Creating a project without the Project Manager

If you don't want to use the Project Manager, or it's not currently supported on your platform (i.e. you're not using Windows), then you won't be able to use it to create new projects. This means you'll have to do one of two things: get CMake to do it, or do it by hand.

If you're using CMake, then a simple make install will copy the project files over once you've generated your makefile. This page will take you through the process of doing it manually.

This your first project? Have a look at the getting started guide.

Start with a template

When you create a project with the Project Manager, it is always based off one of the templates in the Templates/ folder in the root of your Torque 3D install. A template is basically a game-ready base of scripts and assets to get you started - a scaffolding, if you will, or the foundation of a house. Templates usually define the sort of final directory structure your project will have.

Which template should I use?

Torque 3D's two main templates are Empty and Full. They're both very similar in structure, and share a foundational set of scripts called core/. However, Full contains a lot more art assets and gameplay scripts, mostly geared towards FPS games.

Copy the template

To start a new project, go into Templates/, select one, and copy the whole folder to My Projects/. Once it's there, rename the folder to whatever you'd like to name your project. You should end up with something like this:

Torque3D/
    Templates/
        Full/
            game/
            ...
    My Projects/
        Super Awesome Game/
            game/
            ...

Renaming things

Once you have copied your template and renamed the project folder, you can edit a few other locations in your template files where things like your project name are set. These examples are from the Empty template:

  • Empty/source/torqueConfig.h: #define TORQUE_APP_NAME "Empty"
  • Empty/game/main.cs: $appName = "Empty";
  • Empty/buildFiles/config/project.conf: Torque3D::beginConfig( "win32", "Empty" );
  • Empty/buildFiles/config/project.linux.conf: setGameProjectName("Empty");
  • Empty/buildFiles/config/project.linux_ded.conf: setGameProjectName("Empty");
  • Empty/buildFiles/config/project.mac.conf: Torque3D::beginConfig( "mac", "Empty" );

Note that some of these may not be relevant to you (if, for example, you plan on using CMake, you can ignore all the buildFiles/ files. And, of course, all of these lines are harmless - it just means you might see the template name turning up in places you'd rather your project's name to be!

Add modules

Edit My Projects/Project/buildFiles/projectCode.conf. TODO!

Generate compiler projects with the Project Generator

You should find a series of batch and shell scripts in the root folder of your project. Run generateProjects.bat to generate Visual Studio files to compile the engine. see compiling in Windows for a full guide to compiling the engine.

If you want to use CMake instead of the Project Generator, see this page for instructions. Note that on Linux and OSX, CMake is the only supported method for compiling the engine. For a full guide, see compiling in Linux.

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