Who needs Flash when iPhone game devs now have Torque?
Torque's game development engine is now out for the iPhone, making it easier to develop high-performance titles without advanced coding skills. Both 2D and 3D games are possible with Torque and the included scripting language: it's especially delicious when one considers that the iPhone has similar specs to Sony's PSP.
Garagegames Torque for the iPhone SDK includes a a full-featured WYSIWYG realtime editor, easy integration with many 3D modeling packages, a powerful scripting language and more. All this, and you can develop your game on a PC and test your application on an iPhone emulation of your application using Apple's iPhone Developer SDK.
Hooks are included for multi-touch input and gesture recognition, so it's not just a knee-high port of the original. The PC and Mac versions are $100-150 for indies, depending on the package, but it looks like amateur hour remains a long way off in the iPhone ecosystem. No price is provided, with licensing on a per title basis.
Torque for iPhone [Garage Games via IMG and Tuaw]
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The specs on the iPhone is NOT similar to the PSP. They don't even use a similar graphics chipset. Is that claim backed by fact? Secondly the graphics on the PSP is significantly better than that of the iPhone.
I have both, I would know. The rest of the article is okay.
PSP:
333 MHz CPU
166 MHz GPU with 2MB of video RAM
32 or 64MB (PSP slim) RAM
4GB storage
480 x 272 display
iPhone:
412 MHz CPU
PowerVR MBX GPU
128MB RAM
8 or 6GB storage
480x320 display
So "similar specs" it is.
The iPhone GPU is similar to the Dreamcast's, which was a 100 MHz PowerVR2. The PSPs is a little less capable than the PS2's, with the relative superiority that implies.
Uh, aren't scripted virtual machines banned?
They are spec'd similarly, but I've yet to see an iPhone game that looks as good as a first-generation PSP 3D title. Super Monkeyball uses sprites for its avatars, for instance.
Keep an eye out for Unity 3D. Very cool game engine that can run on windows or mac and in a web browser - also soon on the Wii and iPhone.
I'm a current Torque owner and am also an iPhone developer.
When I inquired to Garage Games about licensing torque for iPhone the response I got back was, basically, "we're swamped with requests, we're still adding features, we can't give you an evaluation copy, we don't know what the licensing terms will be..."
So,at least for me, this article is not accurate. iPhone game devs do not "now have torque for iphone". I think Garage Games jumped the gun with a press release for something that, though I'm sure they are working on, is not ready for release.
If you guys are interested in 3D game development on iphone and ipod touch checkout my engine, it is pretty mature and contain already all functionalities that you can expect from a game engine, and its free for commercial use and open source...
Over a dozen commercial games have been created using it... for more info:
http://sio2interactive.com/GAMES.html
There' s quick list of the features:
Architecture
* Optimized File Format
* Unique Package Approach
* OpenGL ES v1.1 Compatible
* Written in pure C
Tool Chain
* Built around Blender (WYSIWYG)
* Exporter & Optimizer
* Auto Texture Bake Script
* Animation Exporter
Real Time Physic
* Rigid Body
* Collision Detection
* Soft Body
* Particle System
* Fog
Texturing
* Multi-Texturing
* Texture Filtering
* Anisotropic Filtering
* Transparent
* Semi-Transparent
Multimedia & Special Effects
* Ambient & FX Sound
* Real 3D Stereo & Surround
* Realtime MP3 Playback
* Realtime MPEG 4 Playback
Scene Management
* Fast Sorting & Culling System
* Event & Trigger System
* Scripting Support (Level & UI)
* Network Support (TCP/IP)
* Touch Screen & Accelerometer
Lighting & Shadow
* Per-Vertex
* Light Mapping
* Projected Shadow
* Projected Geometry
Animation
* Full IPO Support
* Hybrid Skeletal Animation
* Keyframe Animation
System Requirements
* Mac OS X v10.5.6
* iPhone SDK v2.2.1
For more information on SIO2 please check our website for more information: http://sio2interactive.com/TECHNOLOGY.html