This Week in Game-Guru - 02/12/2018

Sorry for the delayed update this week.  Family's been sick and I'm not feeling that great myself.

ENGINE UPDATE PROGRESS REPORT

Currently the engine appears to have a PP version brewing for mid-February which should resolve many of the issues we've seen with a quick followup (hopefully) to a regular release.  That'll put us on track for Lee's usual 6 month release cycle for major changes.  

Beyond that it appears there's ongoing work on previous download content and add-ons for Game-Guru getting the 'PBR treatment'.  This includes now the Mega Pack 1 DLC as mentioned here.

NEW PRODUCTS IN THE STORE

Mad lobster keeps adding more and more to his laboratory kit.  I'm astonished he'd continue to give current owners extra value on what was ALREADY a good value.  The price of the kit HAS gone up to reflect that, but if you're a current owner make sure you download the latest goodies for the laboratory kit. 

It looks like the venerable (and somewhat wacky) Colosso has increased his proficiency at modeling considerably and his newer objects continue to add quality and value to his portfolio.  His newest pack and objects are proof of that.

Teabone has added some fine clutter objects, including the best looking food object I've seen in a long time.  Not sure how he does it, but definitely worth a purchase for that low of a price.

Also, as a side note, purchasers of my Advanced Time of Day and Weather kit will have an update available to them.  It's a fairly major bugfix and update.  You can see the details below in the 'in my own works' section.

FREE STUFF

The big news here is that Lafette has given away a very major piece of work for free out of what seems to be boredom with the project.  It's an extremely high quality science fiction kit that can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219315

THIRD PARTY TOOLS

Heightmap import (HIMP) tool is on hold due to BOTR having a newborn son.  Congrats!
Entity welder is also on hold for the same reason.

RANDOM ACTS OF CREATIVITY

Looks like Dimoxiland is doing some more work on his project "Space Losers" for GG.  These updates are always exciting because he's pretty much the cream of the crop for Game-Guru developers.  Check out this screenshot!

That's what I'm talking about. All custom code, graphics, etc. It's impressive beyond any reason and if he finishes it will probably put Game-Guru on the map.

IN MY OWN WORKS

As mentioned my Advanced Time of Day and Weather kit has had some fairly major updates.

 02/12/2018    

• Added specular effect for snow to give it whitish appearance for terrain objects on highest values.  I basically changed specularity to 50x for white.  This can be commented out if it's not desirable but overall I think it works well enough considering the engine itself.
• Repaired broken build with files specifically from PP dev build of mine cross-pollinating live non-pp (DX9) build. 
• updated test map file
• Fixed/repaired time function(s), they sync to states now and also rollover seamlessly day to day 
• Fixed broken cycleloopcounter pointers which were still working in old code (singleuse/singlestate/etc). 
• Fixed bag_w_indoors script, huzzah!
• Added 'pp' versions of the weather effects.  If they don't work, let me know the error you get. 

So to sum up I basically had a non-pp build get mixed with a pp build that accidentally got uploaded. I basically made separate FPE files at this point for the PP weather effect decals which can be used in place.  The script remains the same for both as it will function on both.  I'm also including both .fx files for the effectbank folder which should resolve any conflict between the two versions.  The biggest fix is the resolution of the w_indoors script, which now functions seamlessly.

Camerakit is almost ready to be bundled up and posted to the store, expect that very shortly!