I too am itching, will be interesting to see what can be done once you throw in your own media content created specifically for it

It might be a good idea to release a list of anything else that might be left out of the next beta that users might be expecting released. Being given previews of coming attractions give many backers the impression that they should be anticipating new features in the subsequent releases and the reality of an extensive design delay along with the resulting delay of the feature itself is not usually part of the preview scheme. I'm sure all of the backers understand that advancing programming in software of this sort is a mammoth undertaking which requires massive amounts of time, calculations and the pressures of deadlines. My guess is that the programming team would find the pressure reduced considerably if previews and the advertising of the product were a little more down to earth with it's release goals - that and perhaps making clear long before a release is due, not only what to expect in the next release, but what is also not probable.

The focus of the next beta will be performance, stability and memory usage. I can report great progress internally on all of these areas (even more than my last post here.) and we hope to be passing a full version to our alpha testers very soon, and then onto to all pledgers soon after.



As we've said, it was a difficult decision to delay the Conkit, but I'm sure all pledgers will appreciate the progress that has been made with the core engine, something that would have been much slower had all of the team not focused on it. This short delay now will result in much faster development in the future.



I ask once again for your patience, and can promise you a very stable, fast and more flexible engine for the next beta.



SC

Thank you all for all your excellent efforts!

I'd rather not want any type of cave carving tool as it would only add more unused polys to the stage. The general sense is to use static entities of rocks and such. Though most commonly once you enter a cave it should load a map that does not have a terrain map but just pieces of an inside tunnel with the outer face texture-less. Something we could then use the construction kit for.

Everquest Landmark for one. It's starting to come in with people wanting bigger more realistic minecraft esque variants. Not really a biggie at the moment, but why not? If these fully deformable voxel landscapes become the norm in the next 10 years, why have Reloaded looking dated with it's old fashioned terrain? Looking at the next big things is a good idea, and worth keeping an eye on at least.



I don't think Reloaded will have this facility anytime soon. Unless it is being worked on by the providers of the terrain system. Still, could be a good update in the far future.

have you seen the newer version of 7 days to die?, its a voxel game but with smoothed terrain not the normal voxel graphics of blocks stacked up.. though still blocks stacked up, its awesome...



I want to be able to have that sort of dev control that I can take an rpg or missile launcher and carve out caves with it, or perhaps a digger truck ...

anyways a good idea to have something like this later on I think, but I could just be in the minority on this?. voxel like terrain editing in 3d mode would be awesome.



I do agree with dvader on his point on keeping pace with the future abilities and want/needs of future game devs/engines/trends.

I did back their Kickstarter i should check it out more often. They do have a very advanced physics system going on though with their voxel terrains I've noticed.

@ FyllyMan



Ultimately it is up to them but I understand what you are requesting. It would be nice to have some of the action options work properly. Cause then we can at least make basic games and improve them as the engine gets better. In my opini

Oh my god, can people please stop whining like little children? Why are people talking about their farewell speeches just because the conkit is being delayed for a while because the main engine needs work? Would people rather begin making buildings next beta, with the engine horribly optimized and buggy, or wait a couple months and have a better engine with the construction kit? Making an engine is a long process, if you are disappointed that you don't get to make cod in the next beta then you should probably take note that making a decent engine can take years with even hundreds of people.

We want everything now!!! NOW!!! We want to make AAAAA games with all the bells and whistle, we want to create state-of-the-art games with 4 mouse-clicks, we want to bend and shape the universe and create endless games with the most amazing visuals !!RIGHT NOW!! Not tomorrow NOW!!!!!!





















...but I can wait a bit if i have to.

Just my opinion, (and I'm not sure if this is already going to be a feature) but perhaps the construction kit should be more open for all artist to create content for and not so much be part of the actual level editor, but separate from it and have each building/structure savable as a model that can be put into any game level. This is a feature in FPSC classic that we actually had but was rarely ever used- it was called 'prefab'. Prefab had so much potential but I feel was never truly used to its full potential. Well from what I can see the construction kit looks like it could be the prefab function with much more control. Does it necessarily have to be an integral part of the level editor? Maybe not. If the Level editor can just read the out put file(assigning material, and texture data to specific objects),you could just develop the construction kit as an exterior program that the editor could import file/models from. This way all that really needs to be done is have the engine able to read the data rather than be fully responsible for the creation of it. This also allows separate work on the construction kit independent of the engine itself and not being one more factor that can break the engine or cause conflicts with the engine when updates are created. As I said , just my opinion.

I thought the general idea was to delay the conkit whilst the core was improved for this beta ( Hence the longer wait ) then everything would go back to normal and conkit and further additions would continue along with regular updates ?



Or have I misread ..

As far as I know it is still delayed. I was just stating an opinion before work started on it again.

The Construction Kit is as far as I understand it intended to be just one amongst a number of important internal features of the engine first and foremost.



Much like the case with the Terrain editor providing internal Terrain building and editing features, a rounded product set of features out of the box and integral to the core product. Effectively allowing anyone to create a full playable game largely from the utilisation of default features - out of the box.



Notwithstanding of course any additional support these internal features may provide for saving out content created or indeed importing content from outside of the product.



Thus the current or original plan would provide for the best of available options to the widest possible range of users. A good thing and one which has helped thus far with its success to date.



I see no reason to deviate from that original thinking of providing a rounded product with the widest support possible for creating your game from within wherever possible - suggested and asked for by users and potential users. This is particularly important for those who are not experts at game making, dont know how or cant for whatever reason learn how to model and so on and or those who may not be able to afford financially or otherwise resort to external resources, media and so on to include in their game.



Much like the original classic vision then a game maker that anyone can take and make a game with at some level of sophistication out of the box, with nothing more than having to pay the original product purchase price, while for those who wish to do so being able to call upon more expertise or resources to make a game of a higher level of quality and so on. Seems thats a good concept and vision - always was and always will be.



Unlike the case with classic however one hopes that the continued commitment too and progress in the development of the core engine together with these mentioned features and other added features which were missing from classic will ensure the continued success and greater usability amongst game makers of all kinds whoever they might be. So far it seems to have done reasonably well, partly because of these new added features or those which are under development and yet to come like the Construction Kit which in and of themselves seem to have encouraged many more users than otherwise may have been the case. I am sure they will contribute to enlarging the number of users over and above the number if they had not been included as part of the core product and editor.



In general no game maker wants to have to rely on external products unless necessary. Much more productive to work internally if possible.



Of course one assumes that the integration of such features can be done successfully without impacting of the core engine or editor which would be a different matter.



Given the Construction Kit so I understand is eventually envisaged itself to become and evolve perhaps to be perhaps a fairly sophisticated feature providing for a range of "Construction" type sub features and or manipulation sounds like it may be very supportive to the product as a whole and very attractive to more potential pledger purchasers as time goes on.



The ability to say export "Constructions" as prefabs or models and or importing such things clearly would be helpful though I have no specific idea if the technicalities would allow. Having to build perhaps a similar construction multiple times perhaps in different levels as opposed to reuse an existing construction as a prefab or model surely would be very time consuming. Perhaps it might be possible to "Copy" if nothing else a construction and paste it into the same or another level? thus duplicating a construction if no external saving would be possible in any form.



The idea of the Construction Kit is for anyone to be able to use it not just Skilled model makers or media suppliers. As such then one would not need necessarily a great deal of modelling or media making skill for anyone to create their own constructions, but the results perhaps may still vary depending on the level of personal skills they do have. I can see the benefit perhaps to Media Makers as they could have a tool to use to quickly or perhaps not so quickly generate credible content to sell to others. Not really the point of the feature but I see nothing wrong in that if it could actually export constructions generated.



Point being that's an added benefit perhaps to both users and media makers and not a core feature to aid all and every user necessarily many who desire to see such a feature included to the product as we all know or at least that's been the situation until now. I doubt general user/pledger/game makers would care much which kind of option the feature provided as long as it is of benefit to them. Seems to me theres no better way than to actually build internally so one can actually see the results in situ in real time and change as you go apart from any of the other reasons stated so I can see the benefit of internal building to the vast majority of users and why that's the option many would prefer.



Time will tell of course and like most I look forward to seeing it included and working with it.

I assumed early on that one of the purposes of the conkit was to prefab structures and to be able to reuse them as in the original's segment editor/prefabs, only more efficiently. I guess I was mistaken; Oh, well!



Anyway, from every angle I look at this, I have to say that if you are holding off on making your game because you're waiting on the conkit and you are hoping to make a living off your game then I can only wish you well, because this is a BETA (pretty sure it still says that on the front page).



There is so much you can already do. Start writing your story! Refine your story! Start designing your levels! Refine your design! Rinse, repeat! Start making or buying your assets! Perfect your assets! There is enough known about the engine to start building. Hell, we knew enough back in October '13 at the latest. For your entities: DirectX format, diffuse, normal, and specular maps. Build your world with that knowledge. You already have land on which to build it.



Waiting on the construction kit to build all your assets is a waste of your time.



Learn Lua! To not do so will only allow you to make a less than mediocre game, which you are certainly not going to make a living off of, unless of course homelessness is your goal.



Just please stop the whining; it was clearly spelled out as beta when you signed on. To say "this other engine does this" or "this other engine doesn't have this problem" is simply showing off your naiveté. I find it hard to believe that you were actually involved in the development of said engine. What TGC has done is involve it's customers in the development process to improve feedback (also saves a little coinage), which is brilliant, and in the long run it ensures a better product. If it does not, it still doesn't negate the method. Sorry if this post was long, but I really won't see if it was as long as Uman's until I hit "Post message". No offense, Uman, love your posts!

@ Uman- I see your point but I may not have been clear on what my meaning was. I was under the impression that features were going to be made plugin style as not to interfere with the core engine, but I do see now how this feature would almost have to be

The 'CONKIT' is a pretty major feature of the software and we want to get it absolutely right before we unleash it on you. Aside from the stuff you have already seen in the preview, we need to find ways to transform the constructions into extremely fast game-ready versions which means baking geometry and texture information so it fits nicely into a highly optimized rendering and physics engine. The software can survive without the conkit in the short-term, but it cannot survive without things like script commands, AI behaviors, native Win 8 compatibility and a host of critical items which will round off and complete the product. I know Simon is biting at the bit to carry on with the ConKit, and as soon as his obligations on the core engine are complete, I will open the gate and loose the steed. When the first building is created with ConKit, I want it to sit in a game world which is fast, stable, gorgeous and ready to run on a computer near you

For those asking for people not to "whine" keep in mind some of us have been using FPSC for nearly a decade and have been waiting a very long time to have the ability to create and launch a solid game.



So to be honest its almost rude for someone to say calm down, when we spent many many years invested in FPSC overall and have been forced to start from scratch in awaiting its new development - which has happened twice, considering x10.







This is my expectations too so we don't have to waste any time and resources creating a "cave carving tool".



For example (as I have repeated) we should go about cave building as an interior and not part of an "outdoor" map. This being done by disabling the ground, skybox, grass and by using the CONKIT only. Fallout and Skyrim do this flawlessly.

WOW... Teabone you Joined: Thu Jun 8th 2006

So you have seen classic from the start, The birth of X10 and its demise.

I understand what you mean... If anyone has the right to say your piece its you guys who have been here all this time.. 13 years ...I don't think some realise how long you have waited

Yes I know I moan a lot :p

Same boat as Teabone been here for a few years, I don't create games, I create content mostly these days, that is what is getting me frustrated, stuck waiting to be able to create content.



However, I have accepted that they pushed it aside, it is annoying but definitely not the end of the world.



I just wish, they could provide beta's of the creation tools to artists only, which will be using these tools a lot more than most users, and there by allow making comments and suggestions to better assist users and artists alike, considering the FPSC segment tool and entity creator tools were unfortunately lackluster and iffy.



Not another bemoaning just mentioning don't forget about the artists :p

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, or to hurt anyone's feelings! If you have been waiting 8 years for a product to be completed, no wait; you've watched 2 products essentially come and go and never have been able to complete a game with either, then of course you have the right to complain! Honestly, I would have moved on to another engine by now. I respect your patience. (For the record, I've been around these parts since 2004, started w/DBPro, still use it, much more often than the FPSCs. I just didn't join the forums 'til 2012, because that was the first time I ever had a question that wasn't already answered in the forums)

I think its a case of waiting a little longer so this is right....Then the content can flow in thick and fast... This beta was impressive so its heading in the right direction

The construction kit looks amazing. Keep up the good work! From reading the posts in this forum I can understand why people are upset that the construction kit has been put on hold, but I'm sure the developers are right to be focusing on the core game engine instead. Patience is a virtue...



When the construction kits does arrive it will be awesome to create massive cities. That's my plan. I have no idea about how to script complex AI and gameplay mechanics but building a big city block by block seems like my sort of fun!



I want to make a few levels, each a city, and then create additional levels that are tracks through the outside terrain connecting them together. A whole virtual world! Maybe some additional little towns and stuff. That should give me plenty of work to do when the time comes that the construction kit arrives... It's all got me very excited!

I find it very encouraging that Lee and team are trying to focus on quality and not just pushing new features out the door. I have seen software developers do that in the past and the feature set may look great but ultimately the product is unusable. As I see it, when it's time to focus on the ConKit the developer(s) will take pride in it and make it the best tool they can. To me, the thought of that is exciting.

If you look at the date of my own joining here at these forums its says Oct 2013 that is because I joined this version of the FPSC forums on that date before they were actually publicly available and at that time my original date of joining FPSC was not updated here. Still not updated - perhaps The Next can do something about that? Not sure if any other members are in the same position?



Like many others here I have supported FPSC and joined the forums since its original conception back in 2006 and prior to that following for some years while under development.



I was both an original Mod out of 4 at the time and tester of FPSC during EA development. I was the first person on the planet to actually buy and download a copy of FPSC when the EA version was released publicly. Like many here supporting Reloaded eagerly awaiting every new release through the night until a download arrives!



Long time following and supporting a Product and I am now very pleased to be a supporter of Reloaded. Hopefully what has gone before will have been a worthwhile wait and Reloaded will deliver the goods.



I have to say that TGC have now realigned and recovered the development quite well and from what I see of the plans for the next stages also have the development strategy right and on target of sensible priority. I hope they wont deviate from that and get the all important mentioned features of AI in and well placed to build upon together with those things currently mentioned as under priority development in the coming weeks and months. Spot on Now in that. Thumbs up from me at least.



TGC are on track and on the road and it seems to me that the users are also now on board with that so all are as one. That's good news as it means Reloaded is on track in development and on track to give users what they look for in their game making tool.



There is still a very long way to go as those past years have shown - this time round TGC seem at long last recently to be getting to grips with the core engine user needs. Took a long time for engine stability and performance to get the priority attention it deserves but we got there in the end. Hopefully that will continue.



I applaude TGC for taking a step back recently to concentrate on the core issues/features and users for there patience and the benefit now shows.



Add some forthcoming good AI in all its aspects and you are on to a winner. The reasons are obvious.

@Uman



I am happy to fix that for you, should be fixed now Anyone else with this issue just send me a PM and I will happily fix.

Same here; original join date was: Thu Oct 27th 2005

My original join date was:Sat Sep 21st 2002

Speaking of the conkit, Id be able to sit on my hands and wait longer if I could just change my view in the main editor view. I mean a direct down view is EXTREMELY difficult to set up a map. Atleast for me it is. My "test mode" entity placement ability has disappeared in the latest version as well. All I can do is edit the terrain.

@Imchasinyou : If you run TEST LEVEL and press F9 you can modify terrain from first person perspective. In the next version I have re-enabled entity editing so you can pretty much edit from any view you like. We will continue adding editing controls that

This is all well and good, but in the main editor view, Id still like to be able to change my perspective so that I can continue to add and place entities. If my memory serves me well, you couldnt add a new entity into the map from the test level editor, rather just what has already been used in the map.



Thanks for the reply and hard work going into this.

@Imchasinyou : If you want to mock-up some ideas how this can be achieved without loosing the easy of use and simplicity of the editing layout, I am keen to accept feedback on this. I always try to make things super simple, so don't suggest four windows ;

I would never suggest 4 windows. Im not sure how the engine would accept a function such as right click and drag to change the perspective or by using a hot key such as "V" to enable and then click and rotate. Ive noticed that in the entity property pane, you can drag to rotate across all axes and scroll in and out to view that item. If this could be added into the main editor, it would make it so much easier to use when placing items making it more accurate for placement.



Thanks again, Lee, for taking notice of the communities requests.

How about....As your looking from the top view above in the editor....You can already drop a model and zoom in using the mouse scroll.... So how about holding the right mouse button down to rotate around in 3d ... Like a modelling tool...



Funny enough I keep trying that as it feels natural for some reason and I expect it to happen...



Guess that's my GTK Radiant instincts kicking in

I agree with the holding of right click to pan your view in the editor it makes perfect sense to me and personally I think it would be one of the best additions to the editor system, almost every other engine can do this.

Perhaps this and the entity editing tool could be incorporated as one rather than whilst testing the game ?



Not the other features....Just entity placement which is disabled in this beta ..

Going back to the Construction kit Progress...I was wondering..



Could this ever be made as a standalone tool ?

I think it would be awesome to load up the conkit and make Models, Save them off and just import them.. Or sell them.



It would certainly be the easiest modelling software out there. It would just need to be a mini Reloaded looking editor with a view window and the the conkit functions ?



And it would then not interfere with Reloaded's main editors development progression ?

I wonder how much a drain on resources it is on the editor if it's not going to be!

Unless it's your own meshes and textures, selling these won't be on the cards. If it is your own meshes and textures then you don't need Reloaded to build them



You raise a good question here, if Reloaded users can take my meshes and create a new one from them it's still not acceptable to license to sell these, you cant just weld things together and it's yours to sell.



I was thinking in terms of selling meshes and textures in the store or anywhere for that matter, which would come once the conkit was in place.

What would be the policy regarding this?



I see it the same as taking a model,sticking a hat on it then selling it as your own, I know thats not how you saw it when thinking of it, but you made me think of how others might use it. I don't mean any offense

I don't think it's a good idea to make conkit prefabs usable in other formats other than Reloaded specific if only to prevent stuff like that leaking onto the general model market. And the flip side with people taking meshes and textures from other sources and trying to sell it around here wouldn't be very good either.



So it would need to be very clear to users they cant do this. I hate to say it but I would be for no prefabs sold through the store at all unless they are merely files which use the source material on the users machine, no actual meshes or texture stored in them.

That way users could share or sell their creations without breaching license

The Next,







Yes fine. Thanks for that. I had forgotten how long ago it was. Not sure I will make it another 10 years but I will give it a go if possible!

Actually I was assuming you could only use blocks and shapes supplied in the conkit and maybe import your own textures at most meaning each model would still be pretty unique to the creator.

Also I meant import your saved models created in the conkit into Reloaded



But cant anyone take current meshes now and import them in blender, make alterations and do the same thing you speak of ?

@synchromesh : This was my thought also. You use the existing meshes and textures provided officially by TGC (as part of the ConKit Library) and then you devise your own unique edifices from those building blocks. The result is something entirely yours (a

@Lee



It sounds like you have already thought this thoroughly through and covered all the concerns so im really even more hyped about the conkit now



However does this also refer to my original question about the conkit ?

Would it be better

Glad you got it all thought through thoroughly guy's

Doesn't really answer my concerns all the same. I expect meshes and textures will be made for use in the conkit and sold through the store by Artists. Users can protect their creations made with the conkit but it needs to be made real clear they cant distribute constructions made with content that doesn't have permissions.

I foresee major confusion with users who think anything they make with the conkit is fair game to sell or distribute..





Nothing to stop them aside from the fact it's illegal, unethical and likely to lead to a lawsuit if they sell or distribute. Same applies to anyone using the conkit to do it, which essentially, is making it easier for a non-modeler to do.

All the same, most who have taken the time to learn how to boolean a mesh together, fix the uv's and merge the appropriate textures into a single texture sheet would most likely know better. Whereas many who use the conkit wont.



It seems to me it's a no brainer that any constructions distributed by users would need to be restricted to TGC permitted content only, if your using your own meshes then you know how to model and can distribute your media in the normal way.

This however would restrict those who can create their own textures but don't model...it's a tricky one, particularly when some artists give permission for re-distribution and some don't.



Maybe I am overthinking all this and Artists can keep tabs on where their work is being used themselves, but when people start merging meshes and textures together it's not going to be so easy to keep on top of it. I don't want to have to go through every construction uploaded to the store to ensure my media isn't being sold inappropriately.



I don't want to see a standalone app which spews out edited meshes and textures, it needs to be Reloaded proprietary on export at the very least.



It's the message that needs to be clear

@Rolfy



I understand your concerns but you are opening bigger uncontrollable doors..

And as stated...You can only use the conkit meshes, blocks etc and not import external models so you have no need to worry about your stuff.....But !!



I buy on

I understand where you are coming from.



But - Firstly I'm a bit confused as to the selling aspect of the conkit at all. In fpsc classic you put together a maze (in segments) you couldn't then sell that maze for others to use as an as-is element in their games as it contained others' assets - you could simply distribute as a finished level.



Surely the simplest thing would be when a user shares a ConKit construction that share is not a bolted together model, but the model knows (or has a list of the meshes it's made from). Then any user can download the model shared or sold, but can only actually use it if they own (by purchase or whatever) all the constituent meshes. A form of media management.



If I edit a film in final cut the edit is stored in the timeline as a list of files, if I don't have some of the files it will say re link media - but it realises there should be other parts.



Why not just have the shared models like this - a file which stores how it's constituents are sewn together and only loads the meshes if owned and present in the directory. That would solve at least part of the issue - the revenue would still go back to the mesh and texture artists (if not provided by them as free assets).



That way if you want proceeds from a model you'd have to physically design some of the meshes, not just slot them together. In conjunction with the constituent parts idea a low cap for price should be set for shared conkit models or make them free only because I agree it could potentially become undermining to artists if all their assets were being re-sold, and shared models could be reverse engineered.



it would also become a bit of an issue should the conkit store be flooded with pay-for pre-fabs no-one buys as they can buy the assets and make it themselves.



Thoughts?

That shouldn't be possible, I thought, at least when Reloaded evolves. I realize that right now that the media is wide open in the executable's directory, but wasn't this discussed in another thread(s)? That the media will be encrypted or compile into the executable or otherwise hidden? I probably don't have to worry anyway, I doubt I'll ever make anything anyone would want, but I absolutely do respect the rights of the artist to protect their IP.

Actually the conkit isn't intended to be limited to only TGC provided media. It should and will be able to import any mesh or texture you want to put into it. It;s what format it outputs that bothers me most.





The model is licensed to be used in your commercial game, you are supposed to encrypt your game to protect it's contents, those of your own and those you purchase. So you see it can end with you, and will, since media encryption is being put in



You know why?....because someone raised questions about it



All modelers have been facing the same thing all along, I am not trying to prevent anything, quite the contrary, I too would love to have the conkit.

But I am entitled to raise questions about how some may use it and seek answers to preventing it. I am sure TGC feel the same way.



What you most need to realise is that this goes beyond losing a few bucks in the TGC store, when a user or company releases a commercial game and gets slapped with a cease and desist because they bought a model confident in the knowledge they were licensed to use it. Time and money you know? Tends to get people irate when they lose a lot of it.



Thanks for the compliment, this skill is my only redeeming feature



Think about it, I am not arguing against the conkit. Being an old dog Artist I see things you might not have thought of. Foresight is something learned from the past.



It was your statement that swung my thoughts in this direction, but that's all, I am not trying to get into a personal argument, it's a broader issue than that.

I like this idea a lot.