This Week in GameGuru - 10/27/2019

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.

Another week, another belated TWIGG report.
Unfortunately this is turning into the norm for me as I am consistently overwhelmed by real world factors that hopefully will slow down come early next year.
In the interim I will crank these out as often and as on time as I can manage.

GameGuru News

 

This week we've seen a significant amount of activity on 'project V3' on github.  Some of what I'm seeing there is very exciting!

https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/commits/ProjectV3

Notable elements include an update to Character Creator, load time tweaks, GUI updates and more.
Very exciting stuff!

The SUPERB enhanced weapon pack is on sale this week as well for as low as you will likely ever see it - definitely pick it up now if you are ever going to pick it up!

What's Good in the Store

Finally got my Cyberpunk Noir guns up

If you are a book purchaser and haven't gotten a redemption code for them, please let me know!

Book sales have obviously tapered off; like games they have a really big front end and a longer back end.  If you haven't purchased a copy, try using this code to save 20%:  AITGG230
Use it at this link here:
https://www.crcpress.com/An-Introduction-to-GameGuru/Messina/p/book/9781138612631

You can also find the additional book resources there for free under 'additional resources'.

This week also had several great packs show up:

Gtox added a prehistoric critter pack (GameGuru Ark clone, anyone?)

And Fredgames77 continues rapidly cranking out high quality models, this time in the form of a building tool pack!

Free Stuff

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221251 Mipastu put in a pretty clever fix for AI getting stuck on walls and corners by making an 'AI wall' which essentially allows you to keep them from getting to problem areas.  Definitely worth the download.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Looks like BOTR is integrating his heightmap importer INTO GameGuru's github code as a branch.  This is very exciting to me and I'm really hoping we see that additional functionality implemented sooner rather than later! Additional details can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221100#msg2622732

Random Acts of Creativity(WIPs)

Synchromesh has added some new music to his excellent Protascope game (by DuchenKuke): https://youtu.be/9qDAmpCIb-4

Cybernessence put up a new screenshot for his epic GameGuru work "The CogWheel Chronicles":

And this blurb about the latest changes he's made:

"I've re-written the player swimming to use the physics capsule, it's much better now - though it did need a new lua command to fine tune it (SetWorldGravity) - which will come in handy for the barsoom levels too.

I also updated the in-game terrain loading to load associated entities (it was only loading terrain and grass before from the fpm and positioning anywhere in the world) and added the DCO to it, to keep silky smooth play. The memory seems to be paging in and out properly, so if I load one terrain/level part then delete and load another the memory is smoothing out. Still got a lot of testing to do to make sure this holds up with 16 different fpm's loaded on the fly, and I did hit a 'random' crash bug that took me days and days to find (this was in my added mods not GG stock code) ."

He's done incredible work which I hope to see integrated by middle of next year at the latest.  Time will tell though!

Naelurec has some updates with details and technical information but also these great new menu screenshots:

Really simple, clever, and clean.  I like it a lot.  You can get more info here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221152?page=1#msg2622551

In My Own Works

I've recently begun putting together another HQ space skies set, but run into some snags.  Expect a few freebies of my throwaways along with a new pack on the store in the near future!

This Week in GameGuru - 04/29/2019

Apologies are in order for being out last week. My day job has us do an out-of-town Biannual disaster recovery event which requires me to travel and work throughout the week.

That said there's a lot to cover, let's get to it!

GameGuru News

I've been told that things are in the pipeline, though no specifics have been given.  Expect news probably in the next few weeks with respect to that.

Rumblings from the community seem to indicate a fairly large shift centering around Multiplayer but I really hope that we also see a major spate of bugfixes given that there's a fairly heavy amount of open issues on GitHub. Once again, time will tell.

For now, your best choice is to look at what Cybernessence (see below) is doing.

What's Good In the Store

This week's totally subjective analysis of store items is.. fairly extensive.  Significant amounts of creativity went into the new items on the store!

There's a superb AFV from relative newcomer Zubil0:

You can get your copy here, it's well priced at a meager $2.50!

Campana productions put out a torture pack, if you're needing something more gruesome for your project.

Graphix has been prolific in his recent PBR additions, with everything from shipping containers to fencing packs.


Sula has put together a city and road pack that is fully PBR enabled.

Full kit includes 31 fully PBR modeled entities for building roads and cities!

This is one of my few 'must buy' kits for this year, in my opinion.  For the price, it's a great deal that will help you put together some really convincing cityscapes.

Dagored has been working diligently on his exploding bridges set and I have to say...

It's more than satisfying.  It also allows for some interesting game dynamics so definitely take a look and see if it's your speed. For me, it definitely fits in well with other destructible entities such as rolfy's old exploding city set.  Get your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11100

The music scene on the store has been exploding as well. I unfortunately haven't had time to review them all but there's some really excellent stuff that's been posted in the past few days such as:
PDKMusic's 'Wasteland Blues' music pack: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32353

Tarkus's several recent works, all horror related and recently put into the 'decay' pack: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11098


There's a lot more on the store as well.  Some of the recent changes to the store, by the way, include a direct link to the GCSS discord on the seller's page and some more orientation towards providing support for other engines.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO05fYSVoNQ Maiacombra made a great tutorial on how to update your models to use the illumination shader.

Apparently Vishnu Studio has finished their 'Vishnu Packer' program.  This fully featured program provides significant installation support for GameGuru standalones.  You can get your free copy here:

https://vishnupacker.webs.com/vishnustudio.htm

In an update near and dear to my heart, BOTR has is working on updating his Heightmap 2 GG tool.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806?page=3#msg2614988 

Free Stuff

AmenMoses has been hard at work on several new scripts - the most recent of which is a 'freeze player' script that works for pausing the player's movement to allow specific events to play out: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220055?page=1#msg2614939

He is apparently also working on a 'gear library' which allows mechanical gears to function in GG.  Very cool stuff.

There's a free 'Sci-Fi Music' library on the TGCStore.  Pick up your copy here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32337

Graphix dropped some pipes and gauges, all PBR enabled here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=14#msg2614784

Lafette put out an easter pack:

and also a beautiful fantasy loot and chest set

Thanks to all the content creators who are willing to provide freebies to the community.

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Foremost, the most recent work by Synchromesh on Protascope 'Phase 2' is looking really solid.  I'd say this is a great contender for a high end demo of what kind of work GameGuru is capable of.

https://youtu.be/Vih47nE8QGY

Phase 2 Test Description youtu.be

The project Screos by Insane6 is coming along.  New screenshots were posted here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220691#msg2615012

Cybernessence continues dropping huge amounts of information about his changes to the engine in his custom variation that will purportedly be merged into the main branch.  In this case, he's pretty much made it clear he's heavy on trying to fix the lighting system.  A great deal of new info can be found here and while technical in nature, it's quite inspiring and I truly wish him the best on his work! https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=5#msg2614959 

An interesting concept called 'Ignite' is on the forums where a player doesn't fight enemies but uses a torch to stay 'alive' that must remain lit.  Interesting concept, I'm hoping to see some more fleshing out on this.   

Wolf has gone on to Unity, which is a shame but is rather predictable.  Many of the older hats have lost interest in waiting for updates, but often return when a major patch is released.  So we'll see you again soon!

 Lastly is an interesting project called 'Die Zombie Sausage, Die!' ... it has to be seen to be believed.

In My Own Works

This month has been mostly about building the sidecar content for the book, stabilizing deals and the like with people who are creating content to come with the book. My weapons developer has been making great strides towards some high quality weapons for purchasers of the book.  I'm really looking forward to releasing the content as soon as possible!