This Week in GameGuru - 11/06/2019

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

If you haven't seen the newsletter, it bears repeating what was mentioned in there.  Notably TGC is in a bugfixing cycle so it's important you take any bugreports you have and post them over on the issues log on GitHub.

What's Good in The Store

This week's totally subjective analysis of the store reveals not much new.  Fredgames continues to pump out products, so check out his store here: https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/250424

Other than that though there a number of notable sales at the top of the page.  Give it a look!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

BOTR released the final version of his autowelder FPSC to GG pipelining tool. Grab it while you can! https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221285

Similarly BOTR released his final version of his Heightmap tool! https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/221100?page=1#msg2622936

Free Stuff 

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220055?page=2#msg2622953 Amenmoses put together some sound control scripts you can get for free.

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219734?page=2#msg2622903 3 Sci-fi animated objects by JPH.
A video can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93CJmXtgyg

 

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Naelurec  got some more interesting updates and custom models.  I'm truly interested in seeing where this one goes.  The latest update shows a toxic-looking planetscape:

A favorite of mine, the Cogwheel Chronicles had it's creator Cybernessence dropping more hints and clues about his current work including a heightmapper tool: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=7#msg2622957

The old master of lighting, Wolf, put up some powerful looking screenshots of a yet unnamed game.

I'm pretty impressed with how far he's come even given his already somewhat legendary status in the community.

Schn33ky posted a game called Dilly Dally Derby, which is actually a complete work at this time: 
It's a betting game where you choose a horse and it randomly runs them out.  It's interesting to me because this is actually a game very similar to one I made back years ago in school. I used monster trucks myself, but I can appreciate the work that went into this.

The biggest news is that Duchenkuke revealed a secret project he's been working on that is now available for public consumption.

Note the custom interface, impressive lighting, use of a powerful vignette and just overall professional feel of the work.

A perhaps better example is this gem:

The atmosphere is intense and palpable. He put a lot of work into the sound design and environments, it features a variety of enemies and is available to be wishlisted on steam (Which I personally recommend doing!) - https://store.steampowered.com/app/657480/Dark_Skies_The_Nemansk_Incident/?beta=0

In My Own Works

This past week was a flurry of getting people their free products as book purchasers.  If I missed you, please contact me on discord, send me a ticket on tgcstore, or send me a message on the forums if all else fails. 

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 - 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 - 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 - 03/04/2019

This week's update will be exceptionally short.  I simply can't invest the time with this being crunch week.  My book is going to the publisher on Weds/Thurs.

Official GameGuru News

** Unofficially I have it on good authority the changes to the mega pack 3 are about a month or so out.

Officially - while I haven't seen anything direct I can honestly say it looks like we're going to receive a very large update in the next few weeks.  Time will tell. Code merges on github look promising though.

What's Good in the Store

This week has several great objects by Mad Lobster for a photo booth

 M Stockton's cookout collection is a great price for some awesome assets

Lotgd really awesome low poly cockroach with very good movement patterns.

So all in all, a pretty good set of objects to pick up!

Free Stuff

Lafette did some beautiful beer bottles https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=1#msg2612553

Lafette is giving away three animated workers https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474?page=1#msg2612691

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Several good tutorials by Wolf:
Creating many corpses / dead bodies for your horror game in little time without modeling knowledge 
Getting models with multiple textures into reloaded
Necessary Edits to get EAI's weaponry into GG 

Along with one from PirateMyke:
Graphix Explosion Particle Instructions  

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

Bonesy made a pretty excellent supercut of his work in progress (Cyberfi)

HellreaperX's "Death House of Barker Creek" showed a tantalizing pic of a new monster:

This post  by cybernessence: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213870?page=5#msg2612636 is a must read if you're a hardcore user.  Wow, just wow man.

In My Own Works

Welp, we're here. 140,000 words, 23 chapters, an appendix with a full Lua, FPE, gunspec, error code and other references.  130+ high res grayscale pictures.  11 months of work, probably about 800 hours of time spent... and it's almost ready to go the publisher.  It leaves the train this week.  Barring any unforeseen circumstances we're talking about a 4-6 month time before it becomes paper in print. I'll be doing giveaways and coupon codes as we approach.

Beyond that I want to throw a big thank you to everyone that's helped.  If you want your name in the acknowledgements section, shoot me a message on my blog (gamegurureport.blogspot.com) or via discord.  Many of you likely already are listed. 

On a side note, I've been working on a whole new set of space skies with some new tools.  4k texture resolution and they're absolutely gorgeous.  Give those a few weeks for fine tuning.

This Week in GameGuru - 02/25/2019

Official GameGuru News

This week we have some information from the man himself - apparently Lee is hard at work at working on a new beta version that will be dropping shortly for beta testers.  This will eventually trickle down as a PP build, then a public build. 

Here's to hoping for a big pile of those issues getting cleared and some GUI functionality added!

Also, if you missed it the weapons DLC is on sale.

What's good in the store 

This week in the store it looks like a user named CryneX put some games up.  Nice to see the store expanding it's function.  There's been some back-chatter of opening it up even more to help boost sales further.

Beyond that there's some candles by MStockton and a HUGE destructible buildings kit by 3com (100 buildings or more!)

Free Stuff

Tarkus1971 provided more free music to the cause: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/213190?page=5#msg2612185

Osiem80 posted some free boxes here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220539#msg2612139

Wolf made another fantastic bar set to complement his old freebie: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220550

Lafette II has been putting out an astonishing amount of quality free work: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220474#msg2612222

The generosity of some in the community never ceases to amaze me.  Remember to say thank you to all of the people willing to dedicate their time and efforts to your projects!

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

Cybernessence summed up how to use an FPP file to smooth your standalone's creation (I'll admit, I already covered this in my book but if you want to see how to do this before it comes out - here you go!)

PirateMyke hit us with some big knowledge on the gunspec file: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220536

Graphix put about 5 threads up on the forum about a wide range of topics.  Check them out here:
https://forum.game-guru.com/board/37

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs) 

3com has gone from breaking buildings to burning foliage.  Really interesting stuff.  You can find the video on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEUyWQ4X1w4

PirateMyke has been making leaps and bounds with Mega Pack 3's update.  He posted a video on it earlier this week but check out this screenshot of some of the updates:

Gorgeous.  You should see it side by side with one of the old DNIS buildings.  It's night and day. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYugCOgPqkU

In My Own Works

I spoke with my publisher this morning and while I'm a little behind on my book due to the sheer volume of pictures and it's corresponding level of work, I have committed to wrapping up my submission by middle of next week. I'm very, VERY close now.  The editing process is mostly done.  I'm finishing up the formatting and typesetting which is extremely specific. Truly though, I'm looking forward to being finished.  This great endeavor has proven exhausting and I'll be happy to be completed.

This Week in GameGuru - 12/31/2018

Well I hope you all enjoyed your Holidays. Here in Pennsylvania my family had a great Christmas together.  It was nice to see family I'd not seen in a while.

With that, I skipped last week for the Holiday and am back to provide you with your regularly scheduled updates on GameGuru!

Official GameGuru News

The most recent update was here: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-buildings-pack-dlc-updated

Specifically this update fixes some geometry issues with the buildings pack, which many of us received as compensation for our earlier donations to the FPSC:Reloaded project. This is the first release of fixes done by Graphix and it looks pretty dang good.  Like we're finally going to see some forward progress on some very old models that brings them up to a more reasonable standard. 

It sounds like they'll be dialing back on the regular DLC updates for now as it seemed the general consensus was that it was getting out of hand.

What's Good in the Store

A note to store sellers - recently stricter guidelines have been implemented for large media images. You can get the full details here: https://seller.tgcstore.net/doc/marketing-advice

Teabone has been... really busy over his holiday.  Color me impressed.

Some of these are some fantastic scripts, notably the dynamic water droplets and weapon hud wheel.  These are good bits of code and I'm totally in for buying access to them... once I pay off the Christmas gift bills.  That said, he does sell his scripts as a pack for a low price: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11056

Also on the store this week Gtox put up a model that initially looked so-so but having watched the video I have to say the attack animation is great.  It happens akin to a jump scare so it's a fairly unique entity.

You can get a copy or watch the video here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32267

A seller named simply 'ThatModelGuy' put together a pretty nice looking fast-food style booth.  I have several of these but I have to say this one is a nice build with a very good looking model that fits cleanly.

It's on sale for a dollar here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32266

A new composer has placed his works on the store and there are a substantial amount to look at.  Take a look at his artist page here: https://www.tgcstore.net/artist/87213

Free Stuff

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=12#msg2610108 - Graphix put together a great road barrier with an animation for those interested, he also created a full download of every model he's ever done in one easy link here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217932?page=13#msg2610187

Honkeyboy made a map massively larger than the basic map and there's some interesting stuff in this thread about how to make it function properly.  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220345

Bod made a pretty sweet radio for download: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/215012?page=18#msg2609928

JPH-Games made several building packs for christmas, however there's no zip link so... I guess we'll circle back on this one.

Third Party Tools and Tutorials

How to use Graphix's explosions: https://youtu.be/ngkAqtBN_mM

Tarkus1971 put up his own site with media: https://forum.game-guru.com/outbound?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexigentsounds.co.uk%2F

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

 

De-tachment by "SuperMasGamer" looks promising but lacks any gameplay videos, only has a few cutscenes and promo reels cut.  Check out the pretty well put together cutscene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fMPyHGv_Yg

In My Own Works

The book is in the fun phase, the point where I send it to proofreaders and my personal editor to clean up and revise.  I also get to re-read all 135k words and fix any glaringly obvious mistakes, reorganize, and the like.  The content, however, is essentially done.  I also got good news from someone with respect to building weapons so I'm hoping I can have those added in time for the game itself to be included with it by June. From a content standpoint though, I'm essentially done!  I did a huge amount of research over the past few weeks for how to use the model importer, learned quite a lot about it.  Surprising how much power is actually under the hood when you take the time to learn about it. 

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 GameGuru - 11/26/2018

Well, the American holiday of Thanksgiving has come and gone.  I do love it, not just for the food but the lessons it brings us.  If you're ever interested, take a look at the notes of the Pilgrims from that time.  There's a lot of lessons to be learned there, for sure.

Moving ahead, GameGuru has a lot of ground to cover this week. Let's get started...

Official GameGuru News

 

So it looks like we got a big release and they just updated the main news page with it.

https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-november-update-released
This information is nothing new, if you've been following my blog.  All of these were covered in the PP release, which is now just following the natural effect of being deployed as a 'stable' version.  Time will tell but I expect some followup patching as it shakes out over a larger audience.

This overshadowed another update as well from earlier last week which was that the construction pack DLC got updated with more PBR textures.

Full details can be found here: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-construction-site-dlc-updated-3

What's Good in the Store

This week in the store we have a smattering of new items.  First we've got some interesting pulleys from Mad Lobster's Workshop: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/32169

I have to say I love the work he does on texturing.  I think this product marks a good departure from his more niche products to a more general line that can be used by a broader audience.  I for one welcome the move.

Reliquia's beautiful Toonland Car now is available in a well priced pack: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11060

Teabone continues his work both in modelling (this time on ingots) and on scripting (a mine arming/disarming script).

And lastly we have a Christmas Pack from Colosso who pretty much covers the ENTIRE Christmas spread with gifts, a tree, a snowman, a sled, an igloo and more!

Get the Christmas Pack here!

Third Party Tutorials and Tools

I didn't see any this week, but if I missed one let me know and I'll add it.

Free Stuff

Maiacombra provided some free textures that could easily be added to a terrain setup.
 

Random Acts of Creativity (WIPs)

VincentHendriks went with a totally different tactic this week, moving to a hitman-style spy shooter with a villa that you assault.  It's a solid first run through though it needs polish and testing.  So far though the results are promising.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjC9k1A0OOU

Note the clever use of an EBE building.

So far, so good. Good foliage, good coloration.  The building is a nice departure from the usual fare with in the bounds of EBE's limitations. 
 
Openload continues his work on 'Memory of Hedolan' (I covered it a few weeks ago here) with some new screenshots.  This is a really solid piece that looks like it's got some serious effort going into it.

The lighting is fairly on point and it looks like a solid effort, which I can always appreciate.

Additional screenshots and details can be found in this thread: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220223#msg2608734

So in a not-so-rare case of me tooting my own horn, I helped Len the Man with some advice on his cowboy shooter. I gave him a really rough copy of my subchapter on how to make deserts and he's really taken and run with it.  Check out this before and after comparison:

What an ENORMOUS difference.  There's still work to do, obviously - I'd add bigger and wider vegetation, maybe some rocks and foreground elements like small shrubs but overall this is miles better and significantly more immersive.  Nicely done Len!

In My Own Works

Well for starters, I updated the cover graphic for the twilight sky freebie I did a while back.  I am not sure how, but the graphic got all screwed up and made the demo picture look awful.  You can get that freebie here: https://www.tgcstore.net/product/30955

I also have a lighting tutorial I wrote up nearly a year ago that I cleaned up and will be releasing very shortly (like, later today!) ... and lastly I'm up to 126k words on my book.  I just finished covering how to make cutscenes in game and will be moving on to 'Advanced Engine Usage' which mostly will cover setup.ini configurations and tricks.  I'll admit I'm wearing out a bit on the heavier duty stuff I'm having to cover but it's getting there by god!

Thanks again for everyone's support and I look forward to a final release of this book which I believe will truly help you all bring your projects to fruition!

This Week In GameGuru - 11/19/2018

As you can see, I'll now be cross posted not only at gamedev.net and blogarama but also here on the GameGuru site itself, which is pretty awesome!

So for those of you who are not aware, I've been writing these reports for a very long time at my blog, spanning several years - all the way back to the FPSC Reloaded days.  There's a ton of extra content there such as my tutorial list: http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com/p/my-tutorialstechnique-evaluations.html

and the reference list of everything from FPE errors to light values: http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com/p/reference-list-for-gameguru.html
 
This is a relatively quiet week, so if you missed last week's update (Which is not listed on the GameGuru site as I needed to skip it to get caught up for future content) you can find it here: http://gamegurureport.blogspot.com/2018/11/this-week-in-game-guru-11122018.html

Official GameGuru News

This week was a huge update from the standpoint of actual Game-Guru news as you can see on the front page.  This week we got our third public preview update, which represents a sort of 'last beta' before it actually is released as a final release.  This public preview allows us to test thoroughly all the upcoming changes in the next major release.


https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-public-preview-update-3

The list of changes is substantial and ranges from a better physics shapes, new model changes for better animating and physics responses, better importing, improved particles (a massive update), a HUGE AI update done by smallg & Lee, and of course the usual smattering of minor bugfixes.  It's completely worth taking a few minutes to review the huge list of updates on the actual news link above.

As always I recommend making a copy of your stable version of Game-Guru before downloading the PP update via steam so as to ensure you are secure in case of serious issues with the PP release.

What's Good In The Store

So this week we have some really excellent cartoon cars by Reliquia:

These should be part of a pack!

A very well priced (underpriced, even) monster by LOTGD(80 cents!): 


Teabone's been steadily producing scripts for you to purchase now available as a reasonably priced pack:

And lastly, by 'Moshroom' - probably the coolest thing I've seen in a while - a full JRPG script kit!  It's on sale now for 13.00 which is a VERY reasonable price for such a complete script setup.

Get it here at: https://www.tgcstore.net/pack/11059

Free Stuff

Not much going on here this week but Maiacoimbra did do several colorings of the medieval weapons and the futuretek shotgun. 

Third party Tools and Tutorials

This week we have a tutorial on how to reduce polygons you can find here:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219982
And some interesting image compression software I have yet to test out, might produce better results for DDS files:   https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220248

Random Acts of Creativity(WIPs)

Graphix has been working on his particle weather effects and recently showed off his fog effects.  I'd love to integrate support for these into my weather system!
You can check out a video of it here:  https://youtu.be/IC__yQpDPp8

We also have an update by Vincent Hendricks on his medieval game which is coming together rather well:

Now for my personal favorite of the week.  Teabone made one of the coolest 'monster/trap' entities I've seen in a while, something I've loved for a long time since my early years playing DND:  The Gelatinous cube!

I absolutely love the gelatinous cubes.  They were always some of the most interesting and difficult monsters to fight; nothing worse than a giant living blob of acid to ruin your day!

In My Own Works

Well, I finally hit 120,000 words (122k, to be precise).  This does not mean the book is done, far from it.  I have two major sections to write:  The model importer and the advanced Lua code section.  Once those are done, I'll be sitting around 130,000 words, which I will probably trim down to 125-122k after editing.

After editing (should be wrapped up by mid-December) I'll then start taking the 150+ pictures I need for the book!

Then I get the joy of formatting it and typesetting it for the publisher, sending it to my editor for one last review, then sending it to the PUBLISHER's editor, then so on and so forth until it is finally accepted by the publisher (CRCPress) in February or so.

Still, I'm very happy with how this has come along recently and it's great to finally be making REAL progress on this.