This Week in GameGuru - 08/12/2019

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.

As you can see, this week I've included a disclaimer as I've received feedback that the way this blog is syndicated on www.game-guru.com, www.thegamecreators.com, blogarama, and gamedev.net can lead to some confusion as to the nature of these news releases. I will be including this disclaimer going forward to help clarify for those who are not familiar with my work.

While I realize that some people may disagree with my methodologies, at the same time you are free to do so.  I do reside and live in the United States of America and our rights of free speech are important to me.  I make every effort to ensure that I do not denigrate or diminish anyone's work.  If you take issue with the way I portray YOUR PERSONAL PRODUCTS then please contact me.

Thanks for your time, everyone - I now consider that issue at an end.  Also, a special note at the end so make sure you read all the way through - big news about my book! :)

GameGuru News

Per GitHub the latest information is that there is a trial version being added to GameGuru where you can use it for around 7 days before having to purchase it.  This will likely add a number of new potential buyers to the product so keep a close eye out for those new guys and gals!

Also it appears there is a relatively minor change that will allow standalones to be exported without encryption so as to allow entity sharing?  I'm not sure what that one is for but I'm sure it'll make sense eventually.

I can also soft confirm that ... other interesting things are going on with GG.  That's the most I'll say for the moment!

What's Good in The Store

FredGames77 continues to pump out high quality assets at a record pace.  While we've all likely got a huge stash of boxes, the quality on his recent submission is definitely worth a look:

You get 10 'pack cases' (boxes) for $10 (currently on sale for $5!) - a very reasonable offer.  These are high quality to boot with low poly count and excellent PBR texturing.  Get yours here: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11145

There's also this interesting grub enemy creature by Gtox:

Get yours here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/33376

Free Stuff

Honkeyboy added some horns to Character Creator: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220945

Not bad work.  I will admit my book's materials ALSO include some donated Character Creator attachments so keep an eye out for that as well. He's got additional ones here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220945#msg2618825
They include a rice farmer's hat, knight's templar's helm, skeleton warrior, and another set of demon horns.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

 

This week I caught wind of a pretty interesting blog tutorial on the best mods for Blender 2.8 (which recently dropped).  If you use Blender actively check it out here:   https://cgcookie.com/articles/the-top-10-modeling-addons-for-blender-2-8

The latest official GameGuru tutorial video was posted online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMqPsVpy2Ag

There were actually a number of non-english tutorials being posted.  Some work reasonably well enough with youtube's auto-translate function if you're interested:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEova6DMa5Q

Work continues on the '3d Asset Manager' program for GG - it has come such a long way in such a short period.  The latest info can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220822?page=5#msg2618874

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Bod this week made a really serious Taxicab..which turned into a police car... which turned into this awesome street racer with neon lights and alpha-planed headlights.  https://youtu.be/dw8mi4z7isg

Bonesy also made more forward momentum through steady refinement of his cyber-fi game:

One of the more interesting bits is a new user named "Trollbae" posted one of his friends creations from amateur work in the EBE and it's an impressive manor house:

I have to admit this is quality work for someone who is just trying out the EBE and GameGuru.  It shows a pretty clear ease for new users and I proves a bit to some of us older hats that maybe the EBE is worth using from time to time after all!

Tarkus1971 posted an update to his 'Urban Histories' game that I am personally very interested in seeing - apparently he's reworking it from scratch.  More info here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220589?page=1#msg2619135

Solar is working on a side project called "Zombie Central".  It's a suburban zombie city crawl.
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220974#msg2619073

This is because his other project, Kaboom Foxie is apparently nearly complete.

In My Own Works

And lastly, in my own big news (if you even made it this far to the end of this report) ... is my book is FINALLY released!

https://www.crcpress.com/An-Introduction-to-GameGuru/Messina/p/book/9781138612631

That's right!  The first start to finish guide for making and selling a game in GameGuru is finally here! The book is 426 pages in print with a significant error index, Lua, FPI Guide, 20+ chapters on GameGuru and Game Development in general.

The assets for this (demo maps, character creator addons, custom weapons,  custom static entities, some generously donated other materials, all my scripts, skies and textures...) are all going to be uploaded TONIGHT by 12PM EST.

I will also be giving away some promotional copies for FREE in the coming week.  So keep your eyes peeled on Discord and on the Forums for more details.

For those interested, there is a special 20% off discount code I have through my publisher you can use that is valid until the END OF THE YEAR - AITGG230 

FOR THOSE NOT PURCHASING THE BOOK, THE ASSETS WILL BE POSTED TO THE STORE IN THE COMING WEEK OR SO FOR PURCHASE.  

This Week in GameGuru - 5/20/2019

GameGuru News

There's lots of ripples in the water, but nothing breaking the surface yet.  So far, a fairly tame week for news.  Nothing on github.  Nothing on steam.  Nothing on the forums.  Officially, at least.  I'll hold off on rumor-mongering until something more concrete forms.

What's Good in the Store

This week the store was flooded by new products and packs.

Fredgames77 has put out a new 'Pack Modular School' and a 'Futuristic street bike'. While the school is a fairly completely set of models, it's also extremely expensive when compared against the baseline for similar products on the store.  I guess we'll see if that baseline goes up or his price comes down.

Sula continues to add a tremendous amount of old European cars to his portfolio.

Corrosion added several "HD" modeled soldiers if you feel you need more masked gunmen for you game(s): https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/221852

The most exciting stuff this week came from Belidos and Pasquill, respectively. Belidos finally released his very impressive isometric dungeon kit:

Which includes seven sub-packs with a huge pile of items in each one.  The best deal, of course, is to buy the main kit which for $9.99 as a sale price gets you access to the entire kit and caboodle. This pack is well worth the buy price if you're looking for a great entry into the 3D isometric genre.

Next up is one of my perennial favorites - Pasquil.  Pasquil has put out a clutter kit of high quality, well mapped PBR assets that are also low poly.

The price is very reasonable at a scant 7 dollars for what is essentially a full library of great outdoor clutter components.

Free Stuff

Tarkus1971 provided a free music track: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213190?page=5#msg2615615

Harrywever (AKA Dagored) provided two new free skyscrapers:

You can get your version here - https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/210761?page=6#msg2615542

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

BOTR added some more dev notes, he is apparently working on an HM2GG 4.0 - https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806?page=4#msg2615685

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Cybernessence posted some new pictures of his water shader.  I truly hope his changes get integrated into the GG core ASAP.  It's great seeing some fresh development, even if it's not by TGC directly.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=6#msg2615674

In My Own Works

This week I released my final batch of edits to the publisher (due 5/20) along with some minor changes to art and wording.  This however, marks the final bit of changes I can do easily without 'major costs' before the Aug 19th print date.
I also got a picture of my book cover. Looks good. The cover art is what I discussed with my publisher and the format looks good.  Mostly minor issues.

For those interested in the custom assets, I'm currently working on a flamethrower, which is 90% functional using the particle system.  It's fun to use :) 

I've also been on the hunt for some issues with my projectile weapons and other weapons I intend to release with the book. One turned out to be my own personal install - a complete reinstall resolved it. So one down, many to go.  I'm really looking forward to release some of these excellent assets!

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 - 04/15/2019

GameGuru News 

Nothing currently.  I've put out feelers with Deb and the team @ TGC for more details but so far there's nothing to report.  Github shows no forward momentum at this time either aside from a single ambient occlusion error listed on the issues tracker.  Details available here:

https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/commit/786ab7246e0b6d64f008ff30d81b0bef7fc518ac

So assuming we're hitting a phase of community development in the future I can offer one bit of hope for those still using GameGuru or new to it - Cybernessence.  His work in progress, 'The Cogwheel Chronicles' has a lot of custom code to it which will eventually find it's way (per his words on the forum) into the engine itself.  That said, I think many of us would truly appreciate some forward motion from the core team at TGC so here's to hoping their silence is indicative of that work!

What's Good in The Store

This week I added my pack freebie "Lonely Ice" to two different packs - owners of the 4K HD Space Skies pack will get it - as will the many Bonus Sampler Pack owners out there!  If you're looking for a low-priced way to check out one of the new 4K Skies, this is definitely the best option.  The Bonus Sampler's normal price is $1.50!

Beyond that we've got some other excellent work on the store this week:

BSP appears to have taken up the gauntlet I threw down with my skies and put together some good looking earth-based skies in high res (2k by 2k) -  https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11099

Dagored put together some awesome exploding bridges.  I can see some serious potential with these.  Take a look at them here: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11100

Long-time artist "Northern" put up what looks like the beginnings of a picnic kit.  There's no pack to speak of yet though the models are of moderate quality and would be suitable as elements in most GG quality games.

Of particular note this week we have Gtox's 'Scarecrow' which features some really slick animation and fits the horror theme well. 

I highly recommend picking this up if you're making a high quality horror game in GameGuru, you can find it here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32636

Third-party Tools and Tutorials

This week Defy posted what I'd call one of the most important threads for GameGuru in 5 years - a very detailed breakdown memory consumption by the map size and some tips on how to keep that size down.  If you're an advanced user, you need to read this: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220706

I will be keeping it in my reference list on my blog (http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com) as well.

Also this week MaiaCombra put together a fairly basic tutorial that is worth the 20 minutes if you're a new user on how to make a horror-style game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9V5ZJJTONs


This week we also found out Vishnu Packer has added GameGuru Support:

This should help distribution of GameGuru Games for the layperson. 

Bored of the Rings is adding a fix to autowelder soon - details here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806?page=2#msg2614590

Free Stuff

Lafette made a building for everyone: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=2#msg2614566

JPH made some PBR trees: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219734?page=2#msg2614521

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

This week saw some notable projects add to their portfolios as well as a few new ones.


LentheMan continues his work on his train scene for the cowboy shooter:

You can see the lighting start to really come together here.

Tarkus1971's 'Urban Histories' game had a video posted ... see it here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220589?page=1#msg2614408

Maiacombra is putting together an outdoor military-style shooter: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220701

Scienceboy came back to his long-refined project "Twin Worlds" and posted some interesting teaser screenshots:

You can see more here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/208185?page=9#msg2614553 

And as mentioned in the news section, Cybernessence has some interesting work he's been doing.  Lately it appears that he's working with light probes to create a flashlight shadow from the dynamic flashlight light source.  Remember, he's mentioned these changes will get merged into GG when he's completed so this bodes well for the rest of us.

He provided a demo picture that is 'highly exaggerated' to give some sense of what he's doing.  Granted it doesn't look pretty but remember this picture is more of a technical demo than anything else:

Per Cybernessence: "Hugely exaggerated picture for illustration. There are no lights other than the sun in this scene. The sky and floor are being treated as ambient light sources (the probe fired as I approached) - notice the red from the floor on the wooden boards around the top of the building."

More details here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=5#msg2614527

In My Own Works

This week I got my first batch of verifications from the publisher.  I also got wind of the pricing and asked about that - it appears the pricing is going to range from around $50 USD to $69USD.  That's a touch higher than expected.  I'm waiting for some words back on that as I know that's a bit much.  In other news, weapons development for the sidecar materials going with the book is coming along well.  I am pleased at what I've gotten thus far and look forward to revealing the full breadth of materials once the book is released.  Purchasers of the book will receive a copy of them for free, along with many of my other products including the Advanced Weather and Time of Day system.

This Week in GameGuru - 03/18/2019

Official GameGuru News:

This week there was an impromptu free weekend for GameGuru.  Unfortunately by the time you read this it'll have been closed. This infusion of fresh blood will likely give us a great deal more new users. 
Work continues on updating older packs to PBR.  I've seen some of the newer results and it's looking pretty good thus far!

Lastly on Github there are a significant amount of changes in motion.  It appears some multiplayer codefixes and menu changes are in the works among other things. We'll know more as we approach release.

What's Good in the Store: 

This week in the store we have some really excellent weapons by Mstockton - it's refreshing to see a modeller make the foray into weapons as they are such a tricky element to implement in GameGuru.

I'm particularly fond of how good the bottles look.

So far he's made a melee-based series of a broken bottle (reskinned into four variants) and a night-stick baton (also with 4 different weapon skins).  The animations are decent and for the price ($3 USD!), you can't go wrong. 

This is just a fraction of the assets you receive!

Also Mad Lobster is working on his first new pack in a long time, his film and photo pack continues his impressive use of PBR and modelling. It's well priced for the quality level you receive, and if his other pack is any indication it will easily be a top shelf item that will receive consistent updates and additions.

Tarkus added a new music pack with that 'abandoned city vibe' - https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11098

If you ever want to build an aquarium, now's the time.

Gtox added a boatload (pun intended) more fish - Tropical Reef Pack

And lastly, I'm sure you had to guess if you know me - my first new works in nearly two years have been added to the store.  I've gone and gotten fairly proficient with my new tools.  Being bottled up creatively while writing a book for 10 months meant I had to run out and create something powerful - and I think I've done a fair job of that!  I wanted to create the definitively highest quality space skies available for GameGuru.

What do you think ... did I hit the mark?  I'll be putting the pack on sale by the time this post goes live for This week only. After that it'll go back up to it's normal price.
Also, I am yet to include the 'pack exclusive sky'.  That should be added later this week so people who already purchased it - you'll see that in your inventory soon!


You can pick up your copy of the 4k HD Space Skies pack here!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Weapon and segment autowelder received some updates here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219806

Please note there are a lot of good links just past that for BOTR's 3rd party utils - make sure you grab them while you can!

Free Stuff

I gave out a handful of my 'throwaway' 4k space skies.  This is specifically for the ones I didn't feel met the level of quality I felt were worth selling.  They still far exceed much of what's out there, in my opinion.  Get your free copies here:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220603

Lafette updated his free trees:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=2#msg2613161

Grobyken added a 'simple rusty ladder': https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217711?page=5#msg2613343

And sadly it's official - Bod's mods are no longer available.  Thanks again Bod for all the hard work and good luck in your future endeavors!

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

So right out - Wolf is continuing his work on his latest project and I have to say I'm optimistic to see it possibly reach it's conclusion in the future.  What's shocking is finding out he's only using a DNIS workflow for these screenshots!

Bonesy is working on his shooter some more.  I've gotten additional screenshots but the reality is I'm limited on size so I'm running out of runway on this blog post. Likewise maiacombra has also started some work on a sci-fi Robinson Crusoe style game.

Lastly Tarkus is working on a great looking game called 'Urban Histories' which has a real interesting feel to it.   Looks like he's widely using readily available models with good placement and the cartoon shader to give it a good look and feel.

In My Own Works

So you may not have heard but the book is officially in the hands of the publisher, woo freaking hoo! I cannot tell you how weird it feels not having that as an ever-present companion to my work-week.  I'm happy it's on it's way.

I picked out the cover art this weekend and worked on some other various side aspects of it such as the back cover text for the publisher.

I have 3-6 months to prep all of the game-specific assets that will go with it and I want to thank everyone who helped me with it.  It's been a long ride and I'm really looking forward to seeing this thing in print!

This Week in GameGuru - 03/11/2019

Official GameGuru News

Nothing big at the moment, just a new PP version for testing from the upstream beta build.  This does however mean that we can expect a live version very shortly.  Looking forward to testing it, myself.  Anyone interested in how to use the PP version can find details here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220548?page=1#msg2612465

What's Good in The Store

Moving on - there's a lot of great stuff this week.  We've got a fantastic 'Space Derelict' pack by Kasseyus,

a full 18-piece foundry kit from Lafette,

a functional stationary gun emplacement by GraphiX,

a 'porta-cabin' kit by Graphix,

and a really interesting 'imp' monster by lotgd.

Not bad for a single week!

Free Stuff

A bit of sad news this week.  Bod has finally pulled the plug on his free works.  He's no longer offering any of it for free.  Pardon my interjection here but it seems like a phenomenal waste of effort in this case.  Bod, if you are reading this my recommendation is to offer the works on the store for a price you feel would be acceptable.  I'm sure there'd be a surplus of people (myself included) who'd pony up the appropriate amount for it.

Beyond that we have:

Lafette put out a perfect complement to the sci-fi pack here!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

A rigging tutorial here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220592

A good thread on how to fix the cel shader for GameGuru: https://steamcommunity.com/app/266310/discussions/0/1837937637895481938/

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Bonesy keeps on cracking, good job man.  Just keep chipping away at it it.  I like the inclusion of objectives to help keep your players on task (see below screenshot).

I'm also very happy to announce that Wolf posted some work in progress pics.  Damn fine stuff sir!

Also I thought I'd drop a screenshot of some of my own stuff.  I'm working with some new tools on my first new skies set in years.  Here's one of my favorites:

Believe it or not, there's more impressive ones than that.  I'm really excited to bring these out for everyone.

In My Own Works

As mentioned previously, I'm working on a pack of new space skies for consumption.  Expect the older skies to get price reduced and the newer skies to come out shortly as a pack. I'll then give it a few months then add the new skies to the 'All skies and weather' a few months after that.  I have plans for the weather system as well including a minor overhaul to include some better use of commands as well as to improve it's function.

Now for the big news:

The book is officially in the hands of my publisher!  I'm very happy to finally get to this point after nearly a year of solid work.  For those interested this will be published under CRC Press via Taylor and Francis publishing.  It *WILL* be available for international distribution.  It's designed as a start to finish guide with GameGuru through a game's whole lifecycle.  It will have over 450 pages of printed text, 130+ pictures, a full seventeen thousand word appendix (Lua, Error codes, Gunspec, FPE, etc), and a whole host of custom models and media you will only be able to get with the book!

My acknowledgements section was pretty long and rightfully so! Thanks again to everyone who helped get me this far.