Features
As well as being a 3D graphics engine, TGE provided networking code, scripting, in-engine world editing, and GUI creation. The source code could be compiled for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Wii, Xbox 360, and iPhone platforms. TGE shipped with starter kits for a first-person shooter and an off-road racing game. A real-time strategy starter kit was also available as a separate purchase. These starter packs could be modified to suit the needs of the developer, or the developer could start from scratch.
The engine supported loading of 3D models in the DTS file format and the DIF file format. The DTS models could be animated using either skeletal animation or morph target animation. It was also possible to blend multiple skeletal animations together by playing them simultaneously or automatically tweening between the different positions of bones in the skeleton. DTS models were typically used for characters and vehicles though occasionally, they were used for buildings and interiors. DIF models have pre-calculated lighting and as such are ill-suited for animation. Instead, they were used for buildings and interiors. They automatically had bounding boxes that perfectly match the visible geometry. This was so that it wasn't made overly difficult for a player in a Torque Game Engine game to move or fire weapons around them.
The game featured a terrain engine that automatically created LODs of the ground so that it rendered the fewest polygons necessary at any given time. The terrain was automatically lit, and textures applied to the terrain could be blended together seamlessly. The game's rendering engine featured environment mapping, gouraud shading, volumetric fog, and other effects such as decals that allowed for textures to be projected onto interiors in real time (for example, a player in a Torque Game Engine game might fire a weapon that left a bullet hole in the wall. The bullet hole would be a decal). Torque supported networked games over LAN and the internet with a traditional client-server architecture. Server objects were "ghosted" on clients and updated periodically or upon events.
Read more about this topic: Torque (game Engine)
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