@danjo

Its not so much people making a game...Its the competition maps that people have made that now look totally different in V1007.



If your starting a fresh new map in V1007 then its brilliant but for those who are loading in their competition maps are finding a lot has changed and its effected the look and presentation of their projects.

I had to go back to a map with out the vegetation and the horror pack stuff (1003000 polys). The last maps I had with vegetation and horror pack stuff crashed at the last physics stuff processing (1143000 polys).



I have considered remaking the map. New 1.007 maps seem to run fine.

Seems like melee is out now since I don't see a lua command for that. The new AI won't kick or fight you any more hand to hand. Can we get it added I want my zombies to fight not run around shooting.





Auger

Did someone noticed a issue with the vegetation?



In my case when i paint vegetation on hills it gets displaced along with not even being drawn at places where it should be.



Note:

This was started fresh with 1.007

Can we get the animation we wish to play added as a parameter to the lua commands.



EG SetCharacterToWalk(entity index, v)



where V is the animation set we wish to play. As it is now it only works with reload characters animation set. My zombie is flopping around like a fish out of water trying to move.

Hi All,



Thank you for your reports so far.



We are aware that the AI still needs work, not least with the performance drain involved. We are working on this for V1008.



Some users seem to be getting FPS increases, and others drops. If you're having problems with performance, could you please post identical screenshots, one from V1006 and one from V1007 showing full metrics, so we can investigate.



I'm investigating the fog issues, It does seem to be different for different users, so it might be a matter of perpective, or a problem related to various systems. Several users have suggested it is a problem with fog set too low, so users having issues might want to try that.



There does appear to be some loss of quality on the terrain, the shaders were tweaked for this version, but we may need to revisit them.



Keep the reports coming and thank you all for your support.



SC

Pretty much, starting over ? There is no point in starting over, took about a week to shape the terrain, took another 2 weeks for entity placement, and when finally placing AI, all is wrong.



Rolfy hasn't shown up yet, but I can tell you he also has a very high polygon level, and performance would also have gone to hell for him.



The problem you have now is, you simply can't have a large map, you are back at creating classic sized maps, and even then it will run terrible.There is no multicore support, it should have been added, when they did the performance work, I don't understand why this wasn't done before.



Entity placement is literally a pain to place, try and place a new entity on the ground, there is a performance drop as you move the entity around to place, a quick page up or page down removes the auto height adjustment of entities which speeds up performance, this was reported to lee on the forum and in email, but nothing was done about it, no point adding for core features even you are unable to place any entities in the first place

i dont know if im to late but it would be

super cool to have vehicles in the next

version. imagine riding on a dragon lol

Vehicles get requested a lot, but won't be in the next beta. They are on our list of things to do, just not sure when. The next build will focus on performance, more AI and maybe a few bonus features.



*Important* If your competition entry no longer works please email/PM me with full information so we can get them back working for you.



SC

Hi Guys,



Hopefully most of you are enjoying the new AI system we brewed up for you! We are now dividing our time between responding to immediate issues resulting from this release and working on more performance optimization to get you some more FPS for your creations. In the meantime, I have a few questions for the community based on feedback so far:



@SorrowCrown : We had a call Tuesday morning and the primary focus and action points where all performance related. We're on the case!



@RustyNuts : It was 'deemed' that the old grass was inefficient with the new grass fading system. You should have a large selection of grass to choose from in the Veg Pack in the store.



@meeeee : We hear you. This week we're bouncing between responding to V1.007 issues reported by the community and large scale performance optimizations which will increase your frame rate (quite a bit).



@Imchasinyou : Your screenshots show the one with the lower FPS at HIGHEST where as the other shot shows LOWEST shader settings. Send me a model of the building that disappears if it is not stock art and I will sort out the clipping.



@MadLad Designs : We have made water dangerous for the player in this version. He cannot swim. In future versions we will providing swimming lessons, scuba gear, submarines and underwater combat for your pleasure. Can you send me a side by side comparison of the Dark sky as I don't see the degredation described.



@Grooovy : We fixed a bug, which resulted in the carpet tiling you now see. See my reply to WIZARD (below).



@Alien Menace : Can you send me a snapshot of the 'get to the river' opening scene with TAB pressed so I can see the distribution of work on your system with shader settings set to LOWEST, thanks!



@Steohl72 : Swimming lessons and 'sharks with lasers' to follow



@Dralel : How would you present this, perhaps as a selection to choose from, or an option to import your own along with the documentation you would need to create the hands in a 3D modeller, texture and animate them, and export?



@World Class Multimedia : Glag your level is back! It was never our goal to sabotage entries



@Titantropo : You can change the View range setting in the entities properties of the character by right clicking.



@RazorNet7 : Thanks for your detailed bug report. We'll get right on it



@Jackal : Send me a shot of the bad normal mapping and the entity you used. Remember that entity shader needs to be on highest for the normal maps to be used!



@J0linar : Can you be more specific on what you expected when painting grass, and what you actually saw? Thanks.



@Auger : Adding the system to allow 'non-Reloaded charater animation sets' to the AI subsystem is a feature for V1.008 and we did not anticipate competition entries to include Zombies as the pack is still in development and not released. You can of course switch off the character system and use the MoveForward and SetAnimationFrames to control your zombies, though they would not be able to inflict any damage on the player at present. I have added a command for the next update which allows this called HurtPlayer(e,damage).



@wizard of id : Send me your FPM and project media (from your V1.006 backup) and I will run it through V1.007 to reproduce your issues. The terrain difference is due to a bug we fixed in the shader which caused the terrain textues to modulate against itself under an altered UV scale. If you want to restore it, simply copy the Detailmap.dds from the LUSH terrain folder into your terrain bank folder of choice. To calm the entity 'jerkiness' when placing objects, press RETURN key. Would a new flag in SKYBOX skyspec file to ignore FOG colour work for you? Multi-core was not added because it was not required for our 'get to the river' test for V1.006 which got most users up to 60 fps which was our target. Now that we have a new larger level, we are now looking at further performance optimizations.



@all : Can I get a confirmation of all the issues reported by Wizard, and then help reproducing them. My direct email is lee@thegamecreators.com. Thanks!



I am going to break out the performance analyser(s) today and also start some thinking around the subject of geometry and texture plate batching. Ravey, our AI coder, will be looking at AI multicore and Simon will be tackling the issues surrounding vegetation and creating a new 'bitblob' system which will further reduce the load on draw calls in typical scenes. Consider the TGC engine room at full steam!

Hi lee I have saved latest FPM in 1.007, so no point sending that, I do however have a slightly older back up, which I will check, if the same problem occurs.

@Lee



The issue is the areas i painted in the editor are not all filled with grass,

on some places they are just left blank - those are the circles as you can see in the attached image.



Another issue is when i hand paint those in the ingame edi

Hi Lee, personally I would like to see it as an imported 3D model, but allowing us to pick preset arms is fine too. But I realise there is a priority for performance now so it's something that can wait until much later!

@Lee: As you're wanting side-by-side comparisons (v1.006 & v1.007) it might be an idea that the betas install in different directories. That way users can have both the last beta and the new one to easily compare.

I think the fog is great it now allow the sky box to blend in with the rest of the level. but I hate the lowest flashlight and the medium does not illuminate the characters. also when you die in the build level when you have no lives left it should end or rest the game.

Im sure the case is with every one that once the new beta is released after "testing", every one deletes the old Beta and goes into the latest one. Its a real pain to uninstall, reinstall the old after that download and then reinstall the latest again.



I will find out what buildings do it and send them to you Lee.

Can't you just install it to a new directory each time and have them all technically? I do not think that would cause a problem.



Just remember to save a different version of your game in each Beta version unless there is no going back.

@Lee



I did exactly that!!! I was just throwing my toys out of the pram.

For me the 0007 is a huge improvement. Works great for my custom terrain textures, now I can finally use them. AI is awesome, fog is awesome. New entity control awesome! Already customized some LUA, awesome! Is there a complete list of LUA commands? Anyway the only place it suffers for me is in frame rate, there is a bit more lag. But if you press f9 twice sometimes you get back some frame rate?



Great job, I waited for this day to start putting together my competition level. Thought to wait first for the update. Hope the performance drop will still allow me to finish the level like I have planned?



Thanks Lee and team, you work so hard for us, cheers!

Kindly email lee about this



it is a problem with the occlusion it seem, What hardware do you have, as no one else besides you and me have reported that issue so far.

I just downloaded and installed 1.007. I was hoping to get back the ability to edit in 3d view. Maybe it's there, maybe it's not. It's just too dark to tell! (See image below). After waiting 5 minutes to see if anything else would happen (maybe there's a new day/night cycle and the sun would come up?) I opened task manager and after closing reloaded, there was a LUA error message stating "No function called Update Entity RT". I will try to download again later, maybe I got a corrupted install file. Failing that, will go back to 1.006 and waste my days away arranging objects with the right-click. And before anyone says anything, yes my video drivers are updated and current, in fact, they just became available today!

The new AI is a definite improvement over the old one. Have you given any thought to having some basic behaviors that you can pick from in the editor; such as aggressive, passive, afraid? Also combinations of attitudes (depending on the situation); such as aggressive changing to afraid, once a percentage of local enemies are dispatched. You could also have enemies that are more "intelligent" than others. Some could simply charge at you, firing away; while others could be set so that they use all cover around them.



I also find the mouse sensitivity to be way too high, as it is set currently. Perhaps a bit less sensitive to start as the standard?

It's happening with a fresh map. I've attached the FPM as well as screenshots of the sky and metrics.

I just downloaded/reinstalled it and figured out what had happened. With every install of a new beta (since the second one), I have been just copying my entire Files directory to the desktop and then dragging it back into the Reloaded folder after installation. I let it overwrite every file every time; apparently I can't do that any longer, probably has something to do with the scriptbank and other engine oriented folders. I guess I'll just do the entities from now on. Still don't have 3d editing in the up/down direction, though. Bummer.







Don

this is done in right click top down mode, page up and down for height, aswd for other directions use the mouse to change view point, its not perfect but its better than before. also you can rotate in this view

I am finding that using Shift+arrow keys no longer works for finer precision placement of entities when right click in editor. This kind of just throws the camera around a little.



Objects will move using Shift+num pad keys but only seems to snap to small grid increments making it impossible to align entities exactly where I need them to be.



This may down to the laptop I am using which requires shift+PgUp/Dwn to vertically move objects so maybe someone else could check it out to confirm.



I like the new surface follow when placing one entity over another, but have found in some cases right clicking after placement of an object will result in the object falling to the entity beneath, not good when it's a painting on a wall which drops to the floor and having to raise it every time I edit it.



I am finding editing getting a lot more frustrating in Reloaded where I right click to align objects and the camera is swinging all over the place, particularly difficult with larger entities where you have to scroll way out to see it, and zoom into smaller objects where the camera will keep going long after you stop scrolling and swing around to the other side of the entity when it reaches the pivot. It works not too bad once it settles down but takes far to long to do this after right click or scrolling.



I know this may be down to my own impatience with slow scrolling and some may feel close enough is good enough, but I expect to work fast and precisely without struggling with these things.

It definately would be nice to lock a height to an entity. Example, if building a castle, you have several peoices to work with. If you use 3 different wall sections and need to switch out for another and they are being set higher, when you pick that part back up, its on the ground againa nd you have to REALLY work to get them to the same height. OK I have to really work to get them right. . . .

FPS Creator Reloaded BETA-1007



Congratulations to Lee and the team.

This software is coming of age, the quality of the scenes and NPC’s are excellent,the Weapons are extremely realistic.



This software is easy to use, has to be the best FPS software on the Net, the ai is looking very smart.



My frame rate for my two computers:



All-In-One Toshiba PX30t:

2.4 gigahertz core i7 Multi-Core:

8 meg memory: Just fitted another 8 meg

now 16 meg.

Display: Intel HD Graphics 4600

Display: NVIDIA GeForce GT740M

Windows 8



FPS Creator Fixed to play with the GT740M 3ghz:

The “two-compounds” Scene plays at 26 fps.

When I had only 8 meg memory it only played at 16 fps.

========================================

Laptop ASUS G74S

3 gigahertz core i7 Multi-Core:

16 meg memory

Display: NVIDIA GeForce GT560M: Passmark 1,379

Windows 7

The two-compounds plays at 34 fps.



Additional Information:



The Installer would not install “FPSCreator.exe”, which

caused a Install Failure.

I am having trouble accessing the store from FPSCreator.exe

my FireWall is not stopping connection, nore is any Anti-Virus.

States cannot make connection - should be an extra way of

downloading the Packs ?.



As stated before is there a way to make the Terrain Map smaller like

in Standard FPS - I feel that the extremely large maps are slowing

down game play.



What I mean is “two-compounds” does not require the extended map

area beyond the play area, buildings etc.

For the store issue. Try logging onto the store in the web browser, then open reloaded, then go to the store download.



As far as reducing the terrain not needed. you could just sculpt what you don't need down to the water line. (wont reduce poly to much)



As of Beta 1.007 Thou have not tested yet. Set SUPERFLATTERRAIN=2 in the setup.ini file. then you can just paint in the terrain you want. we are stuck with the water plain for now. but that should reduce the terrain poly greatly.



Here is a video test I just got done with. There is a plain that cant be seen. I am having some issues of the ability to paint terrain in F9 mode not working or I am doing something wrong.







Maybe someone has had better luck.

Have a new error 'vector does not exist at line 35029' and also still getting the fpm is corrupt error as before at the same time.



I use windows 8 32 bit and Quadro FX550 graphics card.



See attached file.



Disappointed.

@Bored of the Rings.



I'm sorry you're experiencing issues. Would it be possible to email me a copy of the FPM, so I can check it out (Or does it use custom media)?



Could you also supply me with your full system spec.



Many thanks,



SC

Hi ,



Ok, I uninstalled the 1.007 version and reinstalled in C:\FPSCR directory and turned off UAC in windows 8. What I notice is that everything runs fine the first time I install i.e. I can test the level and change settings etc. When I come out and go in again this is when I start getting the errors. I now have same vector error as before but now during loading of the level. The only FPMs I am loading in are the ones that come with FPSCR.



I have attached another file containing screenshot.



System specs are:



Dell 490 desktop

Processor: Intel(r) Xeon(R) CPU 5160@3.00Ghz

Installed RAM: 4GB

32bit (x64 based processor)

Windows 8

Nvidia Quadro FX 550 graphics card



I have updated the drivers for Quadro graphics card and windows updates are also up to date.



I also get 'resuming from previous session' and then fpm is corrupt. but this is not all the time it's random.



The only time everything is ok is on a fresh install. Same issues on my 64 bit windows 8.

Ok, thanks, I'll pass this to the development team and we'll investigate.



SC

@J0linar : Thanks for the missing grass shot. Can you send me that FPM so I can look closer at he vegmap file, e.t.c. It's certainly strange that one! Once we crack the circles of missing grass, we can look at your other grass concerns.



@MadLad Desi

@LeeBamber:



I would be glad to provide a video, I'll aim to do this as soon as possible.

@LeeBamber:



Please see video attached

Excellent, thanks for the quick turnaround!!

With regard to KeithC and his AI comments suggestions which along with many others suggestions had been requested and suggested over many years.



An Advanced AI system would and should have a range of user definable and selectable choices for AI to provide each character with a varied set of behaviours in the AI entities properties dialogue boxes or other visual AI designer so that each AI could be tailored to suit individual users individual scenarios. e.g. as said, enemy strength,



In addition I would have thought that as had been suggested things like adding control to individual selectable path (node) points (system) so that each user could choose to have each individual AI as needed for their particular game carry out specific behaviours along a path/at path point for example, stop, shoot, duck, hide, and many more from a choice of easily set up behaviors. scenarios each path point allowing a different choice if needed.



I had thought that TGC were going to provide for such things up until now whereas I can see that a much lesser system is envisaged and more requirement placed upon the reliance upon AI programmers or learning .lua oneself - (more like attempting when it comes to AI at least) .lua which in the vast majority of users case wont be very helpful at all.



Very few users are ever going to consider getting into .lua leave alone mastering it. Despite what TGC and programmers say it is not at something easy to learn for the vast majority of would be Reloaded pledger/users. Far from it being the case. It will remain the domain of a few. Nothing has changed there when it comes to programming with FPSC and few will ever make a great deal of use of it. .lua will be much harder to learn that .fpi for most users leave alone as said be able to write advanced AI with it and make the AI do anything worthwhile as an individual scenario may require.



Scripts supplied outside of or as a substitute for a default ability to choose/ select from or set up a wide range of behaviours on a mix and match individual AI basis would at best be you get what choice you are given and mostly wont be individual to a games scenario needs.



There are all kinds of things could be added to an AI system. The more user control(s) you add the better the AI and games made with the product. Thats the real base line. Having a well its up to you to find a way of making the AI behave with some useful intelligence and behaviours just wont cut the ice.



Sounds like we are now looking at a very basic level of AI out of the box which was not what I was expecting at least and thought there was a commitment to provide for a world class engine product AI inside the product itself not leaving the future of the AI quality to end users in hit and miss give it a go, someone else will come along and surely help you there approach.



The hill billy concept may be OK if you have a hill billy game, or the clowns if you have a clown game but if you don't want a circus there's not much point in those characters or behaviours. Unless the behaviours can be easily applied or edited and updated by normal average users and adapted to use elsewhere.



Flexibility and ease of use is what users need for everything and that includes the AI. Much too little here as I understand it that end users can make best use of and very limiting and restrictive.



Not the vision as I understood it at all.

I agree 100% i also want to use the characters i have so all we have to do is add our own animation like this.



PistolCombatIdle,43,122

PistolFromCombatToSquatA,123,153

PistolFromCombatToSquatB,154,198

PistolFromLyingToSquat,199,236

PistolFromLyingToStand,237,271

PistolFromSquatToCombatA,272,306

PistolFromSquatToCombatB,307,341

PistolFromStandToLying,342,383

PistolFronSquatToLying,384,421

PistolLeftFootKick,422,451

PistolLookingAround,452,535

PistolOneHandedSquat,536,604

PistolOneHandKneeling,605,689

PistolOneHandShottingStanding,690,724

PistolPuttingGunBack,725,764

PistolReloadStandingStill,765,834

PistolReloadTwoHands,835,903

PistolRightFootkick,904,933

PistolTakingGunOut,934,972

PistolTwoHandsLookingAround,973,1092

PistolTwoHandsLyingShooting,1093,1114

PistolTwoHandsShooting,1115,1148

PistolTwoHandsSquatPointing,1149,1268

PistolTwoHandsStandingStill,1269,1302

TwoHandGunIButtkick,1303,1327

TwoHandGunIdle,1328,1376

TwoHandGunIDyinglying,1377,1391

HandGunIDyingback,1392,1428

Walk,1429,1529

NPcDissapointed,1530,1634

NPcBoring,1635,1759

NPcExplanation,1760,1804

NPcPointingA,1805,1864

NPcLookingAround,1865,2040

NPcConversationShort,2041,2085

NPcNPcUseObject,2086,2124

NPcSitDown,2125,2150

NPcStandFromSitting,2151,2176

NPcDyingA,2177,2241

NPcDyingB,2242,2280

NPcRun,2281,2302

NPcSneaking,2303,2352

NPcHitFromBack,2353,2387

NPcHitFromFront,2388,2422

NPcHitFromLeft,2423,2457

NPcHitFromRight,2458,2492

NPcAnger,2493,2541

NPcDrinking,2542,2640

NPcMovingLeft,2641,2659

NPcMovingRight,2660,2679

NPcSalute,2680,2739

NPcSayNo,2740,2788

NPcThinking,2789,2856

NPcNotSure,2857,2927

NPcTracking,2928,3101

NPcWarning,3102,3161

NPcYawn,3162,3246

NPcTyping,3247,3305



Can you advise if this will be the case.

Better and easier AI is always a good thing, and great ideas:



"like adding control to individual selectable path (node) points (system) so that each user could choose to have each individual AI as needed for their particular game"



On the other hand, I have done some rewriting of the new LUA AI scripts, and I'm definitely no expert, but it seems easy enough to do.



A lot of times getting the LUA scripts to work the way you want them to, will only require slight adjustments. I'm sure plenty of amazing scripts will start to spill out of the community soon. My approach is just to look over the scripts to get ideas, and, in some cases, cut and past. The most important thing is to remember to create your own original function name at the top, or the engine will crash. Like: function collectagun_main(e), or: function collectakey_main(e), etc.



Also the new LUA offers a PlayAnimation(entity index)command. So all you probably need to do to add your animations, is import some new animations through Animer,and edit the FPE. Then write a simple play animation script to call the new animation, and maybe adjust the speed of it, when player is near, etc. I think this is possible now. Have fun

Like you i am no expert and can get them to work but they don't fully work as AI. I hope they will make it possible as i believe reloaded has to support our own and third party characters otherwise we will fall in danger of alot of games being the genetic / the same.

@Uman : LUA will not be the only way, but it will be one of the first ways we will see some very cool behaviors (as the community has much more combined time to play with the script logic that TGC). Your idea of assigning behavior modifiers along a path s

@TattieBoJangle : Yes I think this is inevitable as our range of characters increase, and already we are looking at characters which will require a different compliment of animations (and/or additional animation sets). This 'modular keyframes' system woul

I agree lee performance and stability of the engine should come first the fact this will be done at some time is great news.

I think Lee has the same vision of Reloaded as we do ( Probably more ) but for him to list all his visions and plans he could be here all week



On the other hand.... We cant resist the urge to ask if they are not mentioned

@ ozziedave,



Just letting you know that it's GB and not MB for your RAM.

Thank you Lee.

Uman; I had suggested a waypoint editor here:



http://fpscrforum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=207154&b=5



It didn't seem to get much traction/attention at all, so I gave up on the idea.

as to reading umans post i agree.



i was under the impression we were going to get a large amount of easy to use scripts.



then i hear you going to put it out for the store. that is ok but



WHERE ARE THE SCRIPT PACKS YOU COULD GIVE TO ARTISTS NOT SCRIPTERS. YOU SUPPLIED HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF MODELS AND A 400 LEGACY PACK 2 VEG PACKS A HORROR PACK AND SOON ZOMBIE PACK. IF AS YOU SAY SCRIPTS WILL BE IN HUNDREDS UPON HUNDREDS ON THE STORE, YOU ARE SELLING ME SHORT. SCRIPTERS GET LOADS AND LOADS OF MODELS, ARTISTS LIKE ME GET ALMOST NOTHING. CHEERS FOR KICK IN THE TEETH

The beta has moved on a lot, it's impressive in many ways, but unfortunately I've had to give up on creating a map. It's just too frustrating, I often get errors of the type [ error running function:scriptbank\global.lua:84:attempt to index field '?' (a nil value) ] (and with no 'undo' button I have to constantly remember to save, then reload when hitting errors). Also I fall through the floor often. When I create a standalone exe, some entities are just black outlines (seem OK in editor), Tree01 is an example. Also the performance is OK with low shader settings (around 30fps), but I was just expecting it to be better on the higher settings. I'll come back to it in a few months and see where we're at, so please keep up the great work