Torque 3D Game Development Cookbook: Over 80 practical recipes and hidden gems for getting the most out of the Torque 3D game engine

Torque 3D includes a lot of built-in tools to help us create and refine a game and all that goes into it. The World Editor window is the gateway to all of the various editors that are available, and may be accessed by pressing F11 during game play. The following table lists all of the different editors available from the World Editor:

Using fog is a very common method of adding depth to a scene. Fog can help separate distant objects from those up-close, and can even be used to separate the hills from the valleys. Having fog in a scene also allows us to reduce the render distance to help increase a game's performance. In this recipe, we will set up fog parameters in a level.

When placing 3D objects within a game level sometimes there is a hard, visible transition when two or more objects intersect with each other. An example would be a rock outcrop object and the terrain. We may want to soften this transition between objects for better visual appeal. In this recipe we will add decals to the level to help cover up these seams between objects.

When working with objects in the World Editor there are times when we want one object to have the same transform as another. This includes the world position of that object, its rotation, and its scale. For example, we may want to stack one crate on top of another. To facilitate this, we could give both crates the same transform and then move one crate on top of the other using the axis gizmo. To copy and paste the transform of an object we use the Transform Selection dialog.

When we add a 3D object to a level using the World Editor, it always has the same set of materials as defined by the artist (using the Material Editor window or through scripts). Sometimes we want to keep the same object geometry and just change the materials used. An example would be two soccer nets with distinct coloring while having the same shape. This process of changing the materials of an object in Torque 3D is called skinning. In this recipe, we will change the materials of an object to be different than the default materials by modifying the properties of an object using the World Editor window.

Torque 3D makes it easy to make a material emissive (not affected by lighting) and glow using the Material Editor window. However, activating these Material class properties makes the entire material emissive and glow. In this recipe, we will learn how to mask out the glow region of a material to limit its effect.

In Torque 3D, zones are used to control which 3D objects will be rendered within a level, based on the current camera position and rotation. If the camera cannot see into a zone, such as through a connected Portal object (this acts like a window); or is not within the zone itself, the objects inside the zone are not rendered. This allows us to have far more objects within the level than could normally be rendered all at once due to performance concerns. Normally, a Zone object is box-shaped. In this recipe, we will learn how to create a new convex shape and use it as a Zone object.

Zones are mainly used to determine which objects in a level should render and which shouldn't, based on the current camera position and rotation. In addition, Zone objects may also control the ambient lighting (the lighting that appears to come from all directions) for the region within the Zone. A good example of this is a cave system where the sun should not reach all the way in. In this recipe, we will look at how to set up custom ambient lighting for a Zone object that is different from the rest of the level.

Normally we use a Portal object to join the Zone objects together. This acts as a window, or doorway between the zones. However, there are times when adding portals is counterproductive, and we just want to have a number of zones treated as one unit. An example of this is when using convex-shaped zone objects to fill up an oddly-shaped room, and we want the whole room to be treated as one big zone.

In this recipe, we will look at how to have two or more Zone objects considered a single zone, without the use of Portal objects.