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!

Status Update: Monday 12/28/15

I missed my status update on Friday because I had a lot going on.

Christmas is a done deal, yay.  No more stressing about gifts and running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Stalled projects:
Mechwarrior Dark Age game - on hold until I finish other projects.  Still optimistic I can make it work with the right engine and some porting.
My 'Neo-Monegasque' book series - ... @#$^... I've really come to hate this book series.  After getting bad feedback from one of the preview-reviewers I'm contemplating just finishing it and letting it die a quiet death.
Other books - I keep a mental fire lit, but mostly my energy is on things below.

Active projects:
I have a lot of 'pre-baby' stuff to do in prep for this kid that's coming.  Like finding a better doctor, more suitable, etc.

I did a lot of game development work over this weekend and am very pleased with the results.

The receiving 'opening' area.  I think I've finally licked the interior lighting issues on that pillar.

The right of the pillar; a visible and nearly completed docking area, ship, warning signs/lights and some of the rest of the station extend beyond view.  Had an issue with occlusion killing the objects just beyond the glass so I had to turn occlusion down to 0 to fix it for now.  I need to re position that lightray decal though.  Also missing my red lighting for the warning light, which I had to remove in the process of troubleshooting the missing object situation.  This area still needs a lot of tweaking, I think but with proper lighting it should be fine.

 I really like this hallway, what can I say.  I use it's combination of natural and indoor lighting to provide a nice looking calm scene; this will be contrasted later when things go to pot and things are all busted up.   In all, I like how it looks so I try to include this as a 'progress' screenshot so you can kind of gauge against previous configs.

  Receiving Rec Area/Dining hall.  Continues to be a source of difficulty for me with lighting artifacts that I can't isolate the source of.  That said, it's getting there.  The addition of EAI's arcade cabinets and the old cosmic diner pinball machine gives it a more natural feel.  I cleaned up some of the elements after taking this picture (Pinball machine, walls, arcade machines) so they didn't feel so clumped together.

The new area - the fusion core. Was going to be a water reservoir but had trouble with indoor water setups.   It was tremendously tricky to get the lava functional as it is but I like it.  From here there will be pathways to engineering and the bridge, as well as crew quarters.  I have a lot more work to do here but the start is looking very nice.


I was given some feedback that the lighting looks a lot better than previous screenshots.  Also that it reminds the viewer of system shock, which to me is high praise.  I think system shock most closely embodies what I'm going for here, though obviously these two are quite different. 

Anyways at this point, I'm considering a hub and spoke design for the maps, whereas I was considering something a lot more linear.  This will allow a more reusable level design, though I'm not 100% sold on it.

Another key point of progress was made in getting some older characters functioning with one of smallg's scripts.  It gives me a core AI to work around and that saves a lot of time.  I can clean it up and make it run a lot nicer with my background in AI code.  But the base is pretty good so I'm happy with that.   It also gives me access to models which I can configure for my own use.

Errant AI's Arcade Set

This is a long overdue review.

When I spoke with Errant AI (A.K.A. "EAI") about his vendor machine set Errant AI's TGC Store Products review , we discussed our mutual love coin-operated equipment.  At that point in time (probably a year and a half ago) he mentioned he'd do an arcade set, which I was jazzed for.  I grew up in arcades and spent more than my share of allowance money there.

It was a great time and brought back fond memories.  He soon released the kit and... I didn't have any money.  NONE.  I was flat broke.  It sucked.  So for months and months bigger priorities would come up and I'd look at the store and see the really impressive looking set for the arcade objects that EAI built.

Recently I've managed to get my finances squared away and could spend some money on new objects for my upcoming sci-fi shooter.

It was at this point... I looked again at the priciest of EAI's growing collections (4, as of this writing) - the Retro Arcade Pack.  The Retro Arcade Pack clocks in at 15 USD.  It's by no means a cheap purchase.  But I'm a believer that if you want to have a quality looking game, you need quality looking assets.  This pack delivers - in spades.

 The full kit contents.  It's like my youth, reborn!

As you can see, the pack comes with a significant bevy of 30 items, which come in about 50 cents per object, depending on if any sales are occurring.

Most of these items are doubles - in many cases they are a blank version which can likely be modified to present your own possibilities.  Very cool!

In this case, the billchanger comes in both token and cash money varieties.

Now you may look at these and think "Yeah, that's cute - but how good is it, really?"  - what really sold me were the perfectly done animated screens which of course can only be watched in the form of a movie.

The above should show you the sheer and frankly unparalleled level of quality EAI brought to the table.  Even his previous offerings are overshadowed but how absolutely perfect these are.  While I realize it's not an asset for every game, you'd be surprised how you can work them in.  The biggest difficulty in using assets like this is that they tend to make your other assets LOOK WORSE.  It's a bit like taking your ugly friend to the bar to make you look better.  It doesn't help their case to have you standing there, that's for sure.  So if you are planning on using assets like this, prepare to have other assets - LIKE THIS.  It doesn't hurt that I have the snack attack pack and some other really high quality stuff that I've gotten through the community.  I meticulously filter and comb my assets to ensure that the quality is at bare minimum, consistent.


What's interesting is I was discussing 2-D "mode" for Game-Guru with Synchromesh - a forum user.

After some experimentation, he had discovered a way to fake a 2-D mode for Game-Guru.  He shared the secrets with me and filled in the blank spots in my own testing.  So the plan is to make a virtual arcade and then have it warp you off to another level when you use the machine - the level will be a two dimensional simplified mockup of one of these games!  I intend to do a walkthrough later after I've made a functional version of a few.  The driving one should be simple enough.

The bottom line:  The simple version is are you going to need this for all your projects?  No.  It's far more specialized than other packs he offers.  Is it one of the highest quality assets on the store? Absolutely.  If you can manage it, then by all means - find a way to work it in.  I for one, will be using it.

The Retro Arcade Pack can be found here: https://en.tgcstore.net/pack/10474

BSP's SCI-FI weapons pack

My original BSP weapons (pack 1) review is here.

I have been waiting a long time for something like this.  I've had a Sci-Fi project on the back burner which I have wanted to do for a long... LONG time.  Years before even doing anything with FPSC:R.

So without hesitation, I purchased the kit.

  Hot damn.  Sci-Fi always gets the blood pumping.

 I was not disappointed.

This kit cost a meager 8 dollars; that's a pittance for what you get:

5 guns, one low price.

Lets review the 5 weapons given:

You get the IronFist Shotgun.  I have to say as a firearms owner and enthusiast - this thing is awesome.  It behaves EXACTLY as I want a "Space Shotgun" to behave.  It fires out of an eight round drum magazine and the animation is smooth as butter.  It's easy to handle and frankly just feels good.  

Next up is the Quasar Gun; this is a full-auto carbine which has a good bit of recoil.  Of the bunch, its my least favorite aesthetically though it does have a pretty nice alien feel.  I really enjoy watching the drum rotate as it fires.  It features a thirty-two round box magazine which then feeds into some kind of accumulator drum that rotates.  There's one minor flaw and really my only complaint here.  If you really go frame by frame on the box magazine it shows some pretty gigantic bullets.  I don't really care honestly because it happens too fast for the user to notice but it is a fault and bears mentioning.  That said, ejected shell casings are PERFECT on all weapons - no more full cartridge ejections! 

The S4-VC6 pistol is a fantastic weapon; it's a nice all around weapon with good visibility of the gloved hand.  Now normally I'd complain about how you can see the hands but honestly I don't plan on using non-standard weapons and if I do, I will simply reduce the weapon's visibility via configuration files.

 

A pre-alpha WIP screenshot of my upcoming space-shooter.

The Sniper R400 Panther is a well rounded sniping weapon.  I have a confession to make - I hate sniping weapons in this game engine.  They are quite simply too strong.  They make the game exceptionally easy on a number of levels.  This gun, however, feels balanced and decent with it's twelve round stick magazine- unlike the base level 'remington hunting rifle' that comes with gameguru.  It's a good weapon in most circumstances and basically acts as a long range 'upgrade' to the pistol.  It's also gorgeous in the right lighting.

The Typhoon is straight out awesome.  At first I thought "oh great, another full auto gun."  But in truth, it's a weapon unto itself with a fifty round magazine of what are effectively pistol rounds.  It does less damage than the Quasar but slams out the rounds so fast and cleanly it is my preferred weapon of the bunch.  This little monster feels fantastic and is right at home in any Sci-Fi game.

One important note: All of these guns actually come with an alt-fire mode.  Literally press left-alt and you get a melee attack animation that's not shown in the video or really documented at all.  Your character lowers his gun and throws out a quick right hook.  It's a nice freebie and makes the 'what do I do if I have no ammo' situation less difficult to work around.

Overall opinion and observations: This pack is extremely well priced.  You get 6 weapons for the price of 4, effectively, which is a helluva deal.  The weapons all feel unique enough and their respective weapon boxes/ammo boxes look great too.  The muzzle flash on all of these guns is SPOT on and looks fantastic.  The minor flaws of the other weapon packs (recoil, gun feel, ejected weapon cartridges, etc) have all been clearly lessons that were learned from.  BSP has outdone himself.

If I had to buy just one: It's 8 dollars.  Just buy the pack.  There's really no reason not to.  But if you are absolutely trying to be as cheap as possible - get the Typhoon.  It's too fun not to have.

Welcome to the new blog!

Thanks for coming.  As you can see, I've redone the place in honor of the rebranding of 'FPS Creator Reloaded' to 'Game-Guru'  (http://www.game-guru.com)
All the old archived blog pages are at: http://fpscreloadedreview.blogspot.com

I've got tons of reviews over there and some good original content if you're interested.  Here's some hotlinks to the 'good ones' (In my humble opinion):

• My free NPC code.
• Why FPS Creator Reloaded/Game-Guru? 
• My sordid affair with game making. 
• On Guns Pt 2. 
• On Guns Pt 1. 
• Technique Evaluation #1 - ground clutter 

A list of my reviews (albeit outdated, given the volume of new updates by the authors):

• Wolf's Store 
• Oldpman's Store 
• Tazman's Store 
• BSP's weapons PT 1 
• Henry Ham's Store 
• Gtox's Store 
• Errant AI's Store 
• BSP's weapons PT 2 
• Gencheff's Store 
• Ken Charles Long's Store 
• Bengetronic's Store 
• Nomis3D's Store 
• Rolfy's Store 
• Pirate Myke's Store 
• Dvader's Store 
• Teabone's Store 
• Valuable Asset's Store

These are from oldest (First) to newest (Last).
Thanks!