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.