Latest GarageGames News

GarageGames Forum News - August & September

Sorry for the lack of updates on the news front. It's been a really busy time in my life, but isn't that always the case? I've been meaning to get back to these since there's some amazing stuff happening in the community. Going back through the posts and blogs and resources always amazes me!

My favorite blog though, had to be about when Deb went home sick and the GG crew created a fort around her office area. Classic!

Also wanted to mention the continuation of the Plastic Gems from Plastic Games. Thanks to Anthony for reminding me. I had posted some of them in the previous news item, but hadn't continued it in this. Big mistake as these are awesome!

July Forum Topics and Blogs
Amaranthia posts code for determining video acceleration in TGB
SetSkin in TGEA 1.7.1
Tread Back in Production
Little bits of TNL Love
Alex Stone provides information on using new versions of OpenAL on OSX to stop Theora Problems
Blender2Map Tutorial
Force single-cpu usage in TGE 1.4.x
Ryan Mounts Shares his Ambient Occlusion Resource for TGEA
Line, Circle, and Elipse shapes in TorqueX
Vimeo (and other) vids on GarageGames!
Gareth Fouche's Scars of War concept art
Unit Testing in TGB Pro
Free MultiPrint plugin for DogWaffle
38 Levels of MB Platinum by Henry
TrueSpace 7.6 available for free
Testers needed for Freeware Car Combat game
TGB in-game cinematics!
Thread with a collection of video tutorial links
Marble Blast Platinum 1.10 released
AFX 1.1.2 for TGEA 1.7.1 -- Now Available
David Horn releases videos and screens of Homebrew Wrestling
Davey's Blog on TorqueX Community and 360 Development
Blue-Raja's mock-objects for Unit Testing in Torque

August Forum Topics and Blogs
Go Belerium TGB source code!
(for those who missed the game)
AISeek announcement in GameDeveloper noted on the forums
Tilting the camera in TGB
Interesting discussion on Torque for Students
PacManiac's high-score tutorial for TGB
Morrock provides *excellent* help on using Triggers
Itla Itla's materials
Formations in TGB (film at 11)
A cool "Wall of Fire" Discussion on the AFX forums
Fun tutorial with PD Particles space artwork
Kevin Epps wants feeback on the music for his stage intro scene in TGB
Interesting discussion of "blurred" textures and a detailed (image-heavy) analysis
Documenting TorqueScript Scoping Rules
Nicholas Buquet provides his experience with compiling under XCode 3.1
Isaac Barbosa shares his TGB Match-3 Code
Bron-Y-Orc Stomp from AFX Spellpack 2
Subscription-based message routing (already) in TGEA
Logan shows off some of the Lore: Aftermath customization
Ben Versaw's engine for the iPhone is getting better
Mike Rowley's Rigid Shape example
TGEA 1.7 browser plugin (adapted from the existing resource)
Frank Bignone shows off his 3D GUI interfaces for Pelorea: Tactical War (and releases them as resources)
Wheel GUI resource
3D Folder resource
Jaimi gets Lens flares working in TGEA
Nice discussion of Materials in TGEA
Jeff Faust posted his Flaming-Stick Trick


September Forum Topics and Blogs
Updated Penny Paint for PD Particles: now at v1.1
Nice information on adding component assemblies to TX
Apparatus has started a great topic on Constructor
TGEA Realtime Radiosity Kit
Cool iTGB feedback notes
Torsion and Parallels developing on iTorque
Drag-and-Drop in TGEA 1.7
2D Games with TGE
Cool article on OpenGL ES optimization
iTGB released into the wild!
More animations for the Villager from 3DGDA
Good start at implementing recording in TGEA 1.7.1
Event control in TGE
Constructor Plugin reference added to TDN
Behavior Trees in TGB
Michael Perry updates everyone on his documentation efforts!

October Forum Topics and Blogs
New Tutorial for Animation States in the TGB Platformer Kit on TDN
Lighting and Shadow Pack for TGB
Tutorial for creating a wood texture in Photoshop
Interesting investigation of OpenGL 2.0 in TGB
Nice discussion on iPhone optimization
FreeSpace-ish title in development
Dave Calabrese's presentation on game development
Sprinting with energy bar effect
Working with different video recording software
More Orcs vs Martians
Casual Connect in Hamburg
Useful, Generic Functions by Jeremy Easoz
Michael Vanderpool's snapping tool for TGE/A
Open Source for Game Developers - A New Debate on Business Models
Touch tutorial for iTGB

Awesome Musicians and Artists
Office Art!

Liam Bradbury pimps his royalty-free music
Aldo Scoppa has updated his SFX portfolio
Meyou shows off more of his work
Dave's Fry Up


Video (2MB, WMV)
Epochapex shows of his art skills
Brian Timmons shares his composing expertise
Nino Rajacic shows off his musical skills
Syama Pedersen shows off his talents!


Brian Smith offers Sci-Fi buildings
Tamara is pure awesome!


Josh Euan shows off some Constructor work
Constructor Nuke Base WIP
Ando shows off some of his artwork in Torque
Balu provides some free music loops
William Freeman's 3D Sketchbook

Jan Knetsch shares his musical experience
Ran Reynolds shows off his composition skills
Game-Ready models by Greg Breault
Jaap Visser releases more royalty-free music packs
Maxwell Marsh's Support Mech

Eon Blue shows off some artwork


Wicked Sweet Projects
GoGo Digger!

To Be King
New release of vSide
Ben Wersaw and Dennis Van Den Broek's iPhone RPG Engine

UC Berkeley Virtual Culture Projects in TGE (thanks Davey!)
7th Street
Sambor

Paddlepop the Pyrata post-mortem
ChainWorks
Toby Turtle Updates
Zombpocalypse
Working Tactical AI Kit
Nuts About Nuts!

Lucky's Carnival

Cool New Content Packs That Landed in the Torque World
New Game Design shop opens
Cave Construction Kit from Arteria Games
Free packs from Digital Light Storm
Apparatus Props Pack
Apparatus Door Pack
DexSoft Games Industrial Pack 1
DexSoft Tropical Pack
Arteria releases the Harpy model
Sultan's Palace from DexSoft
Arteria - Castle Dungeons Pack
Street Drivers Model Pack

Platic Gems
The Plastic Gems series is above and beyond the usual cool stuff that I see around here, and the fact that Plastic Games has released them all to the community is amazing.

Plastic Gems resources that have been posted

#1 : Placable Shapes
#2 : Animation Threads
#3 : Ease
#4 : Animated GUI's
#5 : Portability
#6 : Data Inheritance
#7 : Marker Shape
#8 : Auto Naming Marker
#9 : Visual Editing
#10 : The Conference Gun
#11 : Kirk Alberts' Urban Decay 1 of 5
#12 : Kirk Alberts' Urban Decay 2 of 5
#13 : Kirk Alberts' Urban Decay 3 of 5
#14 : Kirk Alberts' Urban Decay 4 of 5
#15 : Kirk Alberts' Urban Decay 5 of 5
#16 : Triggers - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
#17 : Managed Triggers
#18 : Fan Shape
#19 : Fan Code
#20 : Dynamic Creation
#21 : Vector Functions and Aligning Objects

Cool Stuff
DoggyFX Pro is now a free plugin for PD Pro
Pat Wilson shares some extremely cool shader knowledge on deferred shading
Jaimi releases Constructor 1.05!
Cultural Preservation Project using Torque (Thanks Davey!)
Pat provides great information on render targets in TGEA
Diballic Source from Kevin James (private forums)
RTS Creature pack script resource
Devon James provides some excellent help for 3D deployment of TX on the 360
TGEA 1.7 - sgMissionLightingFilter does not show datablock
TGB 1.7.3 - level1.t2d will not show in editor
Visual Studio 2008 build with multiple processes
Dexon Knight free with product purchase from DexSoft Games
Mike Rowley helps with Torque Physics
Andy Hawkins provides his RTS Build Script
Orion Elenzil provides how to extract alpha values without an alpha channel
tsSurfaceRender port to TGEA 1.7.0's Foliage Replicator by Taylor Petrick
James Thompson ports Melee Combat resource to TGEA 1.7
MMO Kit Advanced update
Multiple GamePad support in TGB
Massive Gravitic ( :) ) bodies demo
Pulse project
Plastic Gems artwork
How to become a Game Industry Composer
Detail Map fix
Shelled! Online Release!
Cool RegEx discussion
James Hawn releases a city pack
Helpful topic about compiling in Visual Studio 2008
AFX 1.1.2 beta 2 for TGEA 1.7.1 now available!

Wicked Sweet Projects
Island Survival Run
Go Beryllium!
Affinity (TGB)
Hover Racing
Zombie Attack
Lylian
Warbands - Rise of Baron Muntu
Diballic from Kevin James

Awesome Artists and Musicians
Real-World Seamless Textures available from umedia
DexSoft Dark Age Music Pack
Wizard Aeromar from Arteria 3D
A.Y.
Sound FX Pack Online
Jaap Visser promotes his music design services
Apparatus releases his environment pack
Ori Cohen releases the RTS Creatures Pack!
Eivva Games Stone Pack
Detailed Female Character model from Gaming Baboons
Arteria Gaming releases a new tutorial for Constructor: Create a Castle!
Girl pack from Gamer Goof

Eugene, OR, June 12, 2008 -- Side Effects Software and GarageGames announced today the availability of Houdini Apprentice HD 9.5 with Torque Exporter for $99 from GarageGames.com. This full-featured solution lets independent game developers develop, then export next-gen quality art content directly into the Torque line of game engines. Houdini Apprentice HD offers the same indie friendly licensing that is currently available with the Torque line of game engines. The exporter is also included with Houdini Escape and Houdini Master versions 9.5 for commercial game development.

''From the very first conversation, we felt that Side Effects really understood the indie philosophy of providing professional quality tools to the masses,'' said Derek Bronson, 3rd Party Development Manager for GarageGames. ''GarageGames is always looking for ways to improve its art pipeline and the Houdini exporter opens the door for artists to use an incredible tool at a very affordable price.''

Houdini offers game developers a wide range of artist-friendly modeling, animation, lighting, rendering, character and effects tools. But it is Houdini's procedural node-based solutions that will make it easier to populate games with high quality next-gen content. The exporter supports the output of meshes, nodes, animation, bone animation, level of detail, textures, UV coordinates and more to the Torque line of game engines. Houdini 9.5 is available for the Mac OS X, Linux and Windows operating systems.

About GarageGames
GarageGames is located in Eugene, Oregon and on the web at www.garagegames.com. As the makers of Torque Game Builder, Torque Game Engine, Torque Game Engine Advanced and Torque X, they have been providing game development tools and technology at an affordable price since 2000. The Torque Technologies line of game engines have been used to develop hits such as Marble Blast Ultra, Fallen Empire: Legions, Penny Arcade Adventures, Screwjumper, Rocketmen and countless other titles on Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox 360 and GarageGames' own InstantAction web-based gaming service.

About Side Effects Software
Established in 1987, Side Effects Software is a world leader in the development of advanced 3D animation and special effects software for use in film. Side Effects Software leads the field of procedural animation with its unique, award-winning, Houdini technology. Houdini is used by numerous digital content creation leaders including: EA, Disney Feature Animation, PSYOP, Framestore-CFC, Asylum FX, The Mill, Method Studios, C.O.R.E., Digital Domain, Rhythm and Hues, and Sony Pictures Imageworks among others.

Links of Interest
Houdini Apprentice HD
GarageGames
Side Effects
Media/Logo Kit
RSS Feeds

Eugene, OR, May 15, 2008 -- Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the episodic series based on the popular webcomic, is a 3D cell-shaded RPG-Adventure game set in the deranged 1920s universe of New Arcadia. Armed with unconventional weaponry, players join forces with Gabe and Tycho of the Startling Developments Detective Agency to make war on bizarre enemies and solve the mysteries hidden deep in the sinister heart of New Arcadia.

Hothead Games chose Torque as the foundation for developing On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - a game that will appear on PC, Mac, Linux and Xbox LIVE Arcade - in part for its cross-platform support. "Using Torque really helped us to get development up to speed quickly and bring the game to more gamers," said Vlad Ceraldi of Hothead Games. "Rather than developing platform code from the ground up, we were able to build off of Torque and focus more effort on honing the actual game."

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is scheduled to launch next Wednesday, May 21, and is just the most recent in a long line of successful titles made with Torque on Xbox LIVE Arcade. GarageGames' own Marble Blast Ultra is one of the platform's all-time top ten and more than a dozen other titles using Torque have been published on Xbox LIVE Arcade to date.

"Torque keeps improving with every trial. The Hothead team took Torque in a unique rendering direction and we learned a lot from that. To Hothead's huge credit, the results are awesome," said Brett Seyler, VP Business Development at GarageGames. "Looking at the game now, it's a blast to play and definitely faithful to the Penny Arcade comic's style and humor."

GarageGames provides Torque 360 licensing for developers with no term limits on development and a zero-royalty, flat-fee structure. Heavily discounted license pricing is available for games targeting the Xbox LIVE Arcade downloadable service, versus those aiming for disc-based retail delivery. GarageGames claims Torque is the most widely used engine middleware for XBLA development.

For more information regarding the Torque 360 license, please contact GarageGames at 541-345-3040 or licensing@garagegames.com.

About GarageGames
GarageGames is located in Eugene, Oregon and on the web at www.garagegames.com. As the makers of Torque Game Builder, Torque Game Engine, Torque Game Engine Advanced, and Torque X, they have been providing game development tools and technology at an affordable price since 2000. The Torque Technologies line of game engines have been used since to develop hits such as Marble Blast Ultra, Fallen Empire: Legions, Penny Arcade Adventures, Screwjumper, and countless other titles on Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and GarageGames' own InstantAction web-based gaming service.

About Hothead Games
Hothead Games is an independent game developer and publisher based in Vancouver, Canada. The company is committed to creating top quality games for the experienced gamer. Hothead is best known for its upcoming RPG-adventure game series, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, based on the widely popular Penny Arcade online comic strip. Hothead self-publishes its titles with a focus on offering accessible game play and episodic content through digital distribution. Visit www.hotheadgames.com for more information.

Links of Interest
Torque 360
GarageGames.com
Hothead Games
Media/Logo Kit
RSS Feeds

That's right! More cool stuff and wicked sweet projects from the forums!

Cool Stuff
Melv's sweet collision and physics document for TGB
Adding "simple" collision for trigger and onCollision callback to the RTS Kit
Dan Keller provides extremely helpful information on Rigid Body setups!
Nice discussion of interactive file access in TGE
Joseph Greenawalt describes exporting effects from Blender
Magnus compiles the Max exporter for 2009
Mike Rowley provides the TGE 1.5.2 OpCode integration files
Alex Stone provides a fix for the ALT-TAB crash (I included Amanda Fitch's programmer's
information for it in TGB as well)
Alex Stone provides help in solving flying vehicle-ground collision issues
Mark Dynna helps out by providing clarification on SimID's
Great Datablock discussion with extremely helpful input from Stephen Zepp!
A rather interesting look at TGEA's shadowing with screenshots
Jaimi provides great information for working with Constructor
Interesting discussion on polysoup portaling methods
Matt Fairfax provides an excellent evaluation of MegaTerrains
TGB TDN News for April
Torque Collaborative Design World Tool for TGEA 1.7
Interesting discussion on Squad-based movement

Wicked Sweet Projects
Nicolai Dukta shares some of his college Torque projects
Torque MMO Kit advanced C++ MMORPG Extensions ready for testing with TGEA
Frayed Nights Pilot Episode Beta


TGEA Hover Racing


Awesome Artists & Musicians
Maxim releases more free models!


DexSoft releases Middle East Building Pack

Due to unexpected latency and resource eating, I had to scale back these for a bit. But I got some time to parse them and let them into the wild. There's a lot here, so enjoy if you missed some of the stuff that's going on in the community over the last month!

There's a ton of stuff, but I've tried to break it up a bit to be more readable!

Cool Stuff
Deborah Marshall releases a video "Rainy Day" tutorial for TGB
Zap available on InstantAction
Michael Perry helps out new users
Michael Perry helps out new users with folders
Adding Modifier keys to mouse functionality in TorqueX by Scott Goodwin
Excellent discussion on specular mapping in TGEA (with screenshots)
Lee Latham helps with rigid body physics (TGE)
Information on posting TGEA Open Beta bugs
Major known issues in TGEA Open Beta 1
TGEA Open Beta Documentation Feedback

RTS Unit particle emitters by BillF
Good discussion on ending a game in TGB
Neat hack from Peter Simard to disable lighting
Derek Bronson announces the Houdini exporter beta
Ground Cover (TGEA Open Beta 1) changes for ATLAS terrains
Vespers3D progress and NPC discussion
Portal fix test edition for Constructor
CameraManager Singleton released on TDN
Collaborative World Editor in Torque
Good discussion of GuiMLTextEditCtrl

Interesting discussion on controlling animations
ZergCow shares his dynamic web page from object id process
round burst weapon discussion (with an example by Maxwell Marsh)
Nice discussion on polycount and textures in TGEA
Bill Vee explains tree depths on ATLAS terrain
Joseph Greenwalt provides a Windows file association hack for Torque ShowTool Pro
Nice discussion on TGB's clamp and velocity
Great rigid body physics discussion (TGB)
Fun opening to a discussion on Breakout behaviors (with code) in TGB
GUI's on in-game textures (TGEA)

Very, very cool map2dif additions
Balls of Steel (Unity)
TGB TDN News for March
TetraWeb's new TGB Breakout tutorials
Nice discussion of schedules and simsets in TGB
Workaround for scene loading and unloading problems in TorqueX
Portal-esque movement and translation of player
GPU Gems available for free (thanks to Stephan Goebels for posting!)

Peter Simard requests feedback on the launch of Crowns of Power
3DRT YouTube video of Dragon Pack in Showtool Pro
Free Motion Capture Data
Stephen Zepp provides excellent help on triggers
Stephen Zepp and Jeff Faust provide input on runtime debugging
Matt Vitelli shows off his day/night system for TGEA
Rene Damm provides a way to make detail texturing optional
TGEA 1.7 + Python support

Fun discussion (and screenshots) of TGEA and shadows
Andy Hawkins shares his script to generate terrains (TGEA)
Cool discussion of working with polysoup and TGEA 1.7b2
3D Gui design in TrueSpace and Maya
Super-Sweet Color Picker from Taras (TSK) Anatsko
Alan James provides a pictoral reference to getting fxFoliageReplicators to work in TGE
Blender DTS Exporter 0.96 released
RTS Kit for TorqueX!
Fog of War example for the RTS Kit

Some very helpful information from Derelict on reading lines from files in TGB
Paired down example of freelook and player-mounted camera in TorqueX
Russel Bishops prepares a FAQ area for TX 3D questions and answers
TGB Platform Starter kit information on template creation from Stephen Howe
Cool information for setting up projects in Houdini
Matthew Jessick explains triggers with a detailed example
Steve YorkshireRifles provides a cogent example of using classname and triggers
Some very cool porting advice for TGE -> TGEA 1.7 from James Laker
Andy Hawkins shows off his ShapeReplicator screens
Pretty cool polysoup racetrack

ShapeReplicator used in BRAVE
Carcassonne game in TGB
Beta 1 for AFX + TGEA 1.7 available
CubeMapping tutorial by Lorne McIntosh
Fun teleporter inplementation with trigger arrays

Wicked Sweet Projects
New Ice Wolf information and video
Extreme Sudoku deathmatch
Balloon Bliss released!
Metal Drift players wanted (InstantAction title)
Wheeled Vehicle Editor and new Book from Edward F. Maurina III
Abaddon (Western-themed post-apocalyptic RPG)
Shelled Online!
Crowns of Power Open Beta

Awesome Artists & Musicians
Kevin James shows off his musical talents
Maxim Lyulyukin gives us some models for free!

DexSoft releases a cathedral and props


[url=http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73743]DexSoft releases Sci-Fi Machines Pack

Maxim shows off more models

Fleeky shows off some WIP Vehicles

Radoslaw Marcin Kurczewski shows his Salome character

[url=http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73331]Kevin Pillow's Dojo

Kevin Pillow's Egyptian Tomb


Japp Visser's back with more music

Sci-Fi Textures 2 from Dexsoft

Very sweet, but sadly lost and missed, Constructor artwork




Cubix advertises art services (go Evi!)

Free 2D Trees from Cubix

Taufan shows his pixel-art stuff

We're doing another Ustream live chat. This time it's with marketing guy Dylan Romero and is going to cover the InstantAction gaming platform in general and will also talk about marketing issues - had a lot of questions about this on the Legions chat.

The chat will take place this Friday, April 4, 1:00 pm at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/instantaction-live-chat.

For this time's forum news, I shamelessly "acquired" screenshots of some of the excellent things that are happening on the forums.

Cool Stuff
GG'er on G4 TV
Kevin James shares some image effects in TGB
Interesting Article on Game Loops
MMO Game Developer's Conference looking for volunteers
William Jonny Brannum explains how to use Yaw with the player class
Tom Spilman relates information about depthmaps in TGEA
Ryan Mounts reworks lightmapping in Map2DIF_plus
Torque in Education information via Davey Jackson
Interesting save solution for TGB
Interesting discussion of animations and ActionAnimBits
Specular Map + Transparency discussion
W-S-A-D movement code for TGB Games

Wicked Sweet Project
Mini-Chess Beta


Awesome Artists and Musicians
More Dexsoft packs


First use of Constructor



Tribal Floating Base


Maxim's Buggy Pack


RPG SFX and Music designer looking for work
Aldo Scoppa's music and SFX
Ninja concept art