This Week in Game-Guru - 02/12/2018

Sorry for the delayed update this week.  Family's been sick and I'm not feeling that great myself.

ENGINE UPDATE PROGRESS REPORT

Currently the engine appears to have a PP version brewing for mid-February which should resolve many of the issues we've seen with a quick followup (hopefully) to a regular release.  That'll put us on track for Lee's usual 6 month release cycle for major changes.  

Beyond that it appears there's ongoing work on previous download content and add-ons for Game-Guru getting the 'PBR treatment'.  This includes now the Mega Pack 1 DLC as mentioned here.

NEW PRODUCTS IN THE STORE

Mad lobster keeps adding more and more to his laboratory kit.  I'm astonished he'd continue to give current owners extra value on what was ALREADY a good value.  The price of the kit HAS gone up to reflect that, but if you're a current owner make sure you download the latest goodies for the laboratory kit. 

It looks like the venerable (and somewhat wacky) Colosso has increased his proficiency at modeling considerably and his newer objects continue to add quality and value to his portfolio.  His newest pack and objects are proof of that.

Teabone has added some fine clutter objects, including the best looking food object I've seen in a long time.  Not sure how he does it, but definitely worth a purchase for that low of a price.

Also, as a side note, purchasers of my Advanced Time of Day and Weather kit will have an update available to them.  It's a fairly major bugfix and update.  You can see the details below in the 'in my own works' section.

FREE STUFF

The big news here is that Lafette has given away a very major piece of work for free out of what seems to be boredom with the project.  It's an extremely high quality science fiction kit that can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/219315

THIRD PARTY TOOLS

Heightmap import (HIMP) tool is on hold due to BOTR having a newborn son.  Congrats!
Entity welder is also on hold for the same reason.

RANDOM ACTS OF CREATIVITY

Looks like Dimoxiland is doing some more work on his project "Space Losers" for GG.  These updates are always exciting because he's pretty much the cream of the crop for Game-Guru developers.  Check out this screenshot!

That's what I'm talking about. All custom code, graphics, etc. It's impressive beyond any reason and if he finishes it will probably put Game-Guru on the map.

IN MY OWN WORKS

As mentioned my Advanced Time of Day and Weather kit has had some fairly major updates.

 02/12/2018    

• Added specular effect for snow to give it whitish appearance for terrain objects on highest values.  I basically changed specularity to 50x for white.  This can be commented out if it's not desirable but overall I think it works well enough considering the engine itself.
• Repaired broken build with files specifically from PP dev build of mine cross-pollinating live non-pp (DX9) build. 
• updated test map file
• Fixed/repaired time function(s), they sync to states now and also rollover seamlessly day to day 
• Fixed broken cycleloopcounter pointers which were still working in old code (singleuse/singlestate/etc). 
• Fixed bag_w_indoors script, huzzah!
• Added 'pp' versions of the weather effects.  If they don't work, let me know the error you get. 

So to sum up I basically had a non-pp build get mixed with a pp build that accidentally got uploaded. I basically made separate FPE files at this point for the PP weather effect decals which can be used in place.  The script remains the same for both as it will function on both.  I'm also including both .fx files for the effectbank folder which should resolve any conflict between the two versions.  The biggest fix is the resolution of the w_indoors script, which now functions seamlessly.

Camerakit is almost ready to be bundled up and posted to the store, expect that very shortly!

MWDA, javascript, and weather system updates.

With my surplus of 'thinking time' for javascript coding, I find myself making progress inexorably towards a real, functional item.
So this isn't available yet but it will be soon.  I'm currently working on making this thing safely output to a page and I'll post it up on my blog eventually.

For your reference: MWDA is Mechwarrior: Dark Age.  It's a wargame using mini figures on the clix system.  It ran it's course a few years back and has since become something of a collector's item.  I collect many, myself.  That said, there's virtually no one to play with or against locally.  My sons aren't old enough yet.  So I have been humbly trying to migrate this to a program I can use and run to eventually build up to a full fledged game (similar to megamek in principle).  Then, eventually, I'll rip out the guts and rebuild it with my own game that I have been working on.

That said it's a great exercise in building something from nothing in javascript.  The current iteration builds it's own objects, a data table, a huge volume of information which only covers about 60% of the objects in the original Dark Age game.  There were many expansions of course, all of which will have to be added later.  The current version can do combat between two infantry units in direct contact.  It has no game board to speak of, no ranges, no graphics.  It's just the guts of a combat system and a very simplistic database.  

Once I have it mapping everything to a webpage properly I'll post it up on this site along with some updates from time to time.  I may obfuscate my code first, not sure.

We'll see.

 For now, that's what's up.  Once I sit down and hammer out my weather system (hopefully tomorrow) to make it consumable for the general public at large, then I will put it up for sale after final testing.  Price will range between 10 and 20 dollars.  Probably 15 with a sale price of 10-12.

Final checklist items needed for the weather system:

• inclusion of my lightning scripting to provide realistic weather effects during a rainstorm.
• ambient sound of various weather effects.
• better methodology for deploying weather and time of day.
• a general 'time of day' global variable based on loop counter/time.  Shouldn't be hard to do.  This will give a means to pull a time of day for secondary scripts (to allow shopkeepers to close up at 9pm, for instance).
• better weather randomization.  Right now it's simply selecting based off a probability matrix.  This isn't really a great way to do things.  I'd rather it be for a percentage of the day vs just randomly selecting based on a time of day state change.  

I've also been thinking about just calling it early, wrapping it up, and saving other changes for a 'version two'.  Feature creep is a real bitch and sometimes it's better to just cut it off at the knees and save the rest for another time.  Some of this stuff is really easy.  Other stuff is more complex theoretical work (like how best to initiate/ramp up weather).

Anyways that's the status.  Take care and see you around.

Weather system update info

So wow, Lee gave us a great big gift basket of stuff. (SEE: https://www.thegamecreators.com/post/gameguru-20170228-released)

I'm going to implement a few extra controls based on the new Lua commands and then prepare this thing for launch.

My biggest issue right now that I am not satisfied with is I don't have a good way to deal with the weather systems.  I've monkeyed with the shaders, created a custom decal, etc, and just can't get it the way I want.

Unfortunately this is becoming a time sink and will need revisited in a future version.
Currently what I have supports:

Random weather if selected via variable
Random Time of day if selected via variable
----
A set time of day (you walk into a zone and it sets it to that time of day, single use)
A set weather (you walk into a zone and weather is enabled)
All weather turning off indoors via trigger zone
----
A progressive day/night cycle based on both step interval speed and delay between cycles.  Totally within the control specified by the user.  This is the on you see shown in the video.  You can add random or set weather to it as well via trigger zones or variables.

What needs added before release:
1) one final tuning run on the blue zone which I have a good fix on making how I want
2) new lua implementation of sun surface/lens flare (disabling for night specifically).
3) modified versions of algosteps decals need a last tune.  I don't like his originals that much because the decals are too thick or not transparent enough.  If anyone wants to step up and provide nicer looking visual elements for those Rain/Snow/Dust boxes I'm sure I can provide you a free of charge copy of my final product.
4) a final test run, really comprehensively.  I'm sure bugfixes will inevitably be necessary after users get their mitts on it but overall it should be a good clean setup.

Current cost for this package will be 15$ and I'm not sure I'll be doing it via the store since there are some complex elements which need to be done manually (like you pretty much need the updated sky shader if you want a good result from here:  https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216862#msg2564866). 

Thanks for the support and interest.  Please keep an eye out as this will likely be released in the next week or so.

Huge news - a preview of my upcoming Time of Day and Weather system for Game Guru!

So I've been toiling away on my secretive project for months now and finally gotten this beauty to where it should be at least acceptable from the standpoint of a public viewing session of it.

This system controls a significant number of factors in a parabolic curve (mostly) independent of each other to create a realistic Time of Day system.

Weather is being added slowly but is next on the plate.

Current plans are to introduce this as an advanced user script which will sell for approximately $20.
I realize this is steep but also that this represents many hundreds of hours of work for something that effectively should be a core game feature.  So I'm pretty much adding something into the game engine that SHOULD be there but isn't.  Once weather is in place it should really tie this all together.

Without any further yammering, here's the preview!

All thumbs up and comments appreciated.

Discussion on the forum can be found here: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217420