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  • Torque3D

    Welcome to Torque3D, The Premier open-source game engine.


    Proven tech

    Torque has been around for a while, and it's been used for everything from driving simulators to MMOs to interactive coral reefs. Still not convinced?


    See some games

    Gratis et libre

    When you get Torque3D, you get everything. Under the permissive MIT open-source license, you can do what you want with the source code.


    Download it now

    Always evolving

     

    Torque3D is being constantly developed by an enthusiastic community. Its future is in our hands, not those of a company with a bottom line to meet.


    Get involved
  • Features

    Rendering

    Torque3D includes both a high-performance forward-rendering basic lighting engine, and a deferred-rendering advanced lighting mode so you can tailor your game to meet the needs of different customers. The modern rendering system includes per-pixel lighting, normal and parallax mapping, and materials generated by a high-level editor, or written from scratch in GLSL/HLSL. The engine comes with shaders for water, sky and sun, and many common material types.

    The engine also has a powerful PostFX system allowing you to create custom post-processing effects. It ships with buit-in effects including:

    • HDR/light adaptation
    • Depth of field
    • Lens flare and sun rays
    • Screen-space ambient occlusion and FXAA
    • Refraction, reflection and glow

    Editors

    Torque3D comes with everything you need to construct environments and levels from your assets. Shapes are imported in Collada DAE format and placed in the in-game editor. Switch to playing through your level with one press of a button.

    • Powerful terrain editor that allows you to import terrains or sculpt them by hand.
    • The shape editor provides tools for previewing and touching up your shapes after import.
    • The road and river editor modes make it simple to place paths that become solid roads, flowing rivers or decal tracks across the terrain.
    • A fully-featured material editor means you don't have to touch a line of shader code to create great-looking visuals.
    • The GUI editor lets you place HUD and menu elements in an easy-to-use WYSIWYG environment.
    • Torque3D will automatically reload assets that are changed outside the editing environment, enabling speedy development iteration.
    • Editor modes are implemented as plugins, so you can add your own custom modes.

    Networking

    Since its inception as the engine behind the online shooter Tribes 2, Torque has consistently provided high performance, reliable networking for fast-paced online games. The engine has networking built into its core, allowing you to quickly get up and running with networked games.

    Torque uses a server authoritative networking model that helps you to reduce cheating and exploitation. At the same time, the game state is predicted and interpolated locally so each client experiences a smooth view of the action. Time-invarying data is transferred via datablocks at client join time, reducing the amount of data that needs to be networked during gameplay.

    Physics

    Torque3D provides a plugin system for physics. There is a simple built-in implementation which can be easily swapped out for PhysX or Bullet libraries. They enable features like:

    • Cloth dynamics
    • Rigid body dynamics
    • Destructible objects
    • Destroyable joints
    • Fluid buoyancy

    Scripts and source code

    When you get Torque, you get everything. The entire source code is yours to modify under the permissive MIT license. The codebase is mature and extensible with a plugin system, allowing you to easily add features of your own, or from other libraries, to each project.

    If you're not the recompiling type, Torque provides a scripting engine using a custom C-like language called TorqueScript. You can create whole games without touching a line of C++. Check this out:
     

    $minion = new AIPlayer(Fubar) {
       datablock = MinionData;
    };
    $minion.setMoveDestination("50 0 0");
    
    function Fubar::onReachDestination(%self) {
       echo("I made it! Says" SPC %self.name);
    }
  • History

    1998 Starsiege: Tribes
    Developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra, Tribes was a landmark online shooter and the first incarnation of what would later become the Torque Game Engine, introducing the engine's signature large terrains, efficient fast-paced networking and bespoke scripting language.
    2001 Dynamix closed
    Tribes 2, enhancing the original Tribes' gameplay and graphics, was to become one of the last games developed by Dynamix before their closure. Several Dynamix veterans went on to found GarageGames, licensing the Tribes 2 game engine which was released under the name Torque Game Engine.
    2007 Torque Game Engine Advanced
    This incarnation of the engine focused on updating the rendering engine, including per-pixel shading and a new terrain system.
    2009 Torque3D
    The next evolution in the Torque line introduced a modern deferred- rendering engine, an abstract physics layer with a PhysX implementation, and a COLLADA-based asset pipeline.
    2012 Torque3D MIT
    As part of GarageGames' move towards being a service provider and consultancy, the Torque3D engine was released as free open-source software. The first Steering Committee was set up to manage community contributions to the engine, and has been going strong ever since.
  • Download

    Have a look at this wiki page for all downloads and explanations of what to download if you need help! The contents of the zip files have changed in version 3.6.1, as explained here, so if you're used to the project structure of versions 3.5 and below, you might be a bit surprised!


    Tutorials

    There is a wealth of learning material out there for the Torque line of engines, some of which has been collected here. There is also a collection of knowledge on our wiki. Below are some tutorials that we highly recommend to beginners, but for more comprehensive or specific tutorials we recommend you check the forums or wiki.

    • Setting up the engine A detailed look at how to start working with Torque. If you have trouble getting started, here's the first place you should look!
    • Using the Project Manager A quick look at how to use the Project Manager to create and manage your Torque projects.
    • Scripting damage and destruction Creating damageable objects with animations, different damage levels, and destruction effects. A great introduction to the full process of working with art and scripts together.
    • Deathmatch FPS with AI A tutorial series on creating a deathmatch shooter with AI enemies.
    • Action/tactics hybrid game A lengthy series that shows you how to turn Torque into a Valkyria Chronicles- style turn-based action tactics game. Written by Steve Acaster, developer of Airship Dragoon.
    • RTS prototype Build a basic real-time strategy game from default assets.
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