Moving Forward and Looking Back

Ahh, it feels good to have the TSE lighting system more or less ready for MS4 and at the point where other projects can take center-stage. It feels odd to think of TSE's lighting system as only one of the major projects we have in development and in the works. But it's been an exceptional year, and from the sound of it next year will be even better.

While working on our latest creation I decided to take a stroll through the "IP-closet" to draw features and ideas from. During the trip I came across modifications I made to TGE over three years ago, after only a few months using the engine. It was interesting to see the changes that were made, and to find the earliest foundations of TLK...


TLK (Torque Lighting Kit) grew out of my interest in porting the tech I'd written for my own engine over to Torque. Getting started I needed to prep Torque by adding some of the features I felt were critical to our using it, such as; universal lighting models (lighting all objects the same), more vibrant lighting, static point and spotlights (via the mission editor - the only way to statically light all objects not just interiors), dynamic lighting without washing out diffuse textures, static dts shadows, and detail mapping. Frighteningly enough I had it all working in relatively short order, I contacted GarageGames about publishing the kit, and the rest is history.


The TLK of today has far more features and tools than I could have imagined when writing the original. And now with TSE using the lighting system, its also grown in directions I couldn't have imagined.

And what about the changes I made that weren't related to TLK? Those were just as interesting - terrain textures at 512x512, arbitrary terrain light map sizes, and a GPU terrain texture blender, which is very similar to the progression made with TSE's terrain. Not bad three years ago and only a few months working with the engine.

Unfortunately I was so wrapped up in that code I didn't have time to check out any of the other projects I've worked on over the years, but I'll definitely check them out soon.

Synapse Gaming's Lighting System used in the Torque Shader Engine!

GarageGames and Synapse Gaming are excited to announce Synapse Gaming's Lighting System (the Torque Lighting Kit) is integrated into the Torque Shader Engine. Starting with milestone 4, TSE will include all of TLK's advanced lighting and rendering, and offer all of the same key features and tools TLK owners are accustomed to, with the added advantage of HDR, TSE's fully integrated shaders, and complete access to, and support for, the DirectX API.

Along with the existing TLK features, TSE's lighting and shadows include: self-shadowing DTS objects, lighting and shadows on Atlas terrain, High Dynamic Range Lighting and Tone Mapping (including a DRL solution), and full shader support for all lighting types - even on automatically generated shaders!

Frequently Asked Questions:

Do I need to be a TLK for TGE licensee to use these TSE features?

Nope, the advanced lighting system comes with TSE and is available to allTSE licensees. However a TLK license is needed to get the same awesome lighting in TGE.

Will having TLK for TGE help me migrate to TSE?

Absolutely! TSE now uses the same lighting and rendering models as TLK, so you can easily port your existing assets to TSE with minimal effort or changes.

Because the lighting tools and methodologies are the same, using TSE will feel very familiar and comfortable.

Ok, enough teasing - when will TSE milestone 4 be ready?!?

The most exciting news is that TSE MS4 will be released in mere days - stay tuned for more details!

-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming

The Year Long Cycle and IGC

A number of projects that came out of last year's biz-dev cycle are now coming together, interestingly enough, at the same time – hey it's IGC season. In fact some of the projects will celebrate their one year anniversary since inception with a release party (what better way? :).

Others, like Constructor, have just passed the one year development mark (since Synapse Gaming's involvement), and are looking fantastic.

In fact one of the bigger projects here at Synapse Gaming just wrapped up and I'm very glad to see this thing finally going out the door. The project itself was not long, just on a rather accelerated development cycle, and a lot of energy and effort went into it. It'll be interesting to see the software in the wild, and to see the crazy things people will do with it. An official product announcement will be made very soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Work doesn't slow down though, not with IGC on the horizon. There are always other projects to take the front-and-center, and in this case those are also mostly complete and heading into the home stretch. IGC will be very interesting, we should have more products this year than tech demos in the past. But we'll see what happens between now and October.

And what about Constructor? Constructor just hit beta 7, which is nearly feature complete, and the response from our beta testers has been very encouraging (that's an understatement :). With the impressive features and near completeness (what an odd word) of the project I'm hoping Constructor is one of our stops on the road to IGC, but obviously that is just my hope, and not a promise.

Two months to go...

-John Kabus