costs, support of Open Source
and free tools are at the heart of the Torque development philosophy. For instance, Quark is
the preferred level and building development solution.
Price
$100 US. (as long as it doesn’t make more than $250,000)
Benefits
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All the source code is available to us so we can make any changes we wish.
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Community Support
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Tutorials
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FPS Starter Kit
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Documentation
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Code Snippets and Resources
Features
Torque Core
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Multi-Platform
Windows server & client with OpenGL and DirectX
Mac OS-X server & client with OpenGL
Linux server & client with OpenGL
Journaling and Integrated hierarchical profiler
Math library, Vector, Matrix, Quaternion, etc.
Efficient memory manager with extensive debugging features; Resource Manager
File and Stream IO
Keyboard, Mouse and Joystick Input
SFX/Music driver using OpenAL
Spatial Database
Collision Testing
Vehicle Physics
Torque Script
 C++ like syntax
 Local and Remote Debugging
Integrated Script Compiler
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Intermediate tokenized object format
On-demand compilation
Large complement of functions including math, object manipulation, fileIO, TCP/IP, etc.
Easily extend with plug-ins
Tools
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Complete source code for all tools
Milkshape and 3DStudio Max plug-ins, including an exporter and helper objects
Quark and WorldCraft converter and lighting
Integrated World Editor, GUI Editor, Terrain Editor, Terrain Generator
World Editor
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Integrated world builder
WYSIWYG
Construct, place, size, scale and rotate objects
Multi-level undo/redo
Edit object properties
Control lighting
Script object behaviors
Built-in terrain editor
Rule based fractal height field generator
Rule based fractal terrain texturing
GUI Editor
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Integrated GUI editor
WYSIWYG
Build fully scriptable interfaces
Includes set of default controls
Write custom controls
Extensive font support
Networking
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Award winning client/server architecture
Uses UDP and TCP
Packet stream manager
Object ghost manager with partial object updates
Bit level stream packing
String and message packing
Uses the optimal Notified Delivery Protocol
Rendering Engine
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Multi-pass texturing
Layered volumetric fog
Decals
Detail texturing
Environment mapping
Vertex and multi-pass lighting
True spherical distance fogging (for terrain, buildings)
Spherical distance clipping (for terrain, buildings)
Terrain Engine
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Continuous, seamless, LOD mesh generation (using screen error metrics)
Aggregated tile mip-mapping
Light mapped for hill and building shadows
Dynamically generated blend tiles
Altitude based fog banks
Seamless integration with the interior engine
Interior/Building Engine
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Portal based interiors
Seamless integration with the terrain engine
Detail brushes
Animated lightmaps
Buildings can be instanced, placed, manipulated and yes, scaled, with the world editor
Quark and Worldcraft converter
Mesh Engine
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Continuous level of detail based on a progressive mesh algorithm
Supports, bone, mesh, texture bitmap, texture coor. and visibilty animation
Mesh vertex deformation animation
Multi-bone mesh skeletal animation
Simple interface to multi-sequence animation manager
Damage detail level
Collision detail level
Projected object shadows (clipped against the environment)
3DStudio Max & MilkShape exporters
Water Engine
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Continuous, seemless, LOD mesh generation (using screen error metrics) for large bodies of water
Dynamic waves
Multi-pass wave crest and shoreline textures
Integration with terrain and interior engines
Particle Engine
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Integrated with scripting engine
Animate texture and scale
Specify particle mass, drag, starting velocity, etc.
Sophisticated particle generators which can emit multiple particle types at once
Sound
 Multi-channel prioritized SFX manager
 3D sound support; panning, volume, doppler, cones
 OpenAL
System Requirements
C++ Compiler
All platforms require an installed C++ compiler in order to build the engine.
Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP
Pentium II 300, 64 MB RAM
OpenGL or DirectX Compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator, DirectX compatible Soundcard
Supported Compilers: Microsoft VC++ 6.0 and above. Others with community support.
MAC OS-X
G3 +, 64 MB RAM
OpenGL Compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator
Supported Compilers: Project Builder (OS-X only)
Linux
Pentium 500, 128 MB RAM
NVIDIA TNT2 or better 3D Graphics Accelerator, Linux-supported sound card
XFree86 4.0 or newer with NVIDIA OpenGL drivers
glibc 2.2 or newer (e.g.: Redhat 7.x+, Mandrake 8.x+, Debian 3.0+)
SDL version 1.2 or newer (1.2.3 or later is recommended)
OpenAL Runtime or SDK Installation
Mesa3D version 3.4 or newer (3.4.2 or later recommended)
Supported Compilers: GNU make and g++ (version 2 or 3)