This Week in GameGuru - 08/12/2019

This article represents solely the opinion of the author and does not reflect the opinions or views of r The Game Creators, it's employees, or subordinates.  It likewise does not reflect the views or opinions of www.tgcstore.net and it's staff.  The author receives no compensation for this work and it is done solely as a service for the GameGuru community at large.

As you can see, this week I've included a disclaimer as I've received feedback that the way this blog is syndicated on www.game-guru.com, www.thegamecreators.com, blogarama, and gamedev.net can lead to some confusion as to the nature of these news releases. I will be including this disclaimer going forward to help clarify for those who are not familiar with my work.

While I realize that some people may disagree with my methodologies, at the same time you are free to do so.  I do reside and live in the United States of America and our rights of free speech are important to me.  I make every effort to ensure that I do not denigrate or diminish anyone's work.  If you take issue with the way I portray YOUR PERSONAL PRODUCTS then please contact me.

Thanks for your time, everyone - I now consider that issue at an end.  Also, a special note at the end so make sure you read all the way through - big news about my book! :)

GameGuru News

Per GitHub the latest information is that there is a trial version being added to GameGuru where you can use it for around 7 days before having to purchase it.  This will likely add a number of new potential buyers to the product so keep a close eye out for those new guys and gals!

Also it appears there is a relatively minor change that will allow standalones to be exported without encryption so as to allow entity sharing?  I'm not sure what that one is for but I'm sure it'll make sense eventually.

I can also soft confirm that ... other interesting things are going on with GG.  That's the most I'll say for the moment!

What's Good in The Store

FredGames77 continues to pump out high quality assets at a record pace.  While we've all likely got a huge stash of boxes, the quality on his recent submission is definitely worth a look:

You get 10 'pack cases' (boxes) for $10 (currently on sale for $5!) - a very reasonable offer.  These are high quality to boot with low poly count and excellent PBR texturing.  Get yours here: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11145

There's also this interesting grub enemy creature by Gtox:

Get yours here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33376

Free Stuff

Honkeyboy added some horns to Character Creator: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220945

Not bad work.  I will admit my book's materials ALSO include some donated Character Creator attachments so keep an eye out for that as well. He's got additional ones here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220945#msg2618825
They include a rice farmer's hat, knight's templar's helm, skeleton warrior, and another set of demon horns.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

 

This week I caught wind of a pretty interesting blog tutorial on the best mods for Blender 2.8 (which recently dropped).  If you use Blender actively check it out here:   https://cgcookie.com/articles/the-top-10-modeling-addons-for-blender-2-8

The latest official GameGuru tutorial video was posted online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMqPsVpy2Ag

There were actually a number of non-english tutorials being posted.  Some work reasonably well enough with youtube's auto-translate function if you're interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYebtk_SETs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEova6DMa5Q

Work continues on the '3d Asset Manager' program for GG - it has come such a long way in such a short period.  The latest info can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220822?page=5#msg2618874

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Bod this week made a really serious Taxicab..which turned into a police car... which turned into this awesome street racer with neon lights and alpha-planed headlights.  https://youtu.be/dw8mi4z7isg

Bonesy also made more forward momentum through steady refinement of his cyber-fi game:

One of the more interesting bits is a new user named "Trollbae" posted one of his friends creations from amateur work in the EBE and it's an impressive manor house:

I have to admit this is quality work for someone who is just trying out the EBE and GameGuru.  It shows a pretty clear ease for new users and I proves a bit to some of us older hats that maybe the EBE is worth using from time to time after all!

Tarkus1971 posted an update to his 'Urban Histories' game that I am personally very interested in seeing - apparently he's reworking it from scratch.  More info here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220589?page=1#msg2619135

Solar is working on a side project called "Zombie Central".  It's a suburban zombie city crawl.
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220974#msg2619073

This is because his other project, Kaboom Foxie is apparently nearly complete.

In My Own Works

And lastly, in my own big news (if you even made it this far to the end of this report) ... is my book is FINALLY released!

https://www.crcpress.com/An-Introduction-to-GameGuru/Messina/p/book/9781138612631

That's right!  The first start to finish guide for making and selling a game in GameGuru is finally here! The book is 426 pages in print with a significant error index, Lua, FPI Guide, 20+ chapters on GameGuru and Game Development in general.

The assets for this (demo maps, character creator addons, custom weapons,  custom static entities, some generously donated other materials, all my scripts, skies and textures...) are all going to be uploaded TONIGHT by 12PM EST.

I will also be giving away some promotional copies for FREE in the coming week.  So keep your eyes peeled on Discord and on the Forums for more details.

For those interested, there is a special 20% off discount code I have through my publisher you can use that is valid until the END OF THE YEAR - AITGG230 

FOR THOSE NOT PURCHASING THE BOOK, THE ASSETS WILL BE POSTED TO THE STORE IN THE COMING WEEK OR SO FOR PURCHASE.  

This Week in GameGuru - 05/05/2019

GameGuru News

This week in GameGuru we have several 'info drops' of interest.  Firstly, if you missed it, on youtube was a recent video by Lee with respect to using GG Loader with GameGuru.  This could, perhaps, signal a shift towards a more formal cross platform pipeline between AGK and GG.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcMrV7OqfeQ

Also recently a DLC pack deal was posted with this snippet of information:


"It's been a slow start to the year for official updates, but rest assured a lot of activity is happening in the background which we'll be able to reveal to you in the near future. What we can say for now is that we are working on aspects of the file management system for better compatibility with Windows 10, some multiplayer technology additions, a little code refactoring and upgrading the internal source code to Visual Studio 2017.
May will also see us tackle a few of the points you have posted to our issues tracker, so if you have something you would like to report and it's not yet recorded on GitHub, you can do so here:
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues"

This lines up from what I've heard unofficially. If you take a look at the 'AlphaSite' code base, you'll notice a lot of recent moves towards adding Photon Multiplayer code and VR support.  While this is all very interesting and potentially game-changing it also is somewhat worrisome as an outside observer as there are nearly 265 outstanding issues on the issues tracker and I truly hope we see more than a 'few' bugfixes.  This engine's incredible potential is being hampered by a backlog of bugs and quality of life improvements for critical features such as a meta-searchable entitybank, better UI controls and improved terrain functionality.

I am, however, extremely hopeful that the new update will include at least a good chunk of fixes for outstanding issues such as the math error for the widget (where it slides exponentially if you are on the 'backside' of it.). Time will tell, but historically it's proven that every major update typically brings back a large number of old users to 'give it a whirl'. 

What's Good in The Store

This week it looks like Valentin321 has continued adding to his repository of Soviet themed assets.

Sula put in some last minute cars, old european cars that are oddly remniscient of the old American Chevy Nova (from the 80's). 

A few packs were added, notables are Graphix's beautiful picket fence kit and BSP's very impressive 2k skies pack volume 2. 

Also my Time of day and Weather kit + Skies pack is on sale this week for 12.95 until the 10th.  Make sure you get your copy if you haven't already gotten one! I will be adding the new 4k Space Skies to this kit shortly and increasing the price to reflect it, so if you want to get those skies for a bargain, this is the best time to do it!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

BOTR continues to grind out work on his heightmap importation tool for GG.  He's now getting a split-loading system in where you can load multiple terrain types.  It's an interesting experiment, get more details here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806?page=3#msg2615271

AmenMoses posted a video of his highly impressive physics-based gear library that is a work in progress but will likely see release soon for those who don't mind getting their hands dirty with Lua code: https://vimeo.com/334314785

Wolf did a great write-up on '10 easy tips to make working with GG easier' which has some pretty high quality info in it, like how to make any plant into functional vegetation. Many of the these are covered in my book as well but it's nice to see the information making it's way through the public sphere!

Dvader has been breaking into the map file and digging around.  Interesting stuff, I remember trying the same thing about a year ago and eventually giving up after running out of time. 

Free Stuff

HarryWever(Dagored) put up a free windmill for those interested: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/210761?page=6#msg2615188 - They look great with the dynamically cast shadows from the built-in sun. 

Amenmoses posted a script for Graphix's free piping that allows functional gauges: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=14#msg2615070

Amenmoses also put together a variation on his vehicle script to make a very cool little boat: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220055?page=1#msg2615182

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Recently Belidos showed a very interesting video of his recent work on an isometric RPG kit which included an inventory system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FslhDHYSwHM

And because I inadvertently missed it, there was a fantastic piece of work demonstrated by Bod and Amenmoses showing multiple vehicles which can be driven via video.  I would recommend this highly as a must-watch: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220598?page=2#msg2614858

Teabone's recent work on his D&D inspired gelatinous cube has come a long way - I'm definitely liking the progress:

He's put a lot of time into trying to size it properly and get the 'jiggle' correct.

Ignite has some new interesting details on it's design philosophy and recent updates: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220722#msg2614998
Notably he's added:
Three light sources, each with different behaviours (actual weapons shown are placeholders atm).

•   Movement penalties based on light choice.
•   Death, respawning, and resetting of light source attributes.
•   Safezones.

Good stuff. I always like to see people thinking outside of the box.

Solar's project, 'Resist: Revolution' is apparently still being worked on and some good screenshots were recently posted:

Not bad at all!  Keep up the good work guys.

In My Own Works

Recently I posted some teasers to Facebook and various areas of Discord of the weapons work I'm having done by an artist via Commission.  It's come along well.  We're about halfway through the list of proposed items and so far I'm really pleased with the results. I've also been working heavily with GameGuru's gunspec file and projectile files to help create some impressive effects for these guns ranging from flamethrowers to plasma launchers. I'd say I feel as if I have full mastery on this and will likely do a write-up on it in the near future or try to get a last-minute inclusion to the book.

In the meantime, enjoy the screenshots of some of the guns that are still works in progress but are nearing completion:

Once we're all done I'll release these for purchase on the TGCstore ahead of the book for those who don't intend to buy the book (which will include free versions with it).

Again, for those who are interested, the book's publication date is AUGUST 19th, 2019.  I hope to see you all soon with details about additional features I will be including with the book!

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!