Torque 3D open source MIT License
I have known this for quite a while and messed around with Torque 3D. It is really fun and easy to use out of the box (so to say).
http://www.garagegames.com/education
http://www.garagegames.com/education
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Also for some reason i am unable to get my test project to compile it keeps saying i am missing a debug dll lib from my project, but it was never generated with one in the first place.
EDIT:
Getting the DXSDK For June 2010 to see if that fixes the problem, else i will switch it to Release mode instead of debug.
Works now Woot... now if only it doesn't crash on me XD
You should be able to load pretty much anything out of Tribes 2. Interior files just need some texture definitions setup to work correctly in Torque3D and I'm pretty sure anything that's animated can still be rigged.
EDIT:
Some of the items do work, just have to make them emissive in order for them to show their texture properly. Still having the same problem with the turret base though.
DIF was removed due to it being a very old format that was doing nothing but occupying numerous available typemask bits in the engine (Remember, Torque is still 32-bit internal) and because you can very easily use DAE instead.
Torque itself already has a built in DAE exporting feature in the engine. If you have loads of interiors that you need to convert, then you could load them for instance into MIT 1.5 and run the converter on them in a non-modified build.
As I've mentioned a few times, re-making Tribes 2 in Torque 3D isn't really that hard of a job if you've got the time to do it, there are a few mechanics such as the projectile types and the Command Circuit that were proprietary software from Sierra / Dynamix, but other than that, the original engine mechanics and features are still there for you to use.
There are thousands of resources on the GG site that if you put the time into hunting down, you could piece together the missing pieces, and from there it's a ton of clean-up work on the old code to make sure everything runs smoothly. And I'm sure getting some up to date art assets would also be a good thing to consider as well.
Should be able to work it back in if the loader was ever in any of the open source versions. I recall the version I did the loading with was some version just before the open sourcing, something I had access to from the PGD membership.
A Torque3D port of Tribes 2 would lay a very stable foundation for lots of future modding and game development, especially considering the potential to mix in and eventually replace all the Tribes 2 assets. The possibility of using free open-licensed assets would open the way to new development, as there are a ridiculous number of assets available (take a quick look at the mega-database at OpenGameArt.com for just a bit of what's available).
Open-source mods would also help in making new mods, considering so many mods have disappeared due to not releasing the source to be modified for patches. It would also lay down a pipeline for development that others could follow and maybe add some new tools. I have yet to see anything done with Torque3D other than maybe ROTC. The real question lies in whether the Tribes 2 models and textures should be used at the start or open-source ones from the start ... I would say whichever's easier right now. There's NO question about starting with what Tribes 2 base/Classic currently has, and lay down a framework for unlimited development/changes from there.
If Tribes 1 is any indication of how long a free game of this type can last, then you should expect a fully open-source game that's like Tribes 2 to last at least another 20 years. You know it's in demand, a dream called "Tribes 3", especially with so many remakes in so many places. The remakes were always made on a platform that was difficult to expand from, NEVER a free open-source engine.
If you don't think it's possible to succeed, know that there is a free fan-made C&C: Renegade remake in high-quality that's doing pretty well for Beta. Yes, it's a much bigger franchise, but Renegade wasn't that big, and yet it works even now, even if it's all closed-source. It will work, but needs at least some initial momentum, starting with organizing all the T2 devs you can find, past and present. Really anyone that can work with Torque3D, source or script. They WILL want different things, but it all works on starting with at least a Tribes 2 base structure. They're free to branch off, or preferably just mod, from there when it's done, and there would be plenty to assist from there.
Honestly, it doesn't even need to be in Torque3D except for the familiarity with everything. If there's a future quality improvement limit/issue, try another free open-source engine, from Unreal Engine 4 (yes, it is now), to idTech4, to whatever else.
Some of tribes 2's assets (armors, crates, belt items, vehicles, and i think a few weapons) are avalible in .max files. How helpful would that be? How hard would it be to make those work in a new version of torque?
Is there stuff from the higher res updates to tribes 1 (specifically the stuff made for 1.40 playtribes build) that could be ported?
Right now i'm mostly thinking 'can we quick port stuff? and quickly play with it? After that we work on refinements.'
Granted my interest is.... Well not entirely on gaming so much as 'how can this be used for machinima and or other community goofoff projects?'
Last I checked, those files would pretty much only open read-only in 3DS Max, but T3D still retains DTS support last I saw so the old resources (players, vehicles, items, etc) should be fairly easily ported with nothing much more than updating the rigging information to work in Torque3D (Tribes 2 had those declared somewhere). I believe Torque3D also still retains support for the traditional .ter format that Tribes 2 used, so right off the bat the MIT versions should support most assets short of building files.
I had successful experiments with porting Tribes 2's interior instances to pre-MIT Torque3D versions very easily, it just required some material definitions for the textures to work correctly if I remember right. Post-MIT, the DIF support was removed. But as Phantom mentioned above, it could be ported back in if the DIF code is laying around somewhere in legal bounds.
For resources prior to Tribes 2, I don't know as I haven't really been on those games very little to not at all. But those would likely require a fairly comprehensive conversion before working.
Assets aside, jetting would need to be implemented into Torque3D but I believe I've already developed a working formula here. Whatever AI system Torque3D implements would need to be modified as well to properly navigate with the newly found jetpacks. There's also apparently a heap of object types removed from Torque3D as evident by Phantom having to reimplement them as T3D packs such as the waypoints and force fields. If you really want to go hard, it should be possible to achieve mod compatability but that would require modifying the T3D codebase to mimic the behaviors of the original T2 engine (various callbacks may not exist or be renamed and you may need to break some functionality in T3D to make it behave in the way it was expected to back in the buggy Tribes 2 engine).
I've been told time and again 'dude garysmod' but I just see garysmod as not what i want. I have a lot of ideas, which I've bounced around to the collective 'eh' of the community. I can't blame people for going 'oh another internet idiot going on at how they have this great project.'
Really end of the day I have a ton of ideas but I am painfully aware I have no chance of doing anything alone so 'hey this is a community that is also passionate Maybe they can get interested.' Except that didn't happen.
I'm glad Torque is still a thing because I love the engine Tribes2 was built in and as a layperson I hope that new features got added in to support so that your model/characters aren't so stiff.
Here is what I would want on a 'this is tribes 2 with an expanded engine.
* I loved Tribes 2's level editing. Drop premade structures in, cut holes as needed in terrain, repaint the terrain, drop sound/particle emitters where you needed, and boom prelim stages are done and you have something you can easily run around in. Given T3d is a descendant of what Tribes2 used I'm going to guess that it can do much the same.
* I would love to be able to either have demo recording record everything going on in the level so I can share the demofile with someone who can record at stupid high resolutions and framerate verses the aged clunker I've got. As in 'I do things with settigns lowered pretty far, send demo to buddy with an actual decent box, and they crank everything to full.'
* Animation binds so someone can do, say, VACW to wave, VACL to lay down, and so on. A 'neutral' pose would also be nice to have but that would likely be more to do with character animation than the engine itself.
* Bind to the level different things so say person walks up to chair they can hit an action key and the character sits (If Possible,) or starts doing busywork animations if they're at a terminal, and so on.
I'm a writer more than anything else, and i have ideas. The thing is even though I would ideally want to do machinima... I want this to still be tribes. This won't happen, there's no interest and i can't pay people to do it.
You guys are pretty swank. I'm just the forum crazy.