This Week in GameGuru - 09/09/2019

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 

This week in GameGuru, TeaBone made a contest for the discord which has since been cross-posted on the forums.  I had intended to run my own contest but it makes zero sense to run two separate contests.  As such, I am going to have to hold off on my book contest until this one runs its course.  Otherwise things will be, flatly put, a mess.   I am still considering whether to add my book to the literal PILE of prizes available to the contestants.  If you are a GameGuru creator, it really behooves you to check this out!
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221084

Things have slowed down from the record pace on GitHub but I can confirm some behind the scenes action continues so keep your eyes peeled for further improvements and additions to the engine in the coming months.

The usual spate of fixes tends to be batched in february, may, august, and november.  We're a little off from that pace but I'd expect a big drop around Oct-November.

What's Good in the Store

Valentin321 has added to his excellent Carousel on the store by making a whole pack for an abandoned playground.  These are great looking models and if you are looking for a moody, abandoned park feel it will fit right in!

Free Stuff

Lafette provided a bonus for owners of his mystical dark age pack.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

The official GG channel continues pumping out videos (good for them, with an engine like this it's helpful info for most people who don't want to wade through thousands of hours of livestreams like certain blog writers did for a book they recently wrote). The new 20 minute vignette format works much better for the average user, I suspect.  Though if you want to get into the meat and bones, I do highly recommend watching some of those multi-hour streams.  Some really good info can be found in them.

The patcher DannyD is working on has gotten additional love too as seen by this interesting screenshot:

 Of particular note is the 'Asset Manager' being worked on by Graphix.
 I cannot stress how absurdly impressive and necessary this tool is.  It does everything the former 'styleguru' did, only better and much more of it.  You can manage your menus, your graphics, you can control your 3d asset library, and more.  It's really an incredible tool spearheaded by someone who is doing a fantastic job of putting together a third party supplemental component.

I can't even cover all the pieces this thing has.  It's a huge boon to the community and we should all be enormously thankful and appreciative of Graphix's hard work on it.

Check it out here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220932

A video demo can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkU5dUNIEQ0

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Duchenkuke put together this clever intro for a game he's working on.  Cutscenes are always interesting to dissect, see if you can figure out all the little methods he used! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5zpdAtG1u8

Amenmoses put together a pretty impressive bit of physics in a nice video clip for us.  I'm reminded of a certain game that shall not be named - really impressive stuff.  https://vimeo.com/345560130

In My Own Works

I've been fielding question after question with relation to my book.  I've received dozens of private messages, discord chats, personal messages on the forums and the like.  I'm super happy everyone has purchased it seems to be enjoying it.  It's been quite a ride and I'm happy that people are already extracting value from it.

Life's not been kind to me but for the moment I have an artist cleaning up some of the original cybernoir assets I had made up so that I feel comfortable with their release.

An example is here:

This flying car has been updated to PBR and yet still retains much of the original artistic style.  I'm really looking forward to getting this stuff out the door!

Once I get that all ready to go I'll post the final version on the store for everyone to give a whirl.  As usual, book purchasers will receive it for free, non purchasers will need to buy it on the store.

Thanks again and see you next week!
Mike

This Week in GameGuru - 09/04/2019

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.

I wish I could describe the absolute chaos of my life right now.  It is impressive, in a biblical sense.  This unfortunately has impacted my ability to do these updates.  I will continue to attempt to get these out in a reasonably timely fashion.

As such, this week the work almost didn't get done.  I have a lot of ground to cover and a limited amount of time to dedicate to this so let's get to it.

GameGuru News

Let's just say some interesting things are going on behind the scenes.  I am not at liberty yet to discuss but I think many of you will be pleased with the end result of it.

Cybernessence has continued his excellent modifications to the engine which I still eagerly anticipate seeing added to the main engine branch.  Some of the changes he's made are monumental in effect.  One big update is a draw call optimizer that he's used by Preben that seems to make enormous impact on the engine's ability to batch draw calls and improve speed.

Currently a great number of big items are in the pipeline or implemented:

1. Draw Call Optimizer
2. Convex hull shapes
3. FBX importer
4. Makehuman pipelining
5. Trial version of GG
6. Other known/discernable updates (If you check github it's clear there's a VR/Multiplayer angle being worked in the background just by gleaning little bits and pieces). 

There's also more beyond that I'm aware of but not at liberty to discuss.

What's Good in the Store

Unfortunately can't do this this week.  This is far and away the most time consuming part of my weekly updates and as such I cannot afford the time for it at the moment.  I hope to get back on the train for this next week. This week it was 'do this and delay until monday or don't do this and get it out this week late'.  I chose the latter.

Free Stuff

Belidos posted some free medieval characters (always nice to get characters!): https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221044

A track I accidentally  overlooked was added for free by tarkus1971: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213190?page=5#msg2619604

Third Party Tips and Tutorials

TGC keeps posting more tutorials, now in a second more detailed series:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oHsxCMoD9g

Random Acts Of Creativity (WIPs)

In by far the largest component of this, I have a huge amount of updates to cover.

Bonesy is continuing work on his Cyberfi game, now including some of the assets available to purchasers of my book.  Nice to see this stuff finally filtering down.  I'm still working on getting it on the store but if you have purchased it and want the assets early, please let me know.

Teabone posted a beautiful forest screenshot in which he's tuned and optimized his forest using many of the techniques I outline in my book to get a smooth 58-60 FPS with many trees:

Synchromesh has evolved his Protascope game to include Dagored's excellent drone entity from his sci-fi set (I own it myself and love it).

Also newcomer Maverick put together an awesome looking airship out of what looks to be a mishmash of EBE and free assets. Nice work!

Maverick also made this great looking waterfall and used a clever solution to do it - an inverted smoke decal! 

Peri32 made a fantastic video literally as I was typing this of his walkcycle for a Taxi-Driver inspired game based I assume on the movie from the 70's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22mDKiP5DE

The environment is top notch and it's a great use of GG's abilities near as I can tell.

In My Own Works

Well, the publisher posted the files online... then removed them.  So now I have to get them to add them back in.  *shakes head*.  Like I said, my life is pretty chaotic right now.  I have final touches being done to the art for the 'Cyber Noir' pack that is free for book purchasers.

A teaser of what to expect for assets:

And some weapons too:

So keep your eyes peeled and make sure you keep some info on your purchase so I can validate it to give you a code :)

Lastly, I'm working out the final details with TGC on my book giveaway contest.  There will be some minor stipulations but three copies will be up for grabs.  I should have this finalized for next weeks report!

Thanks again to everyone who purchased a copy of my book.  I deeply appreciate your support on this labor of love. I've recently started getting pictures from purchasers:

This to me is the coolest part of this whole process - seeing an actual copy in hand for purchasers!

This Week in GameGuru - 04/08/2019

GameGuru News

The attic pack is on sale.
Also, apparently (from the monthly newsletter):

"In the background, we have also received a new version of the GLTF importer code from a freelancer who helped create it, and although it only does static textured models at this stage, we are considering adding this new file format to the Model Importer in a future update.

We are also looking closely at a new multiplayer technology too, which will finally allow non-Steam non-owners of GameGuru to play multiplayer sessions with their friends, so watch out for official news on that in the next few months."

That's kind of neat, I guess?  I'm still anxious to hear about the bugfixes purportedly in the pipeline though.

Free Stuff

Grobyken put together a really good looking war-torn building model:

Get yours here - https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217711?page=5#msg2614215

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Some interesting info here in this AI thread: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220670

A user named 'Nevin' has been making several video tutorials on GameGuru including some basic scripting topics. You can find them here:

• Hunger in Games
• Color Video Text
• Object Rotation via Script
• Triggers Tutorial

What's Good in the Store

This week there's been a lot of updates.  Lots of subjectively good things.

Dagored's got a great looking Apache chopper, Wolf's made some interesting Sci-Fi containers, Mad Lobster continues his film/photo set work, and Graphix put together some excellent looking PBR assets.

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Wolf's been working more on Acythian and fine-tuning his scenery:

A new project called "Sereos" (Serious?) made it's rounds with some decent looking screenshots:

Synchromesh added some new pieces to protascope and I have to say I'm super excited to see more work being done on this:

And I'm happy to report that Len the Man has been continuing his cowboy shooter, fine tuning his lighting and level design to produce some really nice looking results:

Keep doing the good work everyone! So far, it seems to be a very productive year for the community.

In My Own Works

The book's secondary materials are grinding along. I've also got edits to make on a very strict timeline to make the August 19th production deadline.

I've finally settled on my 'pack freebie' space sky for the new 4k kit. Owners of the 'Bonus Sampler' will get this included, as well as those who own the 4k HD Space Skies set will also receive this.
A teaser is included below and this should be added within the week!

Have a great week, everyone!