This Week in GameGuru - 01/13/2020

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.

GameGuru News

Not much, unfortunately.  Work goes on behind the scenes, so I hear from those in the know. I cannot divulge the specifics, unfortunately.  Nothing on github but some excellent stuff is coming, near as I can tell almost a generational leap for GG. Time will tell from a public view but all I can say is that from my viewpoint I see a lot of things clicking together right now in a way I haven't seen since early 2016 or so.  

What's Good in The Store

Wolf has released a massive 2019 Sci-Fi pack and I own many of these already. I use them with regularity but a few new items also appeared in the form of a 'booster kit'

Just one of many of the superb assets in the booster pack!

You can get your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33832
On to another favorite - a fantastic 'torch light' script by Teabone.  I have to say as someone who wrote up a whole LightKit of my own, I'm impressed by the simplicity and function of the torch kit. Check out this video for an idea of what I mean:

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWoFImeQK2w

This script is a total bargain at $2 for any fantasy project: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33858

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

           It bears reiterating that 'Bored of The Rings', a forum user, has been developing many excellent tools that are pretty much a required faire for anyone serious about using GameGuru at this point.  They are reasonably priced and I highly recommend picking up your own copies.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221333 - This is the heightmap importer he's diligently worked on which is now up to version 5!

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221285 - This is the FPSC autowelder tool which can LITERALLY IMPORT ENTIRE LEVELS FROM FPSC INTO GAMEGURU.
It also can pull dynamic entities, weapons, etc over.  It fits a critical pipeline for those building indoor scenes - you can build your indoor scenes in FPSC and import them into GameGuru.  Really quality stuff.

In the interim, I know cybernessence (another GG user) has been working on some amazing things of his own.  Per his words:
"Just added wake effects for ships and water and sky (sky scroll clouds) transparency based on configurable co-ordinates so airships can punch through cloud layer and subs can dip below the waterline without texture plane intersects. Looks pretty good. Added numerous lua lcommands such as getting limbs for HUDs, so can add particle effects to FP hands and weapons. Loot chests are now populated by 'add entity' commands - so money (or any asset) can be dynamically loaded at run time ... lost count of all the changes made to make the game better now to be honest"

I for one am still praying he'll include some of those in the core branch of GG on Github.

Free Stuff

Nothing I could find this week, sorry!

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

New user Mav3r1ck has been building some really excellent fantasy dungeon crawls:

The above is apparently a boss fight arena.

I love the dark and red look he's put on using some custom assets and lighting.  Great work!

Avenging eagle's interesting game with torches and lighting as a core mechanic is coming along splendidly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmKBugPxWPM 

And lastly we have more teasers from Duchenkuke's fantastic Dark Skies game:

 https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221314?page=1#msg2625068

   

In My Own Works

I've been getting back into the swing of working GameGuru intermittently now that life is making more sense!  I want to thank everyone who has purchased my book, I want you to know it's been very fulfilling to provide something that so many are able to own and appreciate!

My more current works will involve some scripts being released on the store (two of them for free) in the near future.  So keep your eyes peeled!

This Week in GameGuru - 11/06/2019

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.

GameGuru News

If you haven't seen the newsletter, it bears repeating what was mentioned in there.  Notably TGC is in a bugfixing cycle so it's important you take any bugreports you have and post them over on the issues log on GitHub.

What's Good in The Store

This week's totally subjective analysis of the store reveals not much new.  Fredgames continues to pump out products, so check out his store here: https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/250424

Other than that though there a number of notable sales at the top of the page.  Give it a look!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

BOTR released the final version of his autowelder FPSC to GG pipelining tool. Grab it while you can! https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221285

Similarly BOTR released his final version of his Heightmap tool! https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221100?page=1#msg2622936

Free Stuff 

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220055?page=2#msg2622953 Amenmoses put together some sound control scripts you can get for free.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219734?page=2#msg2622903 3 Sci-fi animated objects by JPH.
A video can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93CJmXtgyg

 

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Naelurec  got some more interesting updates and custom models.  I'm truly interested in seeing where this one goes.  The latest update shows a toxic-looking planetscape:

A favorite of mine, the Cogwheel Chronicles had it's creator Cybernessence dropping more hints and clues about his current work including a heightmapper tool: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=7#msg2622957

The old master of lighting, Wolf, put up some powerful looking screenshots of a yet unnamed game.

I'm pretty impressed with how far he's come even given his already somewhat legendary status in the community.

Schn33ky posted a game called Dilly Dally Derby, which is actually a complete work at this time: 
It's a betting game where you choose a horse and it randomly runs them out.  It's interesting to me because this is actually a game very similar to one I made back years ago in school. I used monster trucks myself, but I can appreciate the work that went into this.

The biggest news is that Duchenkuke revealed a secret project he's been working on that is now available for public consumption.

Note the custom interface, impressive lighting, use of a powerful vignette and just overall professional feel of the work.

A perhaps better example is this gem:

The atmosphere is intense and palpable. He put a lot of work into the sound design and environments, it features a variety of enemies and is available to be wishlisted on steam (Which I personally recommend doing!) - https://store.steampowered.com/app/657480/Dark_Skies_The_Nemansk_Incident/?beta=0

In My Own Works

This past week was a flurry of getting people their free products as book purchasers.  If I missed you, please contact me on discord, send me a ticket on tgcstore, or send me a message on the forums if all else fails. 

This Week in GameGuru - 02/04/2019

Official GameGuru News:

Well, another pack got more of a PBR DLC treatment: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-construction-site-dlc-updated-4

Lee made a minor series of patches on Github centering around some slight code changes. He also made a new branch on Github for alpha releases. https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/tree/AlphaSite

On an aside, this week the Facebook GameGuru community group (click here for a link) was recently given a new administrator or three.  As a result it's in the middle of a facelift.  Given this is a community run Facebook page, it's definitely going to start being more active if you're into that kind of thing.

What's Good in The Store:

MStockton put up a new script (well priced) that allows you to display a map when the M Key is pressed.  Campana Productions added a glass wall maze set, which is a fairly interesting system I'd consider taking a look at.

Free Stuff:

Lafette II put up a link to all of his free works as well as a greenhouse.  Check it out here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474

Third Party Tools and Tutorials:

This week on the store someone added Game Launcher Creator for 24.99 - it's a great utility and it comes highly recommended from some users I interviewed for my book.

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs):

Duchenkuke continues to show his mastery over outdoor environments.  He's added some beautiful screenshots for his first level....

and gave teasers of his second...

I have to say, it's definitely refreshing to see someone with proficiency using the engine to it's fullest.

Bonesy continues work on his unique cyberpunk shooter:

And in other news I found this great gem of a re-texture by Wolf.  He took one of the war-torn buildings and fixed some of the model's polys.  He then cleaned up the texture and... wow.  What a night and day difference!

In other news I got a request to review some games that are being released on steam.  I was given some free DLC keys to review them.  I will probably get to that after my book is with the publisher, but right now I'm simply too crunched to take private requests like this. In the meantime, keep on chugging guys and gals!

In My Own Works:

 

This week I got good news back from my publisher and bad news.  The first bit is I won't have to rewrite all of my content, which is great.  It really shaves time down so I can keep the personalized style I went with for it.
The downside is I need all of my pictures ready when I submit, meaning I spent 4 hours yesterday night making just a spreadsheet to keep track of the 167 pictures going into the book.
That's before I even get the pictures in!
That said if I can have this done by the end of the week we'll be moving to formatting, then submission!

This Week in GameGuru - 01/28/2019

https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-antiques-in-attic-dlc-updated 

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220354?page=2 - lee
 

Official GameGuru News:

Another pack (this time, a fairly recent one) got updated, notably the 'antiques in the attic' DLC.
Details can be found here: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-antiques-in-attic-dlc-updated 

Of particular interest, however, was a recent thread on the forums which had some interaction with Lee specifically detailing his plans for GG in 2019. The debate has been fairly heated, but this was the most recent information he dropped on the product's direction: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220354?page=2#msg2611108

Mostly he's pointing at forking the code into 'code fixes' and 'new features'. This is a smart move, one I'd recommend doing ASAP.  The code fixes branch needs to be really buttoned up.

What's Good in The Store:

Gtox put together some more reptiles!
Dagored is back on the scene with a really beautiful Huey helicopter that is actually an object that can attack you!  It's pretty fantastic and well worth an add if you're doing a modern-style shooter.
There's some new scripts, in game collectibles, and music as well.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials:

Someone finally put together an 'entity bank search tool' - thank god for that.

DuchenKuke put together a fairly solid tutorial on how to add grass to GameGuru.  Check it on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVCPeronHE

Free Stuff:

Good lord.  Normally I'd cover all of it, but there's just too much this week.  Do yourself a favor and pick up a tank, subway station, converted FPSC assets, an enemy, and more.  The forum is chock full of goodies this week! https://forum.game-guru.com/board/25

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs):

This is another high test week for me so I'm going to only put up the few screenshots I've aggregated over the past few days.

Foremost we've got this beauty by DK:

That is shockingly good!  Note the use of vegetation and the really well applied artistic color palette.

Cybernessence really put his heart into his Cogwheel Chronicles game and the latest update has a HUGE amount of extra goodies in it that might make it into the final engine release: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=5#msg2611195

And lastly wolf has finally given Acythian it's own tab on his website along with a proper indiedb presence!

Current Status:

Well, I'm getting beat up, frankly. My editor, a good friend who of some years had nearly a decade in the Australian gaming mag as a vice editor.  He really wasn't terribly impressed  by some of my writing style and it's been an ugly past few days trying to clean that up.  I have my hands full.

As we approach finality where I can submit this, I have so much more work to do afterwards including tutorial levels and the like.

This Week in GameGuru - 12/17/2018

This week has a lot of updates to cover.  Let's get started! First a quick reminder that I am not an employee of TheGameCreators (TGC) and as such this opinion piece does not reflect their views. This is entirely a piece based on my own findings. 

Official GameGuru News

So first off, there's the rather beautiful 'Cold War' pack.
A few weeks ago we were offered a preview of the asset list for this one and I have to say it looked really gorgeous.  The demo picture on the above link is also fairly compelling.  I'd say of the recent DLC releases, this one is my favorite.  That said, there's a few things I've picked up in 'chatter' from various model artist friends of mine as I've been slogging through the forums and discord.  Apparently there's some optimization that may need done on this pack and the author was notified of this.  I'm hoping we see that but in the meantime if you notice any performance issues with it, make sure you bring them to TGC support's attention.

Next up with respect to the other PBR updates that have been rolling out regularly, there have been some complaints about how they have come about on the models.  In many cases, people are finding that it's just not sufficient to add PBR to a very old model.  GraphiX demonstrated this on a forum post:

The left is the improved model while the right is the post-PBR update model. Apparently model smoothing groups needed changed, though I'll admit that's a bit above my head from a modelling standpoint. 
Regardless, even a casual user can see a substantial difference. So substantial that lee went and replied on the matter in a way that I can honestly say was very refreshing.  I'd love to see more communication and direct interaction with the community like this:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220318#msg2609579

Take some time to take a look at this post and really process it, because it means a lot.  First he acknowledges the problems and then says he's going to create a new donation bucket and dump the remaining ones to pay for Graphix's fixes.  The new donation bucket will be for updates.  Make sure you re-update your donations to help support the non-TGC members!


So there we have it.  Definitely some steps in the right direction.  I know a few people are perpetual pessimists in this community and I really can't blame them - but I will personally say I've seen more change this year than I've seen in the last five.

What's Good in The Store

Well let's start with something pretty fantastic  - a release by Slaur3n called 'Santa and the Evil Snowmen'.  It's a really impressive minigame (single level) designed completely in GameGuru.  You don't need GameGuru to purchase it, just a TGCstore account.  It's available for a reasonable price on the store ($2.50).

You can get your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32204

Also we've got even more work by Lotgd (aka Friskon) .. I have to say this one is probably one of his better ones and it's criminally cheap - animated maggots for corpses.  This is one you need to watch the video to get the full effect.  The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol3v6xWSYyo

Now available for 30 cents in USD: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32211

M2Design has put together a background set of ruined buildings which are fairly efficient poly-wise but still have high end textures if you want to showcase them up close.  You can find the entire pack available for a reasonable price here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32210

Third Party Tutorials and Tools

Cybernessence made a modification to the core PBR shader that allows you to completely disable the sun for indoor scenes.  I tested it among many others and it seemed to work brilliantly in that regard.  Instructions on installation and usage can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220297?page=2#msg2609391

M2Design put together some really fantastic instruction on fixing his transparencies for glass which has always been a sticking point for modellers with GameGuru.  Instructions are found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220333#msg2609551

There's a pretty good discussion going on about importing MakeHuman characters into GameGuru.
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220299

Free Stuff

This week in Free Stuff we have: 

Lotgd (the maggot maker from above) made a free Christmas set.  Should be fun to play around with and hey, you don't have to pay for it so that's always nice :)   Get your copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220313#msg2609322

There's a glowing sphere here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220314

Graphix and Amenmoses have brought back the Piano: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=12#msg2609296

And I have to say my favorite of the Free Stuff this week was from Lafette II with his Chinese Christmas object pack.

You can get your copy here:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220328

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Bonesy has been doing more work with his CyberFi game - I noticed one of the skies looked familiar, turns out it's one of my old HD Space Skies :)

Looks like he added a face to the HUD as well.  While the palette hurts me a bit, I have to say his dedication to plodding forward on his project is exactly how things get done.  He just keeps chipping away at it and it's coming along great. 

Duchenkuke continues to wow with his Metro-style game that I am personally very interested in seeing come to completion - keep cracking man - you're doing fantastic! Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By13-y6bFwk


Defy put out some pretty impressive NPC behavior.  He's gotten pretty good with making the characters in GameGuru perform specific tasks and it shows:

There's a video available, of course, it appears to be related to 3rd person over the shoulder game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1NCzsUa7f4

Last up we have some screenshots from PirateMyke's work.  This latest stuff is pretty sweet looking and he is really dialing in his lighting:

I have to say, some of these projects are looking like they are really firming up.  The work going on here is fairly inspirational and I'm looking forward to be able to work on something myself (once the book is done).

In My Own Works

So obviously I had this huge update to do, but I've also been having a blast in my weekly tabletop game campaign.  I used to update the blogger page for it but I simply ran out of time.  Regardless, the players absolutely trounced me this round but that only makes the GM (me) want to make it tougher for them :) 

Beyond that the book is coming along, despite the difficult subject matter.  Big special thanks to AmenMoses for being available for my incessant questioning.  He's been extremely helpful for me to get a solid understanding of Physics and Particles as they are implemented by GameGuru.  After this I have the unenviable task of reading through this immense tome and fixing all the minor errors, then reorganizing the book more logically.

It's going to be a massive undertaking that will probably go on through at least the first few weeks of the year.  I'm also going to need to take approximately 130 pictures for the book, which is... also fairly daunting.  Thankfully most of it is fairly straightforward stuff like GUI icons and what not. 

Still, writing a technical walk through book like this is not for the faint of heart.  I'm looking forward to it's impending completion and subsequent release!

This Week in GameGuru - 12/10/2018

Welcome back to another busy week in the GameGuru community.  Let's dive right in!

Official GameGuru News

This week saw another model kit update - specifically PBR getting added to some of the collectibles and minor doodads of  the Sci-Fi kit. I did notice, however, they are still using the Red Cross on the collectible for the heathkit.  This is considered a no-no in the GameDev community since it violates the Geneva Convention for using the international symbol of the Red Cross.  I brought this to TGC's attention and while no comment has been given thus far on it I'm certain they will take quick and decisive action to remedy this.

As we enter the traditional holiday cycle, don't be surprised to not see any major code releases or updates done for a while.  I've noticed we tend to get 3-4 major releases a year and the most recent one will probably hold us for a while, likely until March or so. In the interim, it appears they are content to continue pushing Add On content and updates.  It can be frustrating for users who want to see steady and complete refinement of the core product.  Well hey, at least it's consistent, right?

What's New in the Store

Recently a TGCStore seller's discord was added.  If you need access, contact 'TheNext' on the regular GameGuru discord.

Not a lot of brand new stuff, though it seems the cartoon-style assets are really taking off.  I like how they look though I worry it's going to saturate the market a bit.  Still, Reliquia and Belidos both are providing really quality stuff you can find right off the main store page.

There's also a creepy Nun and an 'abomination' by Gtox.  
 

Free Stuff

In 2016 , there was a great bit of 'Christmas Giving' done at Wolf's signalling.  I have to say, it was a nice sentiment and I would love to see more of that.

In the meantime, enjoy this 'free little alien'.

If you're looking for Wolf's Christmas Advent Calendar of free stuff from 2016, check it out at this link here! 

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Well foremost it appears that Epic games is positioning themselves as an indie gamedev marketplace.  This is huge news and deserves some praise.  Steam is a great platform in a lot of respects but the 30% right off the top is pretty brutal for many involved.  Epic is offering a digital platform with 12% costs, but get this - if you use the Unreal engine then the traditional 5% for using that engine will be deducted from the 12% they take.  So you in reality are saving money by using their engine on their platform.  Pretty brilliant marketing though they'll need more than that to defeat a monster as big as Steam.

Also it appears that SegmentAutoWelder (an FPSC conversion tool for GG) is repaired.  You can get your updated copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220102

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs) 

Well, interestingly enough as work slows down on the engine, work picks up on people's projects!  Lots of interesting screenies for this week for you.  I hope I caught them all!

Mstockton's in development PBR Assets

Bonesy continues work on his Sci-Fi Shooter

DuchenKuke is putting out some fantastic Metro:2033 style screenshots

Len the man continues to show us how simple methods produce great results for cutscenes

VincentHendricks made this great scene using some dynamic lights set at the right coloration!

Friskon - Lotgd made this bizarre gif which sort of boggles and fascinates simultaneously!

As you can see, there's a lot going in in the community. I'm still waiting for a serious game to show up, something that can really knock the socks off other communities out there.  I think if guys like Duchenkuke can keep working at it, they'll eventually release something incredible.  It just takes perseverance, some tolerance for GameGuru's nuances, and a steady hand.

Beyond that we're seeing some amazing work by the other devs who contribute code wise.  Check out some of the latest works of Graphix and Amenmoses - their particle system now has physics effects!

T-bone is working on stealth mechanics similar to what you find in the old Thief games: Video Here

Amenmoses has made some huge advances to his 'pickuppable' scripts.  Notably now you can actually use them to throw and injure enemies.  Check out the video of it here: https://vimeo.com/305258044

In My Own Works

This week I didn't get as much done as I'd like. The last mile here is proving somewhat difficult as I saved all the more dangerous or difficult tasks to cover for last.  This means particles, physics, advanced engine tricks like camera control - all of that is a bit daunting to write and a lot to research and test.  It'll get there though.  The trick is to just keep plodding inexorably forward.

This Week in Game-Guru - 10/29/2018

What a crazy week.  Life at home has been absolutely nuts and this week we've got a fairly jam-packed series of updates that I need to unpack here.  So I'm going to blitz through this as quick as I can and hopefully haven't missed anything critical.

Official Game-Guru News:

So this week they updated the Fantasy pack again with more PBR assets but also added an 'ally' knight character.  I'll have to take a look at that code, should be fun.

https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-fantasy-pack-updated

Of particular note was this tidbit:
"Back in the main engine, we working on multiple fronts, including our forthcoming GLTF support, improved AI and improvements to FBX importing, which will allow up to 170 bone character models, making extra room for detailed finger and facial animations."

Now that's exciting!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220102 - SegAutoWelder free.  This program, by "BoredOfTheRings" does the following: 'it takes FPSC segments / levels and converts them fully textured and saves directly to Game-Guru without the user needing to do anything'.  Sounds great for old users looking to update their assets to Game-Guru!
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220100 - Another "BoredOfTheRings" creation - a Free DBO to X converter.  Not bad!
https://www.moddb.com/tutorials/lighting-in-game-environments-the-hows-and-whys Someone linked this fantastic demi-chapter from a book on lighting and I have to say having read it it's totally worth the 20-40 minutes reading on it.  

What's Good on The Store 

This week on the store, I want to mention first off I've updated the normal mapping for MANY of my terrains (really the only one that hasn't been is the tropic terrain due to some errors in the DDS files).  This improved normal mapping is only noticeable on the 'highest' setting for terrain but fixes some long standing issues I've had with my work's performance on those settings.  The biggest offender was my '1024px HQ Roads' terrain.  Current owners should re-download them in Game-Guru by choosing 'download from store'.

This week has a lot of great stuff.  Teabone has continued to update his value priced Crime Scene Pack and now has an 'all scripts' pack which I believe is a fantastic value for some really great utility scripts.

BSP's put out some excellent PBR animated trees.  Personally I'd prefer static trees but if you want the highest quality available, accept no substitutes!

And lastly I have to say I really love MStockton's 'crystal terrain and model pack'.  I've been playing a lot of ARK: Aberration the past few months and this is just the ticket to create something similar!

Random Acts Of Creativity (WIPs):

I'm adding the (WIPs) tag just so new users know what this section is.
Graphix has some really nice new model updates - https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220156#msg2607189
Granada posted a pretty awesome cowboy WIP up:

Very impressive, for a meager 6400 polys!

Here's a screenshot from a WIP called 'The Acolytes' by VincentHendriks:

Some work to be done but an interesting first go, reminds me of Quake 1 for color palette.

And... a lot of videos..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U1gy1Lq4Ng&feature=youtu.be - AI and Particles
https://youtu.be/ugsHu2-0650 - Bonesy's SCI-FI Shooter is coming along nicely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEgcRdMpWVQ - MaiaCombra put out this interesting build using stock assets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-MuBNOkz6o - Synchromesh released a video of something he calls 'SmileFPS'.  Interesting stuff.
 =VX=Doggy has a pretty sweet video he posted I felt needed some love about a morning jog:

Now that, I have to say, caught my attention. Really looks smooth and the art, while a little over-saturated on purple for my tastes (you need to throw in some complementary colors like yellow!), is damned impressive.  

 

Free Stuff: 

Nothing here.  Unless you count the 3rd party stuff listed above.

In My Own Works:

I've updated the normals as mentioned above for my terrain(s).  I also got a HUGE amount of book related work done with a whopping 11,000 words or so written this week. I'm now sitting just shy of 90,000 words which puts me nearly back on track with where I need to be!

Well, I think I got everything.  If I missed you, feel free to shoot me a comment or a message.  I'll be sure to add you in for next week!

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.

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.

This Week in Game-Guru - 1/22/2018

As mentioned previously I should probably get off blogger soon.
Is it just wordpress these days or is there anything else of value out there?

It dawned on me I'm basically doing the job Lee and crew did years ago back when Game-Guru was still fresh and had life to it.  

ENGINE UPDATES:

The following video has all of the latest details and updates on the Game-Guru engine.

That's right, literally nothing, zip, zilch, nada.  Just one cryptic post from Lee about another unrelated project (here) that was received rather poorly by the increasingly salty natives.

NEW ON THE STORE

https://www.tgcstore.net/product/30999 - BSP made a new m9 pistol.  Looks very decent!
https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11002 - Tarkus continues his efforts in the world of audio for Game-Guru.  It's a smart move and he could easily translate it cross platform if he so chose.  I like his work thus far. This 'star cluster music pack' has a really professional feel to it.  The tracks are well done and have a heavy ambient-style synth vibe to them.  It's slower than his other stuff but definitely has a good feel to it for a space-based game that is not fast paced.  The free samples practically sell it for him.  Even though I'm an owner of his previous work(s) I feel this one has a real good flow to it.  I may purchase it myself soon!
https://www.tgcstore.net/product/31002 - Corrosion's 'enhanced AI'.  Probably is enhanced but I'd prefer to see a video if I'm spending that kind of money on an unproven product.  I'm an AI geek myself; I spent several thousand lines of code writing a pretty landmark AI program that went on to be the basis for the Reaper bot code.  Color me hard to impress, if you will.  Without a video to show the differences, it's hard to justify spending 7 dollars on something that could only be marginally better.  Considering how bad the AI is currently, this is significant.  If anyone purchases this, please let me know what your results are!

THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS:

So in more relevant news (to me, that is), there's a lot going on with third party programs.  To me, this and Lua coded items are where the action are at.  Lee simply takes too long to push his updates and as a result, we're forced to do a lot of the heavy lifting if this thing is ever going to be a functional product.

So first off we have OldPMan's excellent "Normalizator" (wow, what a mouthful) tool starting to beta PBR support.  This is a huge boost to people like me who haven't got the time to invest in learning a whole new workflow for PBR assets!

More info here:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216095?page=6#msg2594115

Also we've had some lively discussions on voice synthesis (robo-talk) software: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219214

And also we have a great thread on converting assets from Makehuman to Mixamo to 'FBX2GG'.

Lastly, I should also mention my own work here.  I recently created a Notepad++ Lua API for Game-Guru.  It's a simple piece but was a time consuming slog with 2400+ lines of XML code to write up.  It will basically auto-complete, give hints, etc for Game Guru and it's associated Lua functions. You can get more info on that here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219215

RANDOM ACTS OF CREATIVITY

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219234 - Bugsy continues his work on his Wolf's previous FPSC game: Direct Action.  The sequel is called "Direct Action 2" (surprisingly enough) and has some pretty good teaser screenshots:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219060 - Duchenkuke has given up on his flagship product 'Cold Contract'; This is unfortunate.  Another high quality potential Game-Guru developer is taking an undefined hiatus from Game-Guru due to production issues.  This is, in my opinion, the biggest plague we have ongoing right now.  We really have a significant hurtle in using Game-Guru with respect to producing titles, primarily our ability to actually 'convert into standalone' and memory issues.  The memory issues, in particular, really cause serious problems in larger projects.  It's a damn shame that yet another great project is being dumped because this issue couldn't get resolved.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219206 Lastly, while it's not a WIP, Wolf made a pretty great lightmapping tutorial.  This is the type of thing we need more of.

IN MY OWN WORKS

As mentioned, there's my Notepad++ API that is free for download to help developers get the most out of their Lua coding in Game-Guru.  On top of that I've been intermittently working on my upcoming kit(s) for Game-Guru.  They're heady projects though so it's really eating up cycles to do the things I want to do.  I realize that if I was a slightly better programmer in Lua this probably wouldn't be so tremendously difficult.

That said I've made a lot of progress.  I've integrated weapons and healthkits into my system (ammo was the first thing I used) and now need to find a way to get the enemies to do what I want them to do.  All in all, I'm a solid 2-4 months away from being able to release either of them at this pace.  Maybe as things clear up I'll be able to allot more time.  As it is though, it's only a little here and there.

That wraps it up for this week.  Keep an eye out for an update coming down the pike.  We should see some really great stuff soon if Lee ever deems to open the floodgates.