update/better documentation (Paid)

[Johxz]

Hi

someone can help with new tutorials? update and do better documentation? this job is paid.

regards,

John

[Duion]

Tutorials for what?

[JeffR]

Anything in particular you'd like to see updated?

Little easier for someone to get started if there's some highlights you feel should get attention first. "Documentation and Tutorials" is a pretty big target area ;)

[Duion]

"How to make an MMO"

[Dwarf King]

What is wrong with the current tutorials(GG fps tutorial) and Steve Acaster's resources/tutorials for fps and tactical games?

Both are on the GG site but as I understood it, that site will not go away. We could link to them.

Those guides I found really good and they thought me a bunch about the engines capabilities and its flexibility. Sure some of them are a little out of date but not much.

Here let me link them here for the OP. They are really good:

Steve Acaster's gems

GG's Official FPS/Beginner Torque 3D tutorial

GG's Guides

Gem-A-Day-Paul Dana(more target for Torque Game Engine all in all)

I often hear people talking about the lack of guides and tutorials. That is not true. The GG site has a huge amount of them. Steve Acaster has also made a lot.

Beside that the Torque 3D Cookbook David Wyand is also a real gem one must have. If you search the huge GG database you will also find many gems and solutions.

Is it some special tutorials that you find to be out of date?

Happy New Year!

@Duion

How helpful and informative... :roll:

[Johxz]

First sorry for my answer, I don't have intention to offend anyone.

@Duion oh come on! really??? "How to make a MMO"? what's wrong with you? why the sarcasm? some people don't want to just copy and paste the entire engine and published in store steam :roll: :roll: :roll: sorry but someone has to say it.

@Dwarf King as you can see the last posts about tutorials/books, I was collaborating so I know the existence of all this documentation/books/tutorials/pages... :? :?

so what are you saying is do all this and that's it?? right? :lol: :lol: and why are you only talking about FPS tutorials?? :?

A lot of this are outdated and anybody don't know if still work even the SC don't know I read some "SC/other people" answered where they recommend a tutorials/guide and then a error/problem and then they answered was "oh! that is deprecated" :| :| seriously?? and the newbie need to struggle even days for realise that was a deprecated.

update the documentation, documented the new features, do more tutorials have all of this revised and organized. But I suppose the same old lurker will be the same using torque3d in the future... if we not change that.

Anybody was using some other engine? you all sure read the tutorial/documentation section, so what's the difference with torque 3D documentation? :|

@JeffR Hi, yes I know sorry about that, is wide open, but is a bit true, let me explain. This is for the community. Like dwarf said a lot of people said about the lack of guides and tutorials, why people said that? I know it because I read that sometimes reddit/garagegames/IRC/other games develop pages/other game engine pages. I know is not lack but is very disorganized and outdated.

This engine is more for programmers that artist, some of tutorials/documentation is with code.... but dawrf what is not said is a lot of this tutorials have "code" attached and you can't download from gg or any site, code writing by someone in a rush and only god know what that creature want to do hahaha, old videos removed, incomplete guides (part 1 to 5 but only 1 exist), post/tutorials/guides removed by someone went crazy and erase everything, images removed or broken, broken code, the post have pages of different people through the ages updating the code in a very disorganized manner and then it don't work :lol: or you need to download some other file from other post to complete this but that post was erase, very very old tutorials post that can work but with a lot of work and you need to know the engine C++/TS to update that.

This job is for do a clean quality documentation/tutorials/HOW-TO section. Old documentation will be revised, updated, with new tutorial/guides or how-to. The jobs It will be phased or milestone and the pay always it will be at the end. The person who help, need to published in the wiki, then be reviewed and approved, then it will pay. The SC and the community will be involve to improve or give advice.

So how about if the newcomer want to do: (how they begin with?)

1) A car game or add a car in they game.

2) A board game

3) Or they want to do a mirror

4) Or a radar

5) Or a camera, where you can use different "security cameras"

6) Some game effect (the common ones) like fire, etc...

7) How about if the newcomer want to do a FPS but instead of pistol they want to use magic, like ice ball, fire or something.

9) If the game is a space ship? how they can add a model and how they can change the soldier model for the ship?

10) How about if the newcomer want to do a 2D or 2.5D game and they want to use Torque3D?

11) A horizontal menu where you can select items (The common ones)

12) Or they want to place objects in the game to build stuff (Very popular this days) (I'm not talking voxel, just to place different object). How they begin? or at least some basic of placing cubes one above the other.

Just a ideas from people that sometimes I read on posts.

Regards,

John

[Dwarf King]

and why are you only talking about FPS tutorials?? :?

 

I am not ;) Steve Acaster's resources has a very good prototype of a tactical turn based game. It is even possible to download it(as far as I know). Hence I call his resources for gems :D But I have noticed that some of the pictures has blanked out in his tutorials/resources( @Steve_Yorkshire ). However, the fps tutorial is a must for any newcomer to go through. Crawl before you walk.

Regarding outdated and deprecated code then when I used Unreal 4 that engine also saw outdated tutorials very fast as the engine got constantly updated. I did a C++ book on Unreal to get the hang of the workflow(UE4 C++ API) and the book used deprecated C++ code and I was using a later version of the engine. I did some forum search and solve it. This part is no longer correct: edit - UE4 correct their Youtube videos with squared text boxes to correct wrong statements as that engine sees new versions. - edit - UE4 updates their tutorials with new videosfor new engine versions now and then and as such they no longer use boxes in the videos.

The biggest difference with "bigger engines", in my opinion built upon use/testing of them, are their huge amount of video tutorials. Tutorials about inventory GUI, combat systems etc. That Torque 3D users can find scattered all over the GG site and then get ideas from that and build upon it. T3D has some Vimeo tutorial videos for using editors. They are fine. The guide and the fps are easy for newcomers to find on GG's site.

HeroEngine had A LOT of outdated stuff. UE4 evolved too fast and books(few of those due to the fast development) and videos could not follow up(so squared text boxes are used). It is very costly to keep the documentation up to date.

No matter how many tutorials we put up then people using an engine will have to learn to think as a coder/programmer and know how to learn an API. That counts in UE4, Unity and T3D. Not even with Blueprint in UE4 can you run away from learning an API(the Blueprint API :D ) and see some functions you used to use end up being deprecated over time.

On the Unreal forums you can read people ending up being disappointed about that they hit a brick wall when they realize that Blueprint is coding and that they need to think like a programmer/scripter in order to make everything play together. I also read a thread over their about a person's project being broken as he updated due to deprecated Blueprint/C++ code.

Just to put it blunt. I think your idea is good :mrgreen: I just wanted to make a point here that all engines see this problem over time as they evolve. It is a common problem. If the code/scripts documentation were hook up against the engine it would be more easy(hardly gonna happen).

I suggest that you keep a list of deprecated stuff on this forum, so when/if you remove something in a new version then people can go and see what has been deprecated... Perhaps you already do that(github wise ;) ) or people might just use an Beyond Compare like me to see what has changed before updating/porting?

So I agree better tutorials that are up to date can never hurt. Sadly I have both my hands and my feet locked into work for now.

Edit: Typos etc.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Dwarf King

[Steve_Yorkshire]

But I have noticed that some of the pictures has blanked out in his tutorials/resources

Some of the old free upload/hosts seem to have bugged/deleted some of my old pics - which is annoying but hey, get what you pay for. :/

Just to note, all my old tutorials should be good with teh exception that $typemasks::TsStatic (or whatever it was called) no longer exists and needs updating to $TypeMasks::StaticObjectType - but apart from that, should work as written.

So ... How To Into MMO not getting much traction, then? ;) :P :mrgreen:

[Johxz]

Thanks @Dwarf King I don't know that about UE4. I don't have time too because of my job. Well I try to help insofar as it can to the community, may be paying to someone that have more time :) really this is a good engine and I don't want to people leave. You right about github :!:

 

which is annoying but hey, get what you pay for. :/

:shock: Ahmmm.... it is free does not mean doing a bad job.... even if you pays does not ensure that someone do a good job. So, the statement is not valid. ;)

 

So ... How To Into MMO not getting much traction, then?

:lol: :lol: sorry about that...

Thanks for the comments guys... Well hope I can help... I don't have time but this is I can help and give back to the community.

[LukasPJ]

Thanks for the initiative Johxz and I think it's a great initiative, did you consider asking for specific documentation though? So you can set up a "do this, get this" system. You could use the bounty system (look at the bottom of the page)!

Also, it'd be great if any new tutorials were added to the wiki!

[Dwarf King]

Why is the AFX MIT demo not added to the tutorials? In a sense it is a fine example of a special effect/magic system. It is a shame it is not on the list under tutorials.

[Dwarf King]

@Steve_Yorkshire

So I found the thread with the missing pictures.

Here it is:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/resources/view/21005

I guess you might wanted to fix it :mrgreen:

[rlranft]

But I have noticed that some of the pictures has blanked out in his tutorials/resources

Some of the old free upload/hosts seem to have bugged/deleted some of my old pics - which is annoying but hey, get what you pay for. :/

 

Want me to put them up? I mean, at least I'll tell you when I decide to shut down. If you like the idea contact me and we'll work out how to get the files where they need to be. Of course, you'd then have to go back and update the links in all of those posts....

And - I have started keeping the generated engine docs on my site. Roostertail games, in the side-bar on the right - T3D 3.7 and T3D 3.8 - of course, they're just generated references and because internal documentation is sparse they're pretty cryptic.

[Steve_Yorkshire]

@rlranft Don't think I have copies of them anymore, and I'm not about to go looking through gigs of badly named backups ;)

[rlranft]

[mention]Steve_Yorkshire[/mention] Badly named backups? Why you do that? Anyway, keep it in mind next time - hell, I can even add it to the docs here and push it in as a pull request on the docs repo....

[flysouth]

As a noob starting with T3d about a month ago I agree. I have done some of the tutorials and some of them don't work. Perhaps they are for an earlier version. I have downloaded all the docs I can find and things such as the state machine have very little explaining how it works. And yes as a C programmer I do know how state machines work.

As you might have seen in my other posts I have been trying to mount a turret on a vehicle but with little success. There is not much info how to do this and no examples. As much as I appreciate the tutorials people have done, I find most of them to be the stuff that is well documented. The stuff like mounting a turret is not documented and there are no tutorials.

I do have time and am tempted to offer my services depending on exactly what is expected

[Dwarf King]

As a noob starting with T3d about a month ago I agree. I have done some of the tutorials and some of them don't work. Perhaps they are for an earlier version. I have downloaded all the doc I can find and things such as the state have very little explaining how it works. And yes as a C programmer I do know how state machines work.

As you might have seen in my other posts I have been trying to mount a turret on a vehicle but with little success. There is not much info how to do this and no examples. As much as I appreciate the tutorials people have done, I find most of them to be the stuff that is well documented. The stuff like mounting a turret is not documented and there are no tutorials.

I do have time and am tempted to offer my services depending on exactly what is expected

 

Have you tried to create a mountXX in the model editor and then mount the model their?

Click the model in the world editor.

Enter the model/object editor.

Click on Node in the right side of the screen.

Click on the node in the model you wish to mount something on

When that is marked you click on the white paper(add new node) icon beside the trash can icon

name that new node mountXX

Now you have a node.

Read more here:

https://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/101015

and here(for mounting on the models and how it works):

https://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/21142

Now you might find that the turret is not aligned correctly etc.

That you fix by going into the AdvancedProperties also under Object Editor.

click Mounting

click browse under shape

click Node and select you newly created node.

Let type stand as shape for now.

Then you will see how the model is aligned.

Start to tweak it by selecting the model

use the rotate and move select as needed

You might be frustrated about this... but it does work.

All the above works. I have done it for like 10 different models so far and like 20+ weapons and shapes.

Now it is mounted. Then YOU have to find out how to rotate it with scripting.

I manage to find out how to do this with some searching on the GG website and most of all tweaking around with the editor.

Learning something new can be a frustrating process, but Mounting a turret/shape/weapon in T3D are pretty easy... when you know how to do this.

Oh and this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Programmers-Guide-Torque-GarageGames-ebook/dp/B007COYOTA?ie=UTF8&keywords=game%20programmers%20guide%20to%20torque&qid=1464976141&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

Is still good for getting into the idea how to use TorqueScript. I still use it for inspiration... In fact then get them all. You can buy them used. Just remember that you want the CD included(you want the code to read as well).

[flysouth]

I created the nodes in the model as per the documentation.

I managed to mount it and it all aligns but it just ignores the setTurretEulerRotation command. Even when typed in from console. Also if you use a get command it shows things have changed but not what you set.

Does it work for you in the standard 3.8 T3D?

It is one thing if you want to do something different and it is undocumented and perhaps was never intended that an engine can do something.. then you expect to struggle.

But this is something that the engine supposedly can do but there is little / no documentation on the how. So once you have created your turret, mounted it to a vehicle then how to you control it?

So as the OP said ... we need better docs

[Dwarf King]

I created the nodes in the model as per the documentation.

I managed to mount it and it all aligns but it just ignores the setTurretEulerRotation command. Even when typed in from console. Also if you use a get command it shows things have changed but not what you set.

Does it work for you in the standard 3.8 T3D?

It is one thing if you want to do something different and it is undocumented and perhaps was never intended that an engine can do something.. then you expect to struggle.

But this is something that the engine supposedly can do but there is little / no documentation on the how. So once you have created your turret, mounted it to a vehicle then how to you control it?

So as the OP said ... we need better docs

 

I am not using 3.8 my project was ported to a 3.51 some time ago and I have not taken it to any newer version as it is right now.

I found this about node rotations:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/135308

I believe that is what you need to get the problem with rotation solved.

[flysouth]

Thanks

I see this is in CPP. I looked at the source code to see what the setTurretEulerRotation command does....

_updateNodes(rot);

mShapeInstance->animate();

mRot = rot;

Which looks like what was being discussed in that post.

Taking all of the post about fixes into consideration it looks like this does not work and has never been fixed. So I guess if I want to use turrets I will have to use a different method

[Dwarf King]

Thanks

I see this is in CPP. I looked at the source code to see what the setTurretEulerRotation command does....

_updateNodes(rot);

mShapeInstance->animate();

mRot = rot;

Which looks like what was being discussed in that post.

Taking all of the post about fixes into consideration it looks like this does not work and has never been fixed. So I guess if I want to use turrets I will have to use a different method

 

Welcome to the world of gamedev :mrgreen: