This Week in GameGuru - 02/10/2020

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

The huge news this week was the announcement of GameGuru MAX, which is coming along at a preorder price of $25, with an announced 'release price' of $50.
There's an excellent Q&A thread here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221517?page=1#msg2625799

Lee & TGC have gone above and beyond trying to be ahead of this in a very forthcoming way with their communication going as far as releasing teaser videos, doing 2 hour Q&A's on discord and this forum thread.  It's a really positive improvement that I'm hoping to see continue as a trend.

There's a pretty big featureset being added here aside from already in-progress work.  Announcement of a new renderer being investigated, possible 64-bit upgrades, etc really wet the palette for users like me and I can honestly say $25 is an extremely accessible price for what looks like a more advanced iteration of GameGuru.

What's Good in the Store

This week I'm really limited in how far I can deep dive. Near as I can tell there's some interesting packs getting added but honestly I'm going to withhold judgement until a later time due to limited time resources on my part. 

Free Stuff

Mav3r1ck put out a free 'pulley crane'.  Get your copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221550

Lafette put together a HUGE medieval pack you absolutely should grab:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=3#msg2626215

Make sure you thank the guy for all his hard work!

OldPMan put out a beautiful Sci-Fi computer/set piece model:

Get your copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221548#msg2626328

JPH-Games has been busy producing lots of free models of pretty reasonably good quality for quite a while now:
An electrical panel with buttons: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219734?page=2#msg2625729

Some nice looking old boxes: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219734?page=2#msg2625984

Definitely check out his work.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

BOTR has announced he'll continue work on his heightmapper for GameGuru Classic.  No word yet on whether it'll be ported to GG MAX.

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Lots of excellent projects are blossoming out of the woodwork.  Take a gander:

Mav3r1ck's project posted some tantalizing screenshots:

He's also finally posted a title ("Heathen: The Paganacht")  and some information in a thread on the forums for those interested in more: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221486

Trollbae continues his impressive work with the EBE:

Amenmoses made a dart tossing game:

I know someone made the models for him, but I forgot to write their name down.  Whoever you were - thanks!

Teabone has been working on a really excellent water-system graphics refresh which uses water droplets, color matching, and DOF to simulate underwater distortion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75yrK0lybv8&feature=youtu.be

There's plenty more too!  Check out wolf's latest work here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/209529?page=3#msg2625148

Honestly there's too much to cover in one go. I highly recommend you peruse the forums yourself!  There's a lot of really exciting work being done right now.  I'm happy to see the community running with the latest updates to GG.

In My Own Works

In my own works, I'm actually due for my first royalty check from the publisher in Feb.  So.. that's sort of exciting, though honestly I will *NEVER* earn the money worth the time I spent in the book.  It's mostly done as a service to you all at this point, with the little bit of money from the publisher as a means to continue funding my hobby.

Speaking of funding my hobby, last week I got a large enough store payout to upgrade some of my tools and have been diligently working on new space skies (4k of course).  Here's some teasers:

This was a test to see if I could simulate an asteroid surface.

This is a 'white hole' in the middle of a globular cluster.

This is a planetary surface with an aurora, star prominently figured with a nebula behind it.

I *DID* run into some issues with shearing on my skyboxes so I'm trying to sort that out.  In the meantime, expect a new run of 4k skies on the store within a few weeks here.

I may also do a low res version for those who are more economically minded.

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 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!

This Week in GameGuru - 04/01/2019

Happy April Fool's Day!  In this version of the GameGuruReport, I'll be covering the new Cry-Real-Ity engine, a fusion of the top three engines that is sure to deliver the best performance at the most complexity possible!

Or not.

On with the report!

GameGuru News

This week, we have the return of Lee.  I have it on fairly good authority that he's working hard on the engine, so hopefully we'll see some traction there.

On Github there's been an encryption issue recently resolved in the 'march fixer'.
Two new branches were added to GitHub - 'Alphasite and AlphasiteXR'.

What's Good in the Store

This week's totally subjective view of the store is rather favorable.  Wolf's started making models again.  I always do enjoy the style of his models.  He makes the most of the DNIS texture style.

Dagored put out a new sea creature, check it out here:

I really am digging the new 'snow falling windows' by 3com.  Very interesting work!

And lastly, a new user "fredgames77" has started putting up some interesting things, notably this scarecrow.

Free Stuff

Lafette II got out of the hospital and made a model of a volcano!

Get your copy here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=2#msg2613848

Nothing else really came across my desk this week.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Nothing new this week, though the creator of Vishnu Packer is apparently looking at adding in GameGuru support.  

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs) 

Tarkus1971 continues work on his Urban Histories game.

While it's heavily reliant on the Borderlands-esque cartoon shader, it has a solid look to it.  With polish, it will likely be a decent title.   I like the idea of an urban-exploration game, however, so this could be very interesting if the gameplay bears out.

Wolf showcased some new screenshots of some entities he's got as characters that seem fairly well put together though most of this is by his own words a retrofit on older media:

Still, custom media beats stock media by miles, so even a rework of older stuff is often better than the out of the box assets.  Details and further screenshots can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/211124?page=7#msg2613860

In My Own Works

Well, finally got my production information from the publisher - it is going to be published on August 19, 2019.  So get your wallets ready :)

That all said, I have assets being made for this along with other interesting bits that are to go with this as a bonus. The weapons are coming along nicely and all should be in a nice line by the time the book goes on sale in August.  I'll be holding a promotion for a free copy as well, along with coupons, discounts and more!

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 - 12/3/2018

Official GameGuru News

 

This week a new DLC pack was added, the 'abandoned apartment' which looks fairly well put together.  This is about the time of year when Lee & Company tend to disappear for a bit as they go on holiday so don't be surprised if this section doesn't get updated much.  Besides, we still have a lot to unpack from the last major release that happened just this last week! I personally found some difficulties managing my colors for DNIS textured objects.  Something shader related, I'm sure.  Guess we'll just have to see how it bears out.

What's Good in The Store

 

LOTGD has been extremely busy adding several well priced models.  Some do some very interesting things such as shoot cannonballs that can kill or injure a player.  It's worth a look for the price he's asking.

Tarkus1971 has an 'Best of 2018 music pack' available which I have to say is totally worth the $19.99 price of admission (it's on sale currently from @24.99)  as you get 31 top quality background tracks for that price. Even at full price, that's like 80 cents a track!

AlexGCC added some decent looking tools.

Graphix made a nice grenade though I can't tell if this is a weapon or just a set piece.  So I'd say assume it's a set piece until you hear otherwise.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

 

This week we got a pretty good discussion on modification of explosions along with a really great replacement decal that's completely worth getting at this forum link:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220232?page=2#msg2608878

And also we've got a really great set of tutorials from KarmaComposer on how to use the S2 building generator (assuming you have S2 Engine, a third party product) and the building generator (A $20 addon) to export and import into GameGuru.  If you're of a more serious bent for creating GameGuru projects this one cannot be ignored.  It's a fantastic two part video.  You can catch them here:

Part One
Part Two

Free Stuff

Nothing really stands out this week as MaiaCombra made something that I won't put here as I don't feel it actually looks any different than some of the stock graphics.  But that said, if you are interested you can find a link to it here:
Please note that it's got a pretty interesting tutorial linked to it that's a bit older but still pretty impressive and good to know: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217933

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

 

Warning - get ready for a wall of text.  There's a massive load of updates this week!

Openload is working on an inventory system that should make a pretty awesome system for those interested when it hits the store: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQmr9yE-PbI
This is due to his current project, 'Memory of Hedolan' which has seen some new updates.  Per a message to me he advised me he's done the following:
"Modified the game map to make it lighter. Created the inventory menu with attached a crafting section (creation of potions, arrows, etc.) Created the soundtrack of the game and soon other songs coming soon."
So lots of updates on that one.  For now, here's a screenshot:

Graphix put up not one, not two, but THREE videos of various particle effects involving water.  Check them out here:  (1)  (2)  (3)

PirateMyke updated his operating theater here:

Schneeky is still working on his Medieval piece called 'The Legend of Sir Schn33ky'.  I'm not so sure about this one but it's looking like it's coming along well enough.

Might want to rework the title so it's not "LOSS" though.

Mookai has the obligatory Zombie Christmas Shooter on the way:

Which admittedly has better than average level design and lighting. Shadows aren't quite right though so he's probably going to need to tune that a bit.

Wolf posted some FANTASTIC screenshots (as per his usual) on his Acythian update thread.
These are the must-see project shots of the week I'd say:

Seriously, click the link and check out all those gorgeous pictures.  Now THAT is some quality lighting.  Something to aspire to for the rest of us, right?

Lastly (I hope?) is HellreaperX's 'Death house of Barker Creek'.  This title has some promise but needs polish.  He's updated some of his original levels so check out what he's got here at this thread:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219542?page=1#msg2605095

In My Own Works

This week has been strenuous.  I've had a ton of actual work with my day job but did get the time to have AmenMoses preview my Lua chapters of my book.  While the writing style of 'chatty and casual' isn't his speed he had some good inputs and mostly aside from some things I expected it came back fairly positive.  Last week had some minor touch ups coupled with  some serious work (after much gnashing of teeth, let me tell you) on the "Advanced Engine Tricks" chapter.  This is one I've been avoiding for months and it felt good to finally knock out the section on the setup.ini file and also the one for the settings.fx file.

I also released that tutorial on Lighting which required a few touch-ups.

This week will be me working on getting particles squared away so I can discuss them in the book in depth.  After that I have to do some physics work with a final bit on making my FPE file information up to date and accurate for the appendix.  It's a lot of work but I'm ahead of where I thought I'd be a few months ago by this point so all in all I'm very satisfied with where it is.

This Week in Game-Guru - 10/01/2018

I notice (@LeeBamber) that I'm still not showing on the news section.  Not that it's any skin off my back.  I do this for fun, but I wouldn't mind a followup so I'm not twisting in the wind (nudge nudge).

Official Game-Guru News:

This week we got a PBR update to some assets in the Sci-Fi pack and also a new 'ally' AI delivered via a drone.  I'll be interested to dig into that one to see what's different as the current AI is a bit of a slush pile that can be difficult to interpret.

You can find the official news release here: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-scifi-pack-dlc-update-released-2

On the note of AI, it appears that's Lee's primary focus right now and so far I hear the results are promising.  Those results can be found in detail here but essentially there's a demo level out there with a lot of cover objects.  The AI *SEEMS* to be productive and functional, but time will tell.  That said if the vast majority of users are claiming it's improved then I think that's a fair litmus.  I watched the demo video and I noticed a few good changes, notably that it won't shoot through walls and will path far better than it used to.

What I'd like to see:

• A system for enemy accuracy; right now they still hit 99% of the time and that's just absurd.
• Better synching of the movement to animation, which often times is a configuration setting but should be the default.  
• A system for enemies running away when injured/hiding/etc.
• A module in the AI itself that allows us to 'hook in' as modders, as it is it's more of a black box with a few function calls outside of it.

Forum AI link:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220075 (AI)
Now for those of you who are using the EAI Weapon Pack, which is phenomenal mind you, you may have noticed some errors or bugs with assigning said weapons to enemies or NPCs.  This apparently is going to be resolved in a future release after verification by EAI himself. 
Forum link for EAI Info:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219912

What's good in the store:

You know I was going to say there was nothing going on and just move on, but this week has been a big drop of lots of really great assets.  Of course as the quality goes up you may notice the price increasing but some of these are ... top shelf stuff.  I don't know any other way to put it.  Stuff you'd see in a AAA game.

Let's go over a few.
First of all, Gtox is really into fish... Well, that's true but apparently he's also into porpoises as well.

If you're making a sea-world game, this is probably right up your alley.

What's really intriguing to me is that Teabone, Robert Fitzy and Gamepoly (A new challenger appears!) all created fantastic high quality models this week.  I mean just look at this:

I really like GamePoly's work, this is a new level of quality that is desperately needed in Game-Guru's overly-asset flipped environment.  You can also see some new models by Mad Lobster and Pasquill at the bottom (the exacavator). 

Not bad for a single week!  Make sure you swing by http://en.tgcstore.net and check out the latest for yourself!

Third Party Applications and Tutorials

This week I was poking around on a project I can't discuss at this moment (wait till next week!) but I did end up at this wonderful tool - https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/
This is a free heightmapper that I found worked a bit better than the one for terrain.party.  Definitely give it a look, the values on it are fantastic for use with the game-guru 'Heightmap to MDAT' tool.

Also in the forums, Wolf showed an older tool that I wish I'd have had in the past for my own imports - an import scaler tool to help adjust the scale on your FPE files: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/218348

And lastly there was a pretty nice video posted by Bugsy in the discord chat discussing how Mirror's Edge used lighting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0sM7ZU0Nwo

Free Stuff

Nothing free that I could find this week.  Sorry guys!

Random Acts of Creativity

So in the WIP section we have some things from VincentHendriks who continues his use of the stock assets in the only way they could ever potentially be used - as a desert combat game.  It's looking ... well, like a reasonably good desert combat game!

Reminds me of the photos my buddies would send me from Iraq.

It's coming along well, I'd say.


There's also a new asset flip for us to look at on Steam.  Now I will say while the game itself was a fairly bland and boring flip, the demo video for it was interesting - the guy took live video with some basic video modding to provide a little more oomph to a Game-Guru game than I'm used to.  That said, it's not worth the price asked for and apparently is a buggy mess.
See it here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/798710/Voltage/

Also another new user showed up, this time with an odd cyber-punk style game where I guess you're on a rooftop?  He took some of the advice I offered him but it needs a lot more polish.  Regardless though it's getting there and at least it doesn't look like the same old same old.  I can respect the effort.

In My Own Works

This week I've been working on a special project, which but it's allowed me to focus on getting another segment for the book done - specifically a 'how to do a forest in Game-Guru'.  This is a difficult topic that I think most will benefit from a little personal understanding on.

That said though I'm still behind the curve here.  I need to bang out like 20,000 words this month to stay on track and that's no easy feat.

I also aggregated all the new Lua commands since 5/12/2017 for you here:
http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com/2018/09/new-lua-commands-since-5122017.html

See you next week!

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!

This week in Game-Guru 12/18/2017

Notice: Next week's issue will be delayed a day or so due to the holidays.

ENGINE UPDATE PROGRESS REPORT

No new updates for us normies.  We're still in beta-test limbo; apparently a beta update was released to the closed beta testers which was labelled as a public preview update.  This accidental update might cause you some confusion if you find yours hasn't updated.  That said given Lee's recent flurry of responses on the forums we can see that there's definitely some renewed emphasis on bugfixes and system stability (specifically with memory).

Also worth mentioning is my own find that you can reduce CPU usage by a drastic amount on most maps by updating the AI scripts to include some changes.  Specifically it appears that 'always active=off' does not actually appear to be functioning.  So you need to manually configure this via a player distance check in the script.  By doing this, you kill the overhead required for the rather intensive AI system.  Details can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219078

For now though, we're all waiting for what looks like what will be a new-years update to improve stability and performance.   I'm really hoping Lee grinds this one out over holiday though I can understand if we have to wait until February for it.

NEW PRODUCTS IN THE STORE

 

Some small, but interesting updates.

This week on the store we have a new artist (Thorus) making a solid go of some residential models and a decently good looking tractor.  These models are well priced, most going in the sub-one dollar range per model.   Moshroom has written a new script which degrades weapon quality and makes them unusable after a point.  Acid has added a ... moving target?  I couldn't really discern this one's purpose but I'm sure someone will find it useful.  Lastly mstockton, who does a solid job on his modelling, added a nice padlock and key set for a very good price on the store.
 
Lastly added to the store was an actual game:

This particular game, Savior V1, has been around a while.  It however, represents a certain threshold for quality that most 'steam game releases' I've seen fail to measure up to.  While it's well priced at .99 cents (on sale at this time for a meager .50 cents), it is worth playing from the standpoint of seeing quality game design and development in Game-Guru.  One can learn a significant amount from osmosis and this situation is no different.

That aside though what's really important about this is it highlights the store as an additional distribution channel.  While we could potentially suffer the same problems as other channels (such as the hot, shoveled garbage games that find their way to steam) it could prove a really interesting way to market your own products to a smaller, more receptive audience.  Definitely worth considering fotr the future.

FREE STUFF

 This week's update in 'Free Stuff' has brought some absolutely incredible scripts.  I mean three really big hitters that all solve a lot of major issues for Game-Guru game devs.  First up is Solar's objective script found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219081

Check out the above picture.  You can see clearly marked objectives which float under the object; this is going to be massively useful for the average FPS game.  The best part is this one is actually very straightforward to use and adapt so it will bring a lot of value to a lot of people.
 
Next up is AmenMoses, who has once again provided a crazy amount of utility those of us who want to really push the envelope in Game-Guru.  He's created a utility library that allows object rotation, connecting decals to objects, and much more.  It has to be seen to be believed, check out the videos and the downloads here at the forum link:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219096

HonkeyBoy has been working tirelessly in Game-Guru on several projects for a few years now.  These projects are pushing forward and his toolkit has really grown a lot over the past few months.  Recently he's added a survival and crafting script for people to use and abuse:

The script, along with some secondary scripts (fire making, shelter making, etc) can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219061
It's also worth mentioning he's added some new models for download that are free for use as well here:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219082

Graphix has added a few impressive glass panels to the forum which I will personally be using extensively.

My previous 'glass panels' were some really old ones I'd hackneyed together from some pretty old assets.  While they worked ok, they didn't do a spectacular job and looked cheap.  These look exceptionally high quality and use alpha channels well.  Get them here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=6#msg2592415

 THIRD PARTY TOOLS

BOTR has updated the Heightmapping to MDAT tool again with a new GUI and a fix for the Windows 10 machines that were crashing.  It's really coming into it's own.  This brings it up to a current version of 2.1a; it can be found at this location:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/218876?page=3#msg2592417

I personally have used the older versions to some good effect though it takes some tinkering to find the right settings for the scaling and what not.  Overall though this is a must-have item for your toolbox if you plan on using any kind of pre-made terrain or imports from terrain building software.

RANDOM ACTS OF CREATIVITY

This week I play-tested Bugsy's Multiplayer Simulator which was fun and interesting.  It ran well, played well, and reminded me a good bit of Quake 3 Arena.  I'd love to see him push this project further and as always it's got some of Bugsy's hallmark humor added in as a dry touch:

More games need a 'middle finger' model, IMO.

Also after long last we have an update on Wolf's epic flagship game - Shavra.   If you aren't familiar, Wolf is one of the top tier developers for Game-Guru.   He's in a very small group of other talented developers and this is his baby.  The screenshots alone from 4 years ago show the Game-Guru engine stretched to it's limits.  The latest screenshots are jaw-droppingly gorgeous, as you'd expect:

There simply aren't enough Game-Guru games meeting this level of quality.  I find it really impressive and have to say I wish I could meet this level on my own work.  It looks like it should be out of Unreal or Unity.  Not something as 'plebeian' as Game-Guru.


That wraps it up for this week.   As mentioned next week will have a delay before I post any new content, I may even skip it entirely.

Keep an eye out for some interesting new work from me too, I've been hard at work developing some new tools for Game-Guru users as well as a secret project that only a few select people know about.  It'll take a good 6 months before it's ready, minimum, but once it's released it should really open a few eyes.  That's about the most I can safely say on it.  That and that it's about 8-10% complete as of this moment.  So I have a long road ahead of me.  Thanks again and see you next week!