GDC, Growing support team, and more

It's been a while since my last blog. An update on how things are going at Synapse Gaming is long overdue. It's a safe bet that when my blogs slow down I'm deep in the latest of Synapse Gaming's products and projects, and past few months were no exception.


GDC 2007

I'm representing Synapse Gaming at GDC again this year. I'll be around to meet up with existing partners, publishers, clients and contractors, and to make new acquaintances. I'm also available to talk about Synapse Gaming's technology, including helpful hints, tricks, undocumented hacks, and modifications. If you have any questions, want to talk-shop or just hangout - keep an eye out for me (the GG booth is a good place to catch me), or email/call me to setup a meeting: jkabus@synapsegaming.com

Make sure to check out the GarageGames booth to see a lot of our latest technology, including new TGEA tech demos, Torque X, Constructor, and possibly some other Torque based goodies. ;)




Synapse Gaming is always growing and looking for new members - we have a large team of talented developers that work with us on a contract basis. If you're interested in helping to develop the next generation of Synapse Gaming tools and technology, make sure to talk with me at GDC (if you're not going to GDC, email me).


Growing Support Team

You may have noticed a new face helping support the Torque Lighting System. In December Ross Kabus, known for his development work on the Synapse Gaming GID team (see my past plans for details), took over support of the TGE and TLK versions of the Torque Lighting System. Ross is now the Synapse Gaming contact for questions regarding lighting in these products.


Latest Disclosed Projects

Since my last post many new projects started, others completed development, and still others were released. It's always unfortunate that we can't talk about all of our work, but there's more than enough to cover already - besides I'm sure you'll hear about the rest soon enough. :)

Here's what we can talk about...

The Torque Lighting System

Over the past few months Synapse Gaming's lighting system (the Torque Lighting System) has been adopted by GG nearly across the board for their Torque based products. In that time we released the lighting system in TGE 1.5, TSE MS4, and then TGEA (the successor for TSE), and ported the lighting system to XNA for Torque X.

And all the while progress continues steadily on Constructor. We're currently working on a number of updates to the engines for Constructor compatibility, adding many advanced new features previously unavailable in Torque.




Custom Lighting System

We receive regular requests from companies interested in having Synapse Gaming customize the Torque Lighting System for their games, tools, and code packs. To better serve this need, we've developed a portfolio of frequently requested (though game specific) add-on technologies - all highly modular and a perfect match for our custom technology and support (for more information please contact us at: sales@synapsegaming.com).

Moving Forward

Work on our next generation of lighting tools and technology is well under way, though these projects are majorly "hush hush," I can say that the future of Indie lighting looks very bright indeed.


Closing Thoughts

Stefan Lundmark once told me that the time between my blogs was too long. I certainly agree, but I hope the content makes it worth the wait. :)

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone who shows up at GDC and says 'hi'!

Till next time,

-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming

The Great Games... Experiment?

I joined the Great Games Experiment (GGE) this week and have to say I'm extremely impressed. The site seems focused on sharing game betas and demos for feedback and constructive criticism. And provides just the right amount of discussion and ranking of retail and home brewed titles to promote the social networking aspect of the site – hey, everyone wants to meet people with similar interests.

GGE is very much a LinkedIn for gamers and game developers – with friend lists, rankings, lists of games you've played, email/IM like personal messages, and a profile that provides as much (or as little) information as you want.

But unlike other social networking sites you don't have to sort through thousands of people to find the one or two gamers or game developers, who may or may not share your interests. Instead finding people with similar interests is as simple as commenting on a game you like or joining a group you're interested in.

You'll definitely see me on GGE – and I'll be happy to tryout, comment on, and rank any games you send my way.

Back to the title of this blog: “The Great Games... Experiment?”... Experiment? No – this sounds like a sure thing to me.

-John Kabus

The End of an Era

Three years after the concept was originally discussed and two and a half years after its initial release, the Torque Lighting Kit (TLK) has completed its life-cycle.

With last week's release of TGE 1.5 and today's release of TLK 1.4.2 (the final release, not including any necessary maintenance releases), TLK is no longer available (though it's still supported).


Leading the Pack (er... rather the Kit)

Originally named the Lighting Pack,TLK broke new ground when it became the Torque Game Engine's first code expansion pack/kit, and after three years it's still Torque's only third-party code pack/kit.

In that time nearly every TGE based game produced used TLK to streamline level creation, and improve and customize its lighting and rendering - including several IGF finalists (TubeTwist, Venture Africa, and Lore to name a few).


TLK Lives On

Synapse Gaming's lighting and rendering technology is now integrated into all Torque engines (except TGB), making it available to everyone using Torque, and easier than ever to use. This means more users to customize, adapt, experiment with, and create awesome resources for the technology.


Moving Forward

I've received a lot of questions over the years about the business side of TLK, and how things evolved, business and technology wise.

Ideally I'd like to do a postmortem of TLK's entire history, from non-Torque tech to today's lighting and rendering systems. And I'll likely do that someday, but the evolution is still underway, and a lot more is still to come...

TDN Growing and TSE Evolving

Well it's only two weeks since the Torque Lighting System TDN section went live and already it has grown into 20 some articles and received over 1500 unique hits on the main page.

The TDN section covers Torque Lighting System features, customizations, performance tuning, and optimizations. The articles are broken down into product specific groups (TSE, TGE 1.5, TLK, ...) to make finding information easy. The most recent additions to the section are TGE 1.5 lighting system articles and updates, and TSE performance tuning articles.

With TSE 1.0 on the horizon a lot of our development time is focused on wrapping up features, tuning performance, and squashing any bugs that pop up. TSE's development has been running full steam for quite a while, but now that MS4 is out and we've been doing semi-weekly code drops, the community gets to see the progress in near real-time.

The TSE community has been extremely helpful in the process, offering suggestions, finding any issues, helping to identify them, and in many cases issuing fixes. The community is running full force with MS4, already working on the next generation of Indie games - many with hopes of getting their games onto Xbox 360. I can't wait until these games start being shown publicly!

Synapse Gaming Lighting System Used in Torque Game Engine 1.5!

GarageGames and Synapse Gaming are excited to announce Synapse Gaming's Torque Lighting System (the Torque Lighting Kit) is integrated into the upcoming Torque Game Engine 1.5.

Torque Game Engine 1.5 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, and several new features including improved dynamic lighting performance, blended terrain dynamic lighting, and higher detail terrain geometry and textures.

For more information check out the latest GarageGames development shot: Torque Game Engine Gets a Huge Upgrade!