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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

New Lua Commands since 5/12/2017


So recently I’ve found myself back in Game-Guru for more significant lengths of time than I’ve had in a while.  Up to this point I’ve mostly been relegated to occasionally dipping my toes in the water while things are updating at a furious pace due to github contributions. 
So I found myself troubleshooting some of my weather system functions and realized there was a significant body of added functions since the last major version (5.12.2017/DX9).
The DX9 edition was fairly stable, so a lot of people use it – however since then a large amount of updated Lua commands have been added with no real clear list of what’s been changed between now and then.  So without any further fanfare, here’s a simple list capturing most of the changes listed on github.  They were obtained by checking the history of changes on github so if I missed any, please let me know.
Most of this is documented in global.lua itself, albeit not as a straight ‘diff’ as this is intended to be.

ENTITY CONTROL

ScaleObject : ScaleObject( obj, x, y, z ) -- Scales object in all axis (Note: uses object id not entity!)
***** The following four functions return multiple values, if you do not need them all just replace
***** the ones you don't need with '_' for example : _, _, _, Ax, Ay, Az = GetEntityPosAng( e ) would
***** just give you last three of the 6 values returned
GetObjectPosAng : x, y, z, Ax, Ay, Az = GetObjectPosAng( obj ) -- returns position and Euler angles of object
GetEntityPosAng : x, y, z, Ax, Ay, Az = GetEntityPosAng( e )   -- returns position and Euler angles of entity
GetObjectColBox : xmin, ymin, zmin, xmax, ymax, zmax = GetObjectCollBox( obj ) -- returns collision cube of object
GetEntityColBox : xmin, ymin, zmin, xmax, ymax, zmax = GetEntityCollBox( e )   -- returns collision cube of entity
Collision box is defined by coordinates of two opposing corners, from these it is easy to calculate the size of the object
GetEntityWeight : weight = GetEntityWeight( e ) -- returns the Physics weight value of the entity
GetObjectScales : xs, ys, zs = GetObjectScales( obj ) -- returns scale values of object in all axis (Note: uses object id not entity!)
SetRotationYSlowly : SetRotationYSlowly(e,destangle,smoothvalue) -- where e is the entity and a smooth value of 100 is immediate, where 50 takes twice as long to rotate to destangle (Dest Angle)
RotateToPlayerWithOffset(e,angleoffset) – Rotates an entity to the player with a euler angle offset.
SetHoverFactor(e,v) – Sets E entity’s hover factor by V value. Presumably used for flying objects.
SetEntityHealthSilent(e,v) – Unsure of actual function but obviously it sets an entity’s health… silently?  Needs testing.


JOYSTICK/GAMEPAD/VR CONTROLS

NOTE: Joystick and VR function before was simply a placeholder.  So these commands were there before but didn’t actually work – now they do, hence their inclusion below.
JoystickX: JoystickX() -- returns a value between -1000 and +1000 representing X axis of controller
JoystickY: JoystickY() -- returns a value between -1000 and +1000 representing Y axis of controller
JoystickZ: JoystickZ() -- returns a value between -1000 and +1000 representing Trigger of controller
PromptLocalForVR(e,str,vrmode) – Unsure, bit it does have actual function now.
PromptLocal(e,str) – some kind of vr related function unfortunately poorly documented for now.
JoystickHatAngle: JoystickHatAngle() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
JoystickFireXL: JoystickFireXL() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
JoystickTwistX: JoystickTwistX() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
JoystickTwistY: JoystickTwistY() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
JoystickTwistZ: JoystickTwistZ() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
SetGamePlayerStatePlrZoomInChange: SetGamePlayerStatePlrZoomInChange() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
GetGamePlayerStatePlrZoomInChange: GetGamePlayerStatePlrZoomInChange() -- command used by the default player control mechanism
GetDynamicCharacterControllerDidJump: x=GetDynamicCharacterControllerDidJump() -- returns 1 if controller jumped

SOUND CONTROL

SetEntityString : SetEntityString ( e, slot, string ) -- where e is the entity number and slot (0-4) to write the string into.  I believe this probably allows you to change sounds or configure them programmatically.
GetEntityString : GetEntityString ( e, slot ) -- where e is the entity number and slot (0-4) is the sound slot index.  The above supposition is confirmed by this.
LoopNon3DSound(e,v) – entity/value.  Loops a slotted sound without 3d, so no distance modifiers just same volume at any distance.

WATER SHADER CONTROLS

**Water Shader Settings*** Look into the shader for informations about these values(open effectbank/reloaded/water_basic.fx with i.e. notepad)
SetWaterHeight(value) – Sets height of water plane.
SetWaterColor(red,green,blue) – Sets RGB of water plane.
SetWaterWaveIntensity(value) – Sets intensity of waves
SetWaterTransparancy(value) – Sets transparency of waves
SetWaterReflection(value) – Sets reflection value of water surface
SetWaterReflectionSparkleIntensity(value) – Specularity of water surface, I believe
SetWaterFlowDirection(x,y,speed) -- small tip: -1 =east/north; 1=west/south - speed is a multiplier of the flowdirection(higher => fast flow)
SetWaterDistortionWaves(value) --  Water noise level
SetRippleWaterSpeed(value) – how fast the ripples move
GetWaterHeight() – returns height of water
GetWaterWaveIntensity() – returns intensity of water
GetWaterShaderColorRed() – returns water plane R value
GetWaterShaderColorGreen() – returns water plane G value
GetWaterShaderColorBlue() --  returns water plane B value
GetWaterTransparancy() – returns water transparency value
GetWaterReflection() --  returns water reflection value
GetWaterReflectionSparkleIntensity() --  Returns ‘water reflection sparkle intensity’ value
GetWaterFlowDirectionX() – returns water flow direction X
GetWaterFlowDirectionY() – returns water flow direction Y
GetWaterFlowSpeed() – returns water flow speed
GetWaterDistortionWaves() – returns water distortion wave setting
GetRippleWaterSpeed() – returns water ripple speed

LIGHT AND SKY CONTROL

SetSkyTo(str) : str=foldername of the sky you want to change to (i.e. ChangeSkyTo("dark"))
GetEntityLightNumber( e ) --  Returns entity light number (HALLELUJAH!)
x, y, z = GetLightPosition( lightNum ) – Presumably returns light XYZ position into 3 separate variables, needs testing.
r, g, b = GetLightRGB( lightNum )  -- Presumably fills RGB values into 3 separate variables.  Needs testing.
GetLightRange( lightNum ) --  Returns light range.
GetLightAngle : xv, yv, zv = GetLightAngle( LightNum ) -- returns the angle vector of the dynamic light specified
SetLightAngle : SetLightAngle( lightNum, xv, yv, zv ) -- sets the angle vector of the specified light ( e.g. 0, 0, 1 would be 'North' or +Z axis )
SetLightPosition( lightNum, x, y, z ) – Lightnum=entity light number.  Sets physical position.
SetLightRGB( lightNum, r, g, b ) --  Lightnum=entity light number.  Sets RBG value of light.
SetLightRange( lightNum, range )   -- range is 1 .. 10000, values outside range are capped; configures output range of light.

FUNCTION FOR FUNCTIONS

SetPreExitValue: SetPreExitValue(e,value) -- where e is the entity and a value of 2 will exit preexit function.  This is invoked at runtime and allows a function to return a value if it exits before being allowed to return a code properly – I think.  Needs testing but most of you won’t be using this unless you took actual programming classes :P

PARTICLE CONTROLS (!)

ParticlesGetFreeEmitter:  iEmitterID = ParticlesGetFreeEmitter() -- returns the index of a free particle emitter object
ParticlesAddEmitter: ParticlesAddEmitter(animationSpeed,startsOffRandomAngle,offsetMinX,offsetMinY,offsetMinZ,offsetMaxX,offsetMaxY,offsetMaxZ,scaleStartMin,scaleStartMax,scaleEndMin,scaleEndMax,movementSpeedMinX,movementSpeedMinY,movementSpeedMinZ,movementSpeedMaxX,movementSpeedMaxY,movementSpeedMaxZ,rotateSpeedMinZ,rotateSpeedMaxZ,lifeMin,lifeMax,alphaStartMin,alphaStartMax,alphaEndMin,alphaEndMax,frequency) -- create a particle emitter under the index iEmitterID and specified parameters (yes, the command really is that long).
ParticleAddEmitterEx: (as above with additional parameters) e, limbindex, particle image ID, particle frame count -- where e is the entity to assign particle to
ParticlesDeleteEmitter: ParticlesDeleteEmitter ( iEmitterID ) -- delete a particle emitter under index iEmitterID
ParticleAddEmitterEx: (as above with additional parameters) e, limbindex, particle image ID, particle frame count -- where e is the entity to assign particle to



DECOMMED AI CONTROLS

Lastly, a large amount of OLD AI commands were decommissioned.  This means new ones are likely on the way with the updated AI changes in the pipeline.
CharacterControlManual(e) – decommed
CharacterControlLimbo(e) – decommed
CharacterControlUnarmed(e) – decommed
CharacterControlArmed(e) – decommed
CharacterControlFidget(e) – decommed
CharacterControlDucked(e) – decommed
CharacterControlStand(e) – decommed
SetCharacterToWalk(e) – decommed
SetCharacterToRun(e) – decommed
SetCharacterToStrafeLeft(e) – decommed
SetCharacterToStrafeRight(e) – decommed
SetCharacterVisionDelay(e,v) – decommed
LockCharacterPosition(e,v) – decommed
UnlockCharacterPosition(e,v) – decommed

Monday, September 24, 2018

This Week in Game-Guru - 09/24/2018

Syndication Notice: I'm adding this just to alleviate some confusion for a few out there.  This blog is hosted at http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com - it is syndicated through several different platforms.

This week is a pretty heavy duty report, so get ready!

Official Game-Guru News:

https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-construction-site-dlc-updated-2
As with all of the recent 'updates' to the graphical end of things for these packs we also get a tidbit about what's going on with new developments. In this case it appears AI is getting an overhaul and from what I hear on discord from the betas it's actually a big improvement.  Looks like I'll be editing/revising my chapter on AI soon.  With all the updates pushing through github I'd say we're probably looking at a major update dropping in the next 1-3 months.  Keep your eyes peeled.

What's Good in the Store:

Not anything new that I saw that really caught my eye and said 'buy me now'.  As such if you missed it I'll simply give last week's recommendation: Teabone's Crime Scene Pack
As it's getting more new things to it and is still a meager 80 cents.  I mean that's in the realm of 'I dropped my change in the couch cushion' territory of cost.

Free Stuff:

An Ice Cave  by Lafette II -  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220072
Free download link on the first post, it's a nice little ice cave you can drop wherever you like.  Obviously this is a static asset so you can't modify how it is shaped but it is definitely among the nicer cave systems I've seen and it's free to boot.

Third Party Tools and Tuturials:

I've made a sort of condensed list because there's so many to go over here.


https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220053 DannyD put a great 'cubemap to skymap' tutorial up.
https://youtu.be/bpIdErVJwtM  This little video goes over some of the AI simming and memory slimming Defy is getting into for his panther AI module.
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220065 Belidos's PBR Tutorial in PDF format. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxAjmicdeiU&list=PLRDhcp_8c7uAPQfE6WMBo7PCNlkQIOLdO So while this video series is not about Game-Guru 'per se' it is definitely a worthwhile watch.  Bugsy suggested this one in discord and I have to say it's right on the money.  Mirrors a lot of my own experiences but also provides valuable 'time saving skips' if you don't want to get caught in the same loops which simply waste your time.


Random Acts of Creativity:

This week we have a beautiful pool by Duchenkuke (sorry Wolf, I can't put yours on here because it's not family/work safe!):



Wow.. I love the use of color and shape on this one.  Though I'd love to see some more detail pieces in there to help round out the image.  Still, very nice for such a simple scene.

Amenmoses has been super-busy on some very interesting code pieces this week.  Firstly he made a piano that has to be seen to be believed:  https://vimeo.com/290376738
At this point I thought wow, amazing.. etc.  Then he kept going!
He added working steam gauges (Art by Graphix) -
The needle's movement is impressively detailed.

Then he did an old-style alarm clock: https://vimeo.com/291164472

Good lord man, do you sleep? 

We've also got a few other updates of 'similar games taking different approaches' - dry dusty westerns. One is Slaur3n's rapidly evolving work which is coming along great:



Notice the simple art style which while simple is completely unique to his game and thus keeps you from thinking 'great... another asset flip'.

There's also this interesting piece which is coming along well:

The above is by VincentHendricks - he seems to be taking a slightly different tact but I still really like where it's going.  Set design is decent with obvious barriers and clutter object usage is where it needs to be.  He's still working on tweaking visuals so hopefully he'll get some traction there.

In My Own Works:

About a week ago I got a problem ticket from a user for my Advanced Time of Day and Weather system for Game-Guru.  Turns out the monster update broke things I didn't see in my testing because I have several settings turned off in my build (as I don't normally use them).

A ticket was opened:
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/379

And in the process of this we corrected an issue with the FPE file but also discovered a code issue with SSAO.  So for now, get the updated version of the system from the download store items button in Game-Guru and make sure SSAO is disabled if you are getting black lines on your weather boxes.

With respect to writing, I'm coming along. Good to be back in full gear, despite the very crazy schedule I have currently.











Monday, September 17, 2018

This Week in Game-Guru - 09/17/18

So wow, what a busy week!  I have a lot of interesting and exciting things to bring up for you all.

First of all, apparently I'm to be featured on the Game-Guru site.  I've been writing this blog for the better part off and on for 4 years now.  It's primarily for a writing exercise for me; I receive no monies for it and it really doesn't benefit me much.  It's more like a 3 hour headache each Monday, hah!

Official Game-Guru News


The mega pack 1 DLC is being updated to PBR.
So this is a regular occurrence and while overall this is a positive the more important news I believe is buried here:

"Back in the main product, we are looking closer at supporting a new model format, the very modern and exciting GLTF v2.0 format which you will find springing up over the last few years, including popular asset stores such as SketchFab. More news on this as it happens, and we look forward to giving you more powers to import the models you want for your next game making project."

I don't know much about GLTF but I will say this can only help.  One of the major limitations of Game-Guru has centered around the .x model types and their importation.  I hope this brings some serious flexibility to the engine.

Also in other news I found on the site, not sure when this was implemented but they finally put a 'showcase' section in which is good because some really good projects can be found there as a 'highlight' of what you can do in Game-Guru.  No surprise some of the names/faces there, though, right?


You can find the full list here: http://www.game-guru.com/showcase

What's Good In The Store


This week on the store we have Teabone, who once again created fantastic set of criminally low priced objects.
It's literally 80 cents.


This is ironic, of course, because it's a 'crime scene pack'.  Get it here!
On a secondary note I've spoken with T-Bone and you can expect more to be added as well as a slight price increase so if you purchase it now you'll save some money in the long run.  Though admittedly it's so cheap it might not even matter if it goes up.

Next we have Pasquill's 'best in show' train set.  I will honestly say this is gorgeous beyond what it has a right to be.  It's priced reasonably, which you might think it's high priced but personally I've seen assets like this go for MUCH higher on other game engine sites.

You'll notice he's broken it out into separate components of trains and rails.   All I can say is if you're looking for the best looking train and rail setups possible - these are a must have.  You can get them here:

Train pack

Rail pack

Lastly not to clutter this section Mad Lobster made a beautiful console for his Mad Scientist Laboratory set.

You get four versions of it for the price of one if you buy it as an individual object; obviously holders of the pack get this for free.  It's PBR mapped and it just looks amazing.



Get it here:
Mad Scientist Spinning Console


Third Party Utilities and Tutorials


There's some really cool dynamic lighting scripts here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219867

Amenmoses has been working on bringing antiques to life: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220041

Preben has been working on volumetric lighting(GASP): https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220046

New user "DannyD" made a (in my opinion, much needed) Setup.ini gui editor: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220007



Free Stuff


Well.. damn.  I *WAS* going to post a free cargo ship that Bod had put up but some clod went and crapped all over him on this thread here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220042

Bod pulled his entire thread of free stuff.  It's all gone, for pretty much ever.  I can't even blame the guy.  He's been burned by more than one jerk in the past on this stuff and it's just a damn shame someone as generous as he is has to put up with things like this.  The situation in a nutshell was:

Bod made a licensed product available for free under strict rules that you cannot modify, alter, or sell it.  This is a fairly standard practice, actually.
So this user modified it, asked for help with his modification of it, and then when Bod called him out on it got absolutely childish and insulting towards Bod who in turn pulled his massive repository of free stuff.  RIP.

For the user who decided to make a stand over something they were clearly on the wrong in...



In the meantime...

https://serygalacaffeine.com/2018/09/12/redsorceress-skyboxes-archive/ free skyboxes!

http://playerzeek-fpsc2011.yolasite.com/ old assets for FPSC!  Maybe you can import them.


Random Acts of Creativity


Slaur3n's work is coming along wonderfully on his cowboy shooter.



It's positively impressive to see people put this level of effort into a game.  Really solid effort and I hope it sees release!

In My Own Works


This week I spent a few hours working on both chapter 18 and having to go back to chapter 4 and add an entire section on the new water controls on the tab-tab menu.  This is going to be a down to the wire production for my book.  I'm up to around 65,000 pages and need to hit 120k for my deadline.

My Lightkit script is on sale for 1.75!
My CameraKit script is on sale for 2.75!

Thanks again for reading and see you next week!


Friday, September 7, 2018

This Week in Game-Guru - 09/10/2018

This week, I've really been through quite a lot of components to help put this weeks report together.
Thankfully there's a surplus of really great stuff that I can't wait to show you.

Official Game-Guru News

As Game-Guru continues it's march towards modernization, there's a continual series of updates that address two separate facets of Game-Guru production.  First, there's the constant GitHub updates, which resulted in things such as the 'monster update' of 7/30/2018.  Secondly there are the asset updates, which are numerous and significant.

Most recently, the 'Death Valley Pack', which many of us old-timers received for free with Game-Guru's release as a thank you, had a significant number of assets updated to PBR.

Now these PBR updates are welcome and interesting, but seem to be a mixed bag, in my experience.  As you may not be aware, the DLCs are generally the work of an artist commissioned by TGC for a product they then resell.  I don't know the specific terms of the arrangement.

As such, artistic skills vary.  Personally I found a few were of 'mediocre' quality with the PBR update.  Yes, the additional detail brought an improvement in some but not enough to measure.  For what it's worth - the Death Valley Pack is one of the better ones.  Still not the best, I'll reserve that for the updates done to the Sci-Fi pack, but very good nonetheless - especially for people who already own it.

Third Party Utilities and Tutorials


This week we have several updates, mostly from my own personal backlog of getting the past month caught up.  Of note, Flatlander has generously picked up where my original project left off and added all the new functions to the Notepad++ Lua API I originally built.  This is a very welcome weight off my shoulders and I just wanted to really thank him for that.  You can get the update here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219215#msg2605239

Also there was a fairly lively discussion on discord the other day regarding the creation of local cube mapping for mirror effects.  This is primarily because cube mapping won't take into account a specific room so we discussed a way of dealing with this.  Graphix came up with a solid method of that worth looking at including a custom tool on his site. 

There's also more here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220031

Next we have a very interesting update to Game-Guru loader which *MAY* make it's way into Game-Guru (this is Preben's work, after all).  It is essentially a dynamic light setup with castable shadows! This would be an enormous change to Game-Guru.  Just check it out:


This kind of lighting effect would really modernize the engine!

That's impressive quality for dynamic lights, especially out of Game-Guru using stock assets.

There's also a few other interesting things I found.  It appears Cybernescence (The creator of the Cogwheel Chronicles) has been doing some really crazy things with shaders.  Notably this:


That's... really good looking.  It still doesn't modify the existing water, but it does a huge amount of work towards getting the ocean to be a living, interesting creature.  His ocean shader isn't for sale yet but should be soon, from the sound of it.

There's also this gem, also by Cybernescence, a PBR heightmap shader.  All I can say is WOW.  I mean this is an enormously powerful shader that will totally destroy lesser CPUs, but yeah.  If you are trying to make something that is on peer with modern high end engines, this is a hell of a start!

There's more info at the link, but this will be a huge boost to certain scenes!

This shader was released for free and obviously is far from complete but is definitely worth tooling around with!  You can find the info on the original link above, along with installation instructions.


What's Good in the Store

Not a lot of new things in the store lately.  Things ebb and flow there.  Right now we're definitely in an 'ebbing' phase.

That said, Gtox's new creation - a creepy mutant - did catch my eye.  His animations are getting a lot better, that used to be my only real complaint about his products.  I obviously own a few, in spite of my minor complaints because they're generally pretty good and often downright creepy, like this new guy:

I imagine this reminds people of their mothers-in-law!
The animation was real good on it too.  You can pick it up here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/31908


Random Acts of Creativity


Some really good stuff this week.  Dvader/Retrogamebloke (on youtube) created a spy-hunter style minigame in Game-Guru.  I'm currently trying to get the juicy details but on the face it's got a randomizer for terrain and vehicles and a scrolling isometric view that infinitely loops.  Really cool stuff. I should mention Spy Hunter was legitimately my favorite game when I was 8 years old so this was pretty cool to see!

Spy hunter Game-Guru- spy hunter


Next, Slaur3n used a pretty awesome 'retro style' shader to give his current project a very unique look.  This one is another YT video you can find here:  https://youtu.be/JyWnDqMoIx0

One more major update was DuchenKuke's 'post apocalyptic game' is out for testing.  Definitely check it out and see if you can't learn a few things in the process!

He says he's going for a Metro: Last light look - I'd say he found it!
Check out the really professional quality here.  There's mirroring in the wet terrain below, superb use of lighting and clutter.. I mean this is excellent work worth learning from.

In My Own Works


Writing is a disciplined activity.  If you don't discipline yourself, you stop writing.  It's why I write this blog, to help assist in that.  It's also important to take time, every day, to write.  I really can't stress this enough.  Even a paragraph of work on a book you're working on keeps the mind active and prevents you from falling into stasis.  In my case, I'm focusing on getting 5000 words a week out.  That's a hefty amount of work, thankfully there's plenty to do so I can always find something to write about.

Personally I work in a very structured way.  I'm an 'outline writer'.  This makes things easier than I think for others, but it also comes with it's own set of complications - like seeing that outline can be rather overwhelming.  For now though, work on chapter 18 is coming along nicely.  That's my 'how to add detail' chapter, broken out piece by piece and starting with vegetation.




Tuesday, September 4, 2018

This Week in Game-Guru - 09/04/2018

Welcome back after a nice long month hiatus from Game-Guru Reporting.  Unfortunately life's call was pretty strong (and remains so) but at the same time I do need to make sure this report is brought up to speed on what's new and exciting in Game-Guru.

From a real world standpoint I had to do a migration of Redhat Satellite 5.6 to 5.8 for my day job for a very large company.  This was a big part of my time sink along with yearly pentesting, etc.  So again, apologies and without further wait here we go!

Official Game-Guru News



Over the past month steady progress has been made with respect to the engine and it's secondary DLC packs.  Additional PBR assets (to the chagrin of some - some feel that the engine would be better served due to memory constraints with non PBR though I disagree personally). 

There's also been a free weekend, which just ended today, to my knowledge.  Nice to see TGC taking additional steps to bring in a bigger crowd as Game-Guru becomes more feature packed.  I'd suggest a relaunch in media (magazines, online blogs, etc) at a good time, say next year when things are much more solidly done.

What's New in the Store


Teabone's "HUD Stance Script" is in the realm of 'cheap and must have'.
Pasquill did some really fantastic and extremely well priced shipping containers.
The above kind of illustrates what a deal 4 dollars can buy you (6 of these beauties!).
This is an amazing deal.  I've already covered Pasquill's stuff in the past; for this price though I honestly feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot if you choose the old-out-of date freebie containers from FPSC.  Spend the $4 and buy something professional, like these!

There's other stuff on sale, such as EAI's products which I highly recommend. Beyond that, not much new on the store that really caught my eye.  As always if you are a store content creator and want me to check out your stuff in detail with a coupon/reviewer copy, let me know. 

3rd Party Programs and Tutorials


Graphix is working on a simple web script to take 6 pictures and make a cubemap out of them.  No link yet, but he says it should be on his website soon.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219916 Bugsy put up a great little 'displaying pictures in sequence' help script thread which is a good utility script if you have nothing else like it.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220000?page=1 Argent Arts (a new user) put up a pretty nice discussion on the current lighting system.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220018 Which lead to Bugsy putting up a pretty thorough lighting test.  Looks like dynamic 'specularity' is offline again.  There's also a really good discussion on PBR here too.

Random Acts of Creativity


There is a significant body of new work to cover.  I'll do my best, but if I miss you please send me a message and I'll include yours next time!

A nice framework but needs refinement (lighting, in particular)

The above are some very VERY preliminary screenies from VincentHendriks.  Looks like a city slog, which GameGuru is surprisingly good at creating, so should turn out well.  No title that I'm aware of yet.

CodeName:Protoscope by Synchromesh


This project is a solid piece by a very old hat in the Game-Guru community.  Synchro's actually a mod over at the forums and it's got some nice interactivity pieces to it. 

And now of very important note: Acythian is coming along! 
Check out this thread for all the juicy details by one of Game-Guru's premier artists (Wolf).




Above are a few of the many gorgeous screenshots he's put together.  I mean it's totally worth a trip over to the forums, this project is masterfully done (assuming he can keep framerate above 10!)

DuchenKuke is also working on some interesting stuff - he's another 'premier' builder, IMO.  He's got a new project here:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219956



It's... unusual, right?  Reminds me of the art for Hotline: Miami or some kind of retro-new wave album.

Work continues on the 'cogwheel chronicles' but one really amazing thing showcased was this 'dissolve fade' work.  I mean .. WOW.  It's something - definitely click the link and check it out!

In My Own Works


I've been furiously writing for lost time, to get ahead of the curve on my book's publication.  I have a lot of really good stuff, I think though could probably use a proofreader or two soon.  If you are interested in assisting, contact me via the form on the right or leave a comment below!