[Mud-H]

we need a gui shader authoring solution

And what that do exactly? I haven't do anything about shaders yet but it's in my plan to examine what could be done. I find it hard as now to figure what shaders can be used and how to use them... There's the PostFX manager with few PostFX shaders options, I'm planning to update it and add some good PostFX shaders ressources like the outliner/silouhette shader I used for Boost!.
So can you explained better about what a gui shader authoring solution would do? Is it a GUI to deal with Shader authoring?if so, I still need some explanation to what Shader Authoring is...

[Mud-H]

I have just updated the repository to allow anyone to give a try to current TorqueLab version. Please keep in mind that it's still an early release and it's not fully optimized or bug free. My goal is to make the v0.5 version the first "serious" release with optimized scripts and clean UI. Also, there's no documentation for now but I started to work on something and I will make it available as soon as I fell it's a good enough. So for now, it's "use as it and at your risk.You shouldn't worry to much but I recommend making a backup of your levels (even if I never corrupted my level files with it).

The installation is very simple and does not required any changes in your script so if you want to try it and keep the default editors ready in case you need them, just rename the tools folder to something else and you would only need to delete the TorqueLab tlab and tools folder, then renaming the default editor folder to tools and your project will be back with the default editor.

Where to get the files?
GitHub TorqueLab page: https://github.com/NordikLab/TorqueLab
There's 3 branches: master, develop and live-dev. For now they are all the same but the master will always be the safer to use.

• master -> Latest stable branch

• develop -> Latest features untested

• live-dev -> Current status of my working version (Not recommended since sometime I could make a commit of a bugged version so I can debug it

How I install it?
Visit: https://github.com/NordikLab/TorqueLab/ ... stallation
To resume it:
Script side:
Get the files, delete the default editor tools/ folder, add the TorqueLab tlab/ and tools/ folder.
Source code changes:
You need to apply some minor code changes and recompile your project

• Use the patch provided in root (TorqueLab_T3D_3_8_v1.diff(Same as .patch, could be renamed to .patch if it make you feel better)

• Manually using the file changes view page

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If anyone try it, I'd like to know how it goes, maybe I have missed something. If you feel there's some information missing for the installation process, let me know and I will update it.
Again, it's not an "official" release, I have just make my current version available. There's some incomplete features and some issues that need to be fixed left in there, use at your own risk and backup your files to be safe... I will keep improving it and try to make a bug free master branch tomorrow.

[Mud-H]

I have packed a pre-compiled demo of TorqueLab for those who are just curious to try it but prefer to wait for an official release to add it into their projects.

• TorqueLabDemo->TorqueLab running on Torque3D Full Template

Simply extract them anywhere and launch with TorqueLabDemo.exe. To use TorqueLab simply press F11 from in-game (Launch editor directly FullTemplate options not tested).

You will notice it take a while to load the first time, it's because by default TorqueLab scripts are loaded only the first time F11 is pressed, there's a other ways to load it and they will be listed in the incoming documentation. So don't panic if it's seem to freeze when launching the editor, it just loading the "un-optimized" scripts.
What take long is that some .gui files have generated data that were saved when I saved the .gui and most of them are irrevelant to the current loaded levels causing T3D to make useless checks. (Rough explanation) I have now added a presave check system that check for a presave method for the GUI torque is about to save and I add cleanup script in there but very few Gui have it implemented. Some (2) of the .gui included have more than 30 000 lines, I will make sure those are fixed in next release...

[marauder2k9]

we need a gui shader authoring solution

And what that do exactly? I haven't do anything about shaders yet but it's in my plan to examine what could be done. I find it hard as now to figure what shaders can be used and how to use them... There's the PostFX manager with few PostFX shaders options, I'm planning to update it and add some good PostFX shaders ressources like the outliner/silouhette shader I used for Boost!.
So can you explained better about what a gui shader authoring solution would do? Is it a GUI to deal with Shader authoring?if so, I still need some explanation to what Shader Authoring is...

Shader authoring is basically just creating shaders, but what i mean would be to have simple shader tools like most engines do nowadays,

Shader tools are what i call simple shaders that do basic functions but can easily join together to create different effects like for example a downsample shader, just takes a value in to itself and downsamples the rendered scene and then outputs the downsample to be multiplied to the scene, a multiply shader multiplies the entire effects output to the scene u know what i mean?

Torque can already load shaders in a way that they happen in stages much like if you check out the hdr.cs file u see the output gets fed into the next shader each time until the last shader is called. A gui shader authoring tool would generate the cs file for you rather than having to type it out manually.

[marauder2k9]

ill be honest i dont even think shader authoring would be the best description, shader authoring is already known as writing out the actual shader itself

[Mud-H]

ill be honest i dont even think shader authoring would be the best description, shader authoring is already known as writing out the actual shader itself

Hmm, what you mean? Creating/Generating Custom Materials? (I haven't used those in a while but I guess they are still a thing...). If you are talking about a tool for writing .hlsl shader files, I don't think I will work on something like that. Maybe I could think about a HLSL manager in a later stage but won't be soon...

[marauder2k9]

no i mean u would already have a range of hlsl files already made that do simple tasks, the gui element would then create the cs file that joins them together to create different results, for example the way blender works its materials in cycles. u have nodes that are actually shaders linked together to create different effects, something like that. Like the image shader is basically just a diffuse shader, spec is a specualr etc etc. can do the same for postfx shaders too

[Mud-H]

no i mean u would already have a range of hlsl files already made that do simple tasks, the gui element would then create the cs file that joins them together to create different results, for example the way blender works its materials in cycles. u have nodes that are actually shaders linked together to create different effects, something like that. Like the image shader is basically just a diffuse shader, spec is a specualr etc etc. can do the same for postfx shaders too

Ok, I think I understand what you mean and it's something I would look into once the base features are completed. I'm not very familliar with this area but I definitly want to make it easier to manage the shaders stuff. I'd like to build a node based UI for materials and shaders but I'm not sure if I will be able with my coding skills and limited time...

[JeffR]

I'd made a passing mention of it in the 3.8 announcement blog as a goal for 3.9, but the plan is to start work on a node-based material/shader authoring interface and an updated shadergen.

I'd gotten started on the node-graph ui stuffs, most of the work is trying to figure out exactly how to design the new shadergen system to operate to generate everything. I've got some stuff I'm doing some prelim R&D on the subject for, and once I have something a provable, I'll be posting an update about it.

If you guys have any ideas or feedback on how you think it should operate, I'm completely all ears. If we can hammer out a general approach, it'd be easier to iterate the specifics of the implementation.

[Janders]

Out of topic:

the plan is to start work on a node-based material/shader authoring interface and an updated shadergen.

Finally YES!! & upgrade transparent blend modes!!