Implementing GTA-style game

[slapin]

Hi, all!

How hard it would be to implement GTA-style game using Torque3D engine leveraging the following features:

1. AI: Behavior tree, "awarence", "perceprion" systems

2. Vehicle physics, vehicle entering/leaving animation, AI, traffic simulation.

3. Characters - IK, skeleton >= 128 bones, many specific animations, crowd simulation, tagged navmeshes, areas

4. spatial-based events, external behaviors ("smart terrain")

I know how to implement these features (no Open Source engine have them out of the box)

but hard would be to integrate these to Torque3D?

[Johxz]

Hi @slapin

 

How hard it would be to implement GTA-style game using Torque3D engine leveraging the following features:

You need to do it. How hard? I would said it's depends on your skill.

Some one with more exp can give it a better answer. Short answer.

1,2) Yes.

3) Yes. I do not know the limits

4) Don't know what you mean.

I remember a old game "gta" like, called "Atomic City Adventures" developed in T3D search in

maybe you can see some videos to find something useful for you project. Blog of the guy who developed the game Dusty Monk

check my links ;)

[Duion]

If you know how to integrate those features you probably also know how hard it will be.

1. You can use BadBehavior: https://github.com/BadBehavior/BadBehavior_T3D I use it and it is pretty cool.

2. Vehicles are possible, but you probably have to fix and add things here and there for your custom needs.

3. Only thing I do not know is if there is a limit to number of bones, but if you need that many you should probably LOD that anyway, since it will cost probably too much performance in an open world game.

4. The default terrain is already "smart" but GTA does not use a terrain system I think, they do everything with hand made models and some kind of LODing mechanism.

The things that you demand do not exist out of the box in Torque3D for the most part, but you can make a simple prototype game that comes close relatively quick I think.

[J0linar]

regarding 3, You should not expect 128 bones, if i remember right torque3d is set to a max of 64/74 bones (might be wrong... ) Anyways you can push that number up in the source but it won`t do much good for the performance of your app.

[slapin]

If you know how to integrate those features you probably also know how hard it will be.

I do know how to implement features with bare-bone engine with ECS, but not Torque3D, so I ask.

 

1. You can use BadBehavior: https://github.com/BadBehavior/BadBehavior_T3D I use it and it is pretty cool.

Thanks, will look into it.

2. Vehicles are possible, but you probably have to fix and add things here and there for your custom needs.

3. Only thing I do not know is if there is a limit to number of bones, but if you need that many you should probably LOD that anyway, since it will cost probably too much performance in an open world game.

4. The default terrain is already "smart" but GTA does not use a terrain system I think, they do everything with hand made models and some kind of LODing mechanism.

The things that you demand do not exist out of the box in Torque3D for the most part, but you can make a simple prototype game that comes close relatively quick I think.

It seems that I actually look into how to add things to Torque3D, i.e. how much the engine is extendible, i.e. how hard it is to integrate custom things into engine...

Is there some structure, ECS, anything I could align too, any best practices.

[chriscalef]

Re: navigation, there is a very nice built in recast implementation, in case you didn't already know that.

[Duion]

Just ask someone, if you don't know where everything is, most times you can find stuff by using a "search all" function in your code editor in the source code. For example vehicle stuff is obviously in the vehicle class which is probably also called vehicle, there you can then add and extend functionality etc.

[JeffR]

Hey @slapin! Welcome!

To further elucidate on your inquiries:

1) T3D has AI classes built in, but the driving logic is not included by default. Duion suggested a good option with Bad Behavior, which lets you easily put together AI logic trees.

2) It has Flying and Wheeled vehicles out of the box. Doing stuff like AI for them, traffic simulations, or tweaking them to have the particular flavor of physics you need will require some work.

3) IK isn't currently in, but is on the TODO for 4.0. As J0linar mentioned, currently the bone limit is a bit under 100, but that'll be getting a nudge in the near future for 4.0 as well. As Chris mentioned, T3D has the Recast navmesh for navigation, so that should be a good foundation for your crowd sim, as it lets AI find their way quickly and efficiently.

Further, there's an Entity/Component system in currently, but it's still an experimental work in progress. I'm currently working on it to finalize it and it'll be rolled in officially in the near future for 4.0.

As for extensibility, it's definitely very extendable. Adding in new stuff, such as additional libraries for behaviors, creating new game objects and the like, are all fairly simple.

If there's anything in particular you need help with, feel free to ask, I'm sure we'll be able to at least get things rolling in the right direction :)

[slapin]

Thanks a lot for the answers, will definitely give it a try and come up with more practical questions.

[Jason Campbell]

Just wanted to add that performance is going to be an issue when you have tons of draw calls and AI entities running around wheeled or not. I suggest getting some basic AI working and then making a mock up level with placeholder models, just to see what kind of terrain size and amount of performance you are getting. It would take a lot of optimization to get a GTA style and size of map working well as it stands right now, at least I believe so.

Just something to keep in mind, optimization is key.

[Duion]

In GTA they modeled the whole game out of meshes I think because of performance reasons, so you make as big model instances as possible with atlas textures, but I doubt that guys project will ever get big enough so he has to worry about performance. Performance issues come mostly if you have something in your game that runs very inefficiently. Physics for example is one of them or number of AI players.