Torque Game Engine, or TGE, is an open-source cross-platform 3D computer

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

, developed by

GarageGames GarageGames was a game technology and software developer. GarageGames was the parent company of GG Interactive, developers of educational technology in the areas of computer science, video game development and Computer programming, programming. I ...

and actively maintained under the current versions Torque 3D as well as Torque 2D. It was originally developed by

Dynamix Dynamix, Inc. was an American developer of video games from 1984 to 2001, best known for the flight simulator Red Baron (1990 video game), ''Red Baron'', the puzzle video game, puzzle game ''The Incredible Machine (video game), The Incredible Mach ...

for the 2001

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

Tribes 2 ''Tribes 2'' is a first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra On-Line in 2001 as a sequel to '' Starsiege: Tribes''. Setting Set in the year 3941 of the fictional Earthsiege universe, ''Tribes 2'' ...

''. In September 2012, GarageGames released Torque 3D as open-source software under the

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

. Torque 3D features a world editor suite including tools for sculpting terrain and painting forests, drawing rivers and roads, as well as material, particle and decal editing. It supports the open

COLLADA COLLADA (for 'collaborative design activity') is an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available specificatio ...

file format as interface to 3D digital content creation software.

PhysX PhysX is an Open-source software, open-source Real-time computer graphics, realtime physics engine middleware Software development kit, SDK developed by Nvidia as part of the Nvidia GameWorks software suite. Initially, video games supporting Ph ...

provides support for cloth dynamics,

rigid body dynamics In the physical science of dynamics, rigid-body dynamics studies the movement of systems of interconnected bodies under the action of external forces. The assumption that the bodies are '' rigid'' (i.e. they do not deform under the action ...

, destructible objects and joints, as well as fluid

buoyancy Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is the force exerted by a fluid opposing the weight of a partially or fully immersed object (which may be also be a parcel of fluid). In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of t ...

simulation. Other features include a deferred lighting model and modern shader features such as dynamic lighting, normal and

parallax occlusion mapping Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objec ...

screen space ambient occlusion Screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) is a computer graphics technique for efficiently approximating the ambient occlusion effect in real time. It was developed by Vladimir Kajalin while working at Crytek and was used for the first time in 2007 by ...

depth of field The depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and the farthest objects that are in acceptably sharp focus (optics), focus in an image captured with a camera. See also the closely related depth of focus. Factors affecting depth ...

, volumetric light beam effects,

lens flare A lens flare happens when light is scattered, or ''flared'', in a lens system, often in response to a bright light, producing a sometimes undesirable artifact in the image. This happens through light scattered by the imaging mechanism itself, ...

corona Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to: * Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star * Corona (beer), a Mexican beer * Corona, informal term for the coronavirus or disease responsible for the COVID-19 ...

effects,

refraction In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one transmission medium, medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commo ...

, bloom, blurring and

color correction Color correction is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography, and other disciplines, which uses color gels, or filters, to alter the overall color of the light. Typically the light color is measured on a scale k ...

, among others. Networking functionality for multiplayer support is included as well. Build support is provided for desktop

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and Web platforms.

Inception

The Torque engine and its many derivative products were available for license from

, a company formed by many members of the ''Tribes 2'' team at Dynamix. GarageGames was later acquired by

InstantAction InstantAction was a game portals, web gaming site and Digital distribution, digital distributor featuring 3d rendering, 3D, browser-based games. The site was created by GarageGames after being acquired by IAC/InterActive Corp in 2007 and released ...

, but by November 2010, InstantAction began winding down its operations and looking for potential buyers for Torque. In January 2011, GarageGames was re-acquired by Graham Software Development, and their name was reverted back to the original. GarageGames released Torque 3D as open-source software under the

on September 20, 2012. Torque 2D followed on February 5, 2013. Torque 3D and most of their other products were to continue being developed and supported. The latest stable release of Torque 2D was marked May 2023 on

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

, and the latest stable release of Torque 3D was marked February 2023, on

History

Original Torque Game Engine

The original Torque Game Engine, which has been superseded by Torque 3D, provided networking code, scripting, in-engine world editing, and

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

creation. The

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

could be compiled for

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

, and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

platforms. TGE shipped with starter kits for a

and an off-road racing game. A

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

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 model In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of a surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, and ...

s in the DTS and DIF

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s. DTS models were typically used for characters and vehicles though occasionally for buildings and interiors. They could be animated using either

skeletal A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fram ...

morph target animation Morph target animation, per-vertex animation, shape interpolation, shape keys, or blend shapes is a method of 3D computer animation used together with techniques such as skeletal animation. In a morph target animation, a "deformed" version of a m ...

. It was also possible to blend multiple skeletal animations together by playing them simultaneously or automatically

tweening Inbetweening, also known as tweening, is a process in animation that involves creating intermediate frames, called inbetweens, between two keyframes. The intended result is to create the illusion of movement by smoothly transitioning one image in ...

the different positions of bones in the skeleton. 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 was not 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 In computer graphics, reflection mapping or environment mapping is an efficient image-based lighting technique for approximating the appearance of a reflective surface by means of a precomputed texture. The texture is used to store the image of ...

Gouraud shading Gouraud shading ( ), named after Henri Gouraud (computer scientist), Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by Polygon mesh, polygon meshes. In practice, Gouraud ...

, 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, and 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. TorqueScript (also known as TS) is a coding language designed specifically for the Torque Game Engine, with a syntax similar to C++.

Torque 3D

Torque 3D, version 1.2, was released as open-source software under the

on September 20, 2012, and is being actively maintained, the current version being 4.0.3. Originating as a successor to Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA), Torque 3D features

support, modern shader features, an advanced deferred lighting model, as well as build support for Windows, macOS and Linux. DTS and DIF have been superseded by

, a more commonly supported interactive 3D model file format. The DIF format has been completely deprecated, while DTS is still used as an internal format.

Release history

Torque 2D

Torque 2D, originally Torque Game Builder, is a game engine designed for 2D games and based on the ''Torque Game Engine''. It was first released in 2006, in a ''standard'' and a ''pro'' version, with the professional version including the

. Torque 2D started as ''Torque Game Builder'' because the ultimate goal was to make it a game-making suite. It was used for instance to create the puzzle game ''

And Yet It Moves ''And Yet It Moves'' is a puzzle-platform game developed by independent developer Broken Rules. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux on April 2, 2009, and for Wii as a WiiWare title in August 2010. ''And Yet It Mov ...

'' (2009, Broken Rules, WiiWare) and dozens of other games. The latest "Torque game builder" release was 1.7.6 from December 2011. In 2012 a ''Torque 2D MIT'' edition was created as combination of the previous "Torque Game Builder" and iTorque 2d, an iOS fork. On February 5, 2013, ''Torque 2D MIT'' was released in version 2.0 as

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

. Torque 2D's development continues on

with latest version being v.3.4 from May 2018.

Release history

Torque Game Engine Advanced

''Torque Game Engine Advanced'' (formerly known as ''Torque Shader Engine'') was an expanded version of ''Torque Game Engine'' made to support advanced technologies including

shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as '' shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of s ...

s, per-pixel lighting, and massive terrains. This version of the engine has been ported to Microsoft's

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

and

console systems. Several Xbox Live Arcade games have been released using the Torque engine, most notably ''

Marble Blast Ultra ''Marble Blast Ultra'' is a platform game developed by GarageGames. It was released on January 25, 2006 for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. It is the sequel to ''Marble Blast Gold''. It features 60 levels, enhanced graphics, 2 new power-ups an ...

''. First release was January 23, 2007 with the 4.2 Beta, production release of TGEA 1.0 and end of ''Early Adopter Program'' was on February 15 of the same year. Although TGEA supported the existing Torque Legacy Terrain, TGEA incorporated entirely new

terrain Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

rendering engine, the Atlas Terrain Engine, which is an improvement over the blended terrains of TGE. Atlas used GPU hardware to render a massive terrain block and its textures. This allowed Atlas to scale with faster systems of the future. A shaded water rendering system was implemented with full

reflection Reflection or reflexion may refer to: Science and technology * Reflection (physics), a common wave phenomenon ** Specular reflection, mirror-like reflection of waves from a surface *** Mirror image, a reflection in a mirror or in water ** Diffuse r ...

, and

Fresnel reflection The Fresnel equations (or Fresnel coefficients) describe the reflection and transmission of light (or electromagnetic radiation in general) when incident on an interface between different optical media. They were deduced by French engineer and ...

. TGEA incorporated a lighting system based on Torque Lighting Kit, including a light manager tool, scene lighting, and dynamic shadows among others. Torque Game Engine Advanced 1.0 supported

Direct3D Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D uses hardware ...

rendering via an API-independent graphics layer. Future versions were expected to support both Direct3D and

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

pipelines to allow TGEA to support

and

platforms as well as

. There had also been planned TGEA compatibility with Microsoft's game development suite for the

, XNA Game Studio Express. TGEA contained several ready-to-apply shaders and common shader settings. Custom shaders based on

High Level Shader Language The High-Level Shader Language or High-Level Shading Language (HLSL) is a proprietary shading language developed by Microsoft for the Direct3D 9 API to augment the shader assembly language, and went on to become the required shading language ...

could be compiled by the engine and applied as custom materials. This could be applied to both interior and exterior type 3D art assets. Fallback materials could be configured to allow support of pixel and vertex 1.x first-generation video cards. The latest release of TGEA, 1.8.2, became available in November 2009.

Torque Lighting Kit

Torque Lighting Kit was an expansion pack to the Torque Game Engine developed by John Kabus and Synapse Gaming. It added a variety of enhanced lighting features to the Torque Game Engine. In the latest release, features such as dynamic lighting and shadowing were added. Torque Lighting Kit was later included as part of Torque Game Engine 1.5 and Torque Game Engine Advanced. In 2008, Kabus and Synapse Gaming stopped supporting Torque, began a partnership with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, and packaged their lighting technology and other new tech into the Sunburn XNA Game Engine.

Torque X

After the release of Torque Game Builder, GarageGames began to develop Torque X, a game engine based on Torque Game Builder using a component system that allows multiple game objects to have the same abilities, running on Microsoft's XNA Framework. Many of the 3D features were left incomplete and never finished. Specifically, 3D terrain using RAW height maps suffered from a lack of working examples, shadows were substandard (consisting only of a spherical shadow texture projected on the terrain), the ability to use skinned meshes for animated models was not working (non-skinned meshes worked), and the 3D rigid-body physics suffered from several issues.

Reception and usage

The Torque engine and its derivatives have been used in the development of a variety of games, especially among

independent video game developer An indie video game or indie game (short for independent video game) is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A ...

s. Commercial titles developed using the Torque engine include '' BoneTown'', '' Blockland'', ''

Marble Blast Gold ''Marble Blast'' is a 2002 3D platform game. It was pre-installed on some Apple Inc. computer systems like the iMac, iBook, and Mac mini. It was also available for Windows operating systems as well as various Linux distributions. It was remade ...

'', '' Minions of Mirth'', '' TubeTwist'', ''

Ultimate Duck Hunting ''Ultimate Duck Hunting'' is a duck hunting video game developed by American studio Mid Carolina Media for Windows. The goal of the game is to shoot ducks and then collect them with hunting dogs, a concept similar to that of the classic NES gam ...

'', '' Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa'', ''ThinkTanks'', '' The Destiny of Zorro'', '' Penny Arcade Adventures'' and indie video games '' The Age of Decadence'', '' BeamNG.drive'', '' The Cat and the Coup'', '' Dead State'', '' Frozen Synapse'', '' S.P.A.Z. and Villagers and Heroes''. The

open-source video game An open-source video game, or simply an open-source game, is a video game whose source code is open-source. They are often freely distributable and sometimes cross-platform compatible. Definition and differentiation Not all open-source games ...

''Uebergame'' also uses the engine.

References

External links

Torque Engine product page

Roar of the Indy
- article in

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

on the Torque Game Engine (2005)
Official Torque3D MIT Website

Torque3D MIT Forum

Torque3D MIT Wiki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torque (Game Engine) Formerly proprietary software Free game engines Game engines for Linux Software using the MIT license Video game development software Video game engines XNA game engines