Hi All,

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, and I wanted to fill the void with some progress and news on the current state of play with GameGuru. I did not realize my waffle was so much in demand! Firstly, thanks for the words and concerns in the many threads, it was never my intention to inconvenience you until I had something worth reporting. Service will resume on that channel when I have released (or about to release) V1.132 which will feature tweaks and of course, 2GB of new game making assets for you to try.

Since my holiday, I have been running around like a headless chicken making sure the TGC business stays viable with projects which will keep us going for a few more years, and specifically, gives us the time to complete the features for GameGuru as voted by you. I have almost finished spinning these plates now and got them on a perpetual spin rate, allowing me to return home to my GameGuru universe and the marvels of game making. Still need to make a few tweaks, but normal service is almost ready to resume.

That said, I have not allowed ten spinning plates to prevent me from continuing GameGuru development, and have some tweaks ready for V1.132 plus some high priority items I would like to deal with before release. Here is what I have so far:

V1.132
Fixed issue which caused 'hidelowfpswarning' in SETUP.INI to be ignored
Move LUA and AI processing to AFTER PHYSICS/PLR code in main loop so scripts have more up to date plr/camera values
Added new 'zdepth' field to entity FPE file which can disable the zdepth render order (it will draw like a HUD weapon)
Fixed issue of GUNSPEC 'textured' field not finding internal HUD.X model textures when it was blank (legacy medieval weapons)
Added 'usespotlighting' as field in GUNSPEC to control default as to whether projectile has dynamic spot lighting
Added 'usespotlighting=1' to Modern RPG weapon and Fantasy Staff weapon to ensure they use spot lighting
SCIFI PACK: Updated Buildings and Interiors with correct AI obstacle settings
Changed geometry for Light marker so you can better manipulate in 3D free flight mode
New GAMEDATA.LUA that now supports global tables (thanks to feature and bug work by that fine fellow; Rickie Allen)
Added extra functionality which disables auto-removal of dead characters if ALWAYS ACTIVE is YES
Fixed bug in LUA spawn command which confused the entity parent ID (would cause strange behaviors)
Fixed issue of repeated calls to SetObjectEffect internally when SetFogRed(x), etc is called (performance hit!)

In addition, the 2GB of extra assets are assembled and tested, and will be delivered in the form of an optional DLC download (free) so those with a poor bandwidth do not have to download 6GB of GameGuru before they can drop in their first start marker. I hope to expand this optional DLC a few more Gigabytes before we draw a line under it. I'm not sure who I'm competing with by releasing 6GB of game ready assets for $20, but I think 10GB as a goal is a nice round number.

I also plan to radically update the Steam product page which I have been reliably informed is, to put it kindly, a work of fiction. It professes many things, misleads by misdirection and omits some very blatant home truths. Primarily, we promise users they can create finished games and sell them. The unintended interpretation is that the would-be purchaser can create triple-A games and match the sales statistics of a top Steam title, which of course is crazy talk for a product that is very much in development with large holes running through it. I will be taking the opportunity to describe the new things we have added over the last two years since the text was originated, but I am certain a good portion of our negative Steam reviews stem directly from the fact we painted a picture of paradise, and gave them a sort of hell. I'd prefer lower sales with informed users, than lots of sales with frustrated, disillusioned users. Hopefully a face-lift for the shop-front will serve to remedy any misinformation being projected.

The much anticipated EBE (Easy Building Editor) has taken a serious knock to development with my absence from full-time GG coding, but you will be pleased to know it was already at 80% when I went on holiday, and the hard parts had been solved. By moving V1.132 tweak and asset update forward I am able to give you something new to chew on while I give myself the time to complete the first phase of the Easy Building Editor and ensure its a solid little tool by the time we release V1.14. Most beta testers liked the taster build back in August, and some good feedback came in which confirmed some ideas I had myself for the first version, so hopefully you won't have to wait too long beyond V1.132 for the update you have been waiting for.

In my role of overseer to the forums, emails and support, I have also formed an impression from the community that you would prefer I cease to concentrate on adding features from the voting board and instead focus on what are termed 'core' elements. Elements that do not lend themselves to a single description, but exist as the space between features. Such esoteric elements as performance, bugs in the tool chain, bugs in the game play and essential access to vital parts of the engine (without which the game author is condemned to wait). I tempts me to forgo the next item on the voting board for V1.15 and address what are being termed 'essential' items.

An example would be A.I. The plan was to create some new C++ code with perhaps NavMesh style 3D path-finding to traverse building entities and EBE constructions, which would have given rise to more hard coding (i.e. heading away from an open engine). Perhaps instead, I add a raft of LUA commands which make the definition of floor spaces, connection nodes, scene markers, path-finding, timing, sequence databases and other aspects of a good AI system accessible entirely through LUA commands. This would mean once the foundation AI commands are in place, my work is done and the work of the scripting community starts. No more waiting for the feature which lets the enemy jump through a window mid-way through his chase of the player, it would be entirely controlled from within a script. The 'he jumped through a fourth floor window' feature would be as much a surprise to me. In this example, the essential work would be in creating the LUA commands and testing them, not creating the specific behavior for every conceivable style of AI the end user might want.

When bad reports are not talking about graphics, or general compatibility issues, they often center on the limited capabilities of what you can do with the games engine, and the above approach would go a long way to addressing these concerns. The responsibility would be rightly shifted back to where it belongs, the game developer, leaving poor little me to continue breaking open the closed world the engine currently resides in.

In answering forum posts today, I came across a thread which caught my attention and I invite you to seek it out if you have not already found and contributed to it, which is the idea of entirely ripping out the old DX9 engine GameGuru currently sits on, and replacing it with a Unity technology layer. Such a move would decouple responsibility for all engine maintenance, leaving only the application side to contend with. The benefits are obvious, but you would be saddled with additional license restrictions about what you can do with what you create (the price you pay for a world-class engine). it will be interesting to see how that thread evolves

It was suggested I post something more than a place-holder paragraph, and I hope I've given you something to chew on for the next few days. By the end of the week I will have completed my additional tests of V1.132 and should be in good shape to share with my beta testers, so expect an update in the not too distant future!

Again, sorry for the black-out, it's not my custom to stay silent (as anyone who knows me will certainly attest), but when you're putting out fires in your house, you don't stop to check your emails Happy game making and rest assured.

welcome back were you still planning on dx 11?

Welcome back!



By chance are some of these from freetoronto.org/gameguru ? I've been updating the resources there consistently and providing technical support for them -- just wondering at what point I should stop? For now I plan to update all assets until the 2GB DLC drops. After that I'll have to consider removing what's already packaged in the DLC download off my site; So there isn't any duplicates. My assumption is the ones you have are going to be far superior in optimization and quality. I don't mind by the way helping in any way possible. I've been sifting through over 1000 files and correcting FPE paths, converting textures, creating additional textures and testing. I've kind of made it my weekly task in regards to the FPSC material.

I've spent most of my time on objects and structures and a LOT of work with the segments... of which I've yet to really showcase in GG or release publicly. I'm kind of waiting to see how the EBE will turn out before I touch on interior territory.

Please. Please! PLEASE DO SO!

An fps performance of only 35-45% of what we would need in light of the current visual quality; and the fact that any level using more than 2.5GB of RAM is a gamble if it runs on the end user PCs out there (no matter how much RAM they have installed) or not are currently the only things preventing us from throwing in 2 years of development budget and rolling out something that can do the impossible, or, in your terms, deliver the proof:



*) Well, at least ALMOST. Father's Island is still at 90% Steam positive reviews (new system, old system would be 95%) and is running in the coming German Developer Awards with a good chance against the big titles from AAA publishers. What we have in mind, is by far more polished, complex and clearly suitable for a larger audience.

Welcome back Lee it is good to hear from you, I am quite excited about the new version coming out as I am sure is all of the community. I will definitely have a look at the 'Unity technology layer' post that you were talking about. I am not sure what this would mean but I hope that it does not change the essential software that we have all come to love.

Interesting to see the new thought process, thanks for sharing

I'm biased as someone who can script but I think the additional commands are a better way to go rather than hard coding more.
Better AI would be great but unless you're planning to add functionality for every possible game (not possible) its not going to help much in the end if you can't actually change it to suit.

Personally I would like to see better lights/shadows - torch should cast shadows, moving shadows for moving lights etc.
Lights that don't go through walls... This would already increase the graphics hugely.

And a ray cast command set would be great and with just that simple collusion/hit feedback we can already do more.

Glad to see you back! I like the look of that fix list If you haven't already update the Stream page! Unless of course you mean to appear today? I miss the streams most at the moment.

I agree with the lua stuff. Many who can't code always knock it. Even say that us coders only want it so we can add more mercenary scripts to the store! I don't see why coders seem to get tarred as being mercenary for selling scripts, but artists are never accused of this, although it boils down to the same thing. Still, with more lua options everyone is a winner ultimately. I'd much prefer you to add the functionality so you can move on and let scripters fine tune scripts. An example would be day night, a feature on the board. Yes it would be nice to select it automatically, but equally, give us some simple commands to move the light source, change the light source and the skybox, fade between skyboxes and we can make our own.

I also think lighting is important. Lights vanish when still in sight or appear when you should have seen the light well before. We need different light types and as said above, lights that don't magically go through walls like x-rays. More lights as well that can be moved. I liked the sound of DX11 in that regard as you stated you could have thousands of lights if needed, with little performance hit. A move in that direction would be nice, I'm not sure how long it would take of course.

So a move to adding performance updates and extra lua commands would be great. I think AI, lighting and performance are GG's biggest failings at present and the main source of bad reviews. When I dabbled with Unreal for a few days, a few friends noted only one thing, not so much the performance although it was noticed, but the lighting. It makes such a difference.

A cool feature of my LUA for everything approach is that they will have a special area for meta data, which can conjure up a LUA GUI (essentially a popup dialog box with buttons and sliders) that represents and controls the LUA script. Essentially, the crazy coder can write the scripts, and the other 90% of the GameGuru community can simply drop them onto entities to bring them to life, and then open the LUA GUI to tweak the micro-settings of that script. This way everyone gets a little bit of what they want, and the best part is the whole system is entire open to reconfiguration. It's a great win win

I like the sound of that. It should make GG even more interesting.

That sounds cool .

Dave

Let me just say I'm extremely happy to hear you are going with this approach.
To me it's the most logical method. The more LUA controls you add the more function you put in our hands - which frees up development time for you.

Core features are absolutely a priority. With an expansive LUA system, we can literally do whatever we want, however we want it. And that level of dynamic function is the only way you can scale a project like this to try to compete. As I've stated NUMEROUS times on my blog, this forum etc - the strength of Game-Guru is not the engine, but the community. It's crowdsourcing is the best I've seen in any engine forum; so the more you push this out to the community, the stronger the product will be.

Lastly - I appreciate the long response but if you could just do a simple single line or two update once in a while on twitter or something I'm sure we'd all appreciate that minor bit of keeping us in the loop.

I also see more benefits than risks here.
Thumbs up from my side.

This is a great list Lee,
im a firm no on the unity idea though, GG is a great engine it just needs some performance updates and new lighting system, and of course dx11 and multi core support, 64bit etc. Welcome back Lee.

Still plugging away at GG here, look forward to the new DLC too.

For me character AI is a high priority and bots being able to navigate at different heights is part of that. But if you think it's better to postpone that then so be it. I'll just be happy to have the EBE so I can start my project.

For me the ability to sell my games without any fees or restrictions was one of the big selling points of Game Guru. If that changes then I will feel cheated.

Great to see you back. And we have an awesome update to look forward to. Cheers

I do hope that externalising to Lua includes access to the Physics engine outputs and a way to effect the next set of inputs to the physics engine. If so it would vastly simplify moving stuff around under script control.

For example after each physics pass having access to details about entities which are about to collide and when said collision will take place.

Could I also suggest inclusion of some extra Lua libraries, maybe those that handle 3d transform maths via vectors, matrices and maybe even quaternions.

Does is it possible with entities as well?
If so, certain entity can becames reusable, if needed.



Nice and necessary move.

About the LUA aproach, 100% agree.

Well now we all are aware about, it is not possible a triple A easy game maker.

About EBE, there is something I've not so clear:
Does you plane GG generating binary file automatically, when save my build?
I know is the firts phase, but if so, can you generate these file temporary in the next release? so, we don't lose the work, it can generate most interest in the users, I though.

About merged with unity or someone else, losing our identity, and running into licences issues and so on; 300% disagree!



Yah, it can be a good experiment and challenger, let's see what happens in future, I trust in this community.

And welcome mate.

3com

And welcome he is says the small green dude with pointy ears!

@Lee Bamber, great to hear you have not been taken away by aliens.

Your plans sound good to me.

I don't need the EBE - but others do so that is fine by me, and look forward to the release, along with the various fixes.

I can code a little and don't mind giving it a shot, but if the system allows for basic out-of-the box functionality and also for the real coders to do magic and then put them in the store, then that can only be a good thing surely. After all everything on the store is dirt cheap anyway!

As already said above, lighting, AI and performance are what I would love to see addressed.

But regardless of any reviews - good or bad - I am in love with Game Guru!

Keep up the good work!

Reliquia....

deferred rendering too would be a great performance booster, different types of lights too that cast shadows, player flashlight that cast shadows too.

Me too GameGuru is an awesome product.

Totally agree on that, but don't forget that a huge performance hole is somewhere out of the renderer, too. You can test that by deactivating the rendered elements in test games.

Looks like we need the same out of gameguru ertlov

Is anyone else concerned about the licencing implications of using Unity technology when we come to sell our games? Does anyone know what the impact will be?

Yay! I go away for a few days (on set of Casualty)

Edit: why did half my post not get posted? Well anyway it's a welcome surprise after being away for a few days. Glad your back!

It's actually not that bad. And as for Unreal, as soon as you come into the areas where you HAVE to pay royalties, you have earned enough to afford them easily.

Not really. If your game only makes a small amount, you don't have anything to pay apart from Steam royalties, which you would anyway and if you do sell enough to get 100k, I think most people would still be happy. It may even be a yearly target as well in which case unless you have a mega hit not an issue.

It would be a shame not to get the current engine performing better though. GG should have gone 64 bit and dx11 quite some time ago. I'm not sure if it would be Unity that would be used either, I mean if it were to go this way, we may as well go the whole hog and get some decent power with Unreal. There may be other options as well. As said, I'm not sure on how this would be implemented so as to keep the familiar GG stuff working in another engine. I think we need more info on what a change like this would entail.

Thanks Dvader. I think Lee was just throwing some ideas into the hat so nothing carved in stone yet - far from it.

Open thine LUA commands and set our community free.

I know it was just an idea but please do not use Unity tech in GG. I love Unity, I'm using it for several projects but that would defeat the purpose of what GG is. I mean, if I download Unity and purchase the PlayMaker plugin (I use them both), then Unity is considered an "easy game maker". There would be no use for GG in my opinion.

I remember when TGC was saying they still wanted Reloaded/GG supported on Windows XP 32-bit systems...

This has been a major cause of the issues now, with TGC working mostly on squeezing performance for lower end comps and dated OS they shot themselves in the foot, they would have been better to work on the mid to higher spec side as anyone wanting to develop a 3D game really shouldn't be expecting to do it on a dinosaur. This performance work in the past has cost dearly with lower spec machines at the forefront of their minds and higher spec sidelined.
A marketing disaster however you look at it trying to include old OS and antiquated shader system (which actually sucks the life out of fps by trying to create catch all individual shaders with code that stretches the length of my arm) . This is a big part of why GG runs like treacle as higher spec machines lost out to this strategy, if your going to dev a game do it on a halfway decent comp and by all means have menu settings to switch off effects and bells and whistles for lower end players but this engine should never have been actively aimed at the low end player who wants to develop as well thereby expecting too much from old tech.

This was all a part of marketing GameGuru as a 'game' on Steam which also backfired in the end and it's not just the engine. Since the beginning Artists have been encouraged to produce higher poly models and high resolution textures for the store which is now showing up with over bloated memory requirements, your creating games for crying out loud and all those old rules still apply and assets which should be optimised with a decent shader to make 'em look good has been sidelined in favour of drag and drop already looks 'awesome' in the editor individual media. It seems more 'width' than quality when assets need huge textures to make 'em look decent out of the box which doesn't sit well with your fps or your memory. My point is decent more advanced shaders will make low res textures look insanely good using the right maps, it is the whole point in dx updates. If artists can't create the maps required for a more advanced shader system then they really should update their knowledge as well as the software updating to DX11 or whatever. Drop the 'dinosaur' ethos in favour of something more 'today' for both artists and developers I say

Telling me those lead swim trunks look awesome on me won't keep me afloat in the pool.

"You need to cap the bottom of those models someone might want to dig a hole under there and the player will see through it". Give me a break, you just added another thousand poly's to the model as someone might want to 'dig a hole'....sheesh! What about all the other folks who aren't so inclined and now have a higher poly model to drop into their game. Why cant the 'miner' put a rock on top of his bloody hole? I know this kind of thing is a little more relaxed now so long as it states you cant dig holes under there in the description but this kind of thinking is at the root of most of your problems in this 'drag and drop' window dresser...I mean game engine! And yes...the hole conversation took place

Oh! welcome back Lee....

I remember along time ago, we were supposed to update to dx 11, I went out and got a new graphics card just for the occasion. What happened to that?

Welcome back Lee.

I am hesitant to even post anything here as I find myself not really caring of the fate of GG anymore. I say this without anger.... more like sadness.
I have been using TGC software since the original DB. I own and have used every single one of them except AGK. (Never cared much for cell phones. I'm a dinosaur myself.) Used DB a little until it was replaced by DBP. Started learning all the new commands and quickly found out how much I HATE coding. Along came FPSC. Wonderful product especially after the mods started being integrated. Finally a real engine was being created instead of simple game maker. Then it all seems to have fallen apart and those of us that can't code were left with a semi broken version of the software and no more support. But hey, it's OK were going to make FPSC Reloaded and you will get everything from classic and more. Cooool sign me up. Kickstarter fail......

It's OK though, we just need a few of you to ante up and take this gamble with us. We did.

aprrox 1yr later: It's here
Wow a barely runable terrain maker with a handful of assests. It does have the very minimal ability to make a game though so we'll see

approx 3 to 4 yrs later:
Still mostly a terrain maker with a lot of assets but we're on Steam. A tired lead developer and team and a community at odds over what to do, when to do it, and now, HOW to do it.

I never much agreed with the voting for feature aspect of the development in the first place. The switch to C was the single best thing for the software so far. But it still wasn't quite there, so why didn't you tear it all apart and fix it right there. Get it up to speed and then add a feature or two? Oh yeah the voting list. They want features we'll fix the performance later. etc. etc. And while you're at it throw in some more free assets to smooth things over.
Now we hear "How about becoming a plugin for another engine?", and the store is sold.
I hate to say I told you so bit I really did. On the first couple of days after the first release, I posted that I really liked the idea but if you cannot build your world, why are you worrying about playing in it. All the bells and whistles in the world will not improve performance and let you build your world. But instead it became feature over CORE ENGINE so now you want to plug features into another engine? I'm disappointed.

I was one of those that ante'd up and now I kinda fell a little cheated but I will stand with whatever they decide to do. I still believe in what GG can become.
Nothing said above is intended to offend only state how I and maybe some others feel.

@rolfy

Polygons is the most wasteful expenditure in gameguru. TGC mentality of every asset should be usable in every possible manner attitude griefs me to no end.Actually had to fight with TGC on that to remove faces on models which aren't going to be view able to the player.Eventually after fighting with them asset description needs contain information that faces have been removed. Some people might not be aware, the engine actually doesn't require power of 2 textures you can add odd dimensions.

Some thing else I needed to fight about was adding store support for textures that was for example 1024 x 512 or more and then some when they complained about using 4096 x 4096 textures considering how much more memory graphics cards have these days, the days of using 1024 x 1024 textures is gone as developers move over to 4k and 2048 x 2048 textures to specifically facilitate much larger screen games are being played on.

So there is definitely a culture at TGC to optimize the hell out of every thing at the expense of every thing and every one.It's definitely a constant bickering and fighting to get them to conform to game development ideals and practices the rest of the world is using.They want to be different, if that means wearing spandex then so be it. However they should listen to the people that have been using their software for years, I wouldn't care if the wear the spandex upside down.

So definitely need to shake my head at times as more then often they employ the most impractical solutions to things which should be straight forward, when you point it out, there is a easier method, they sort of shrug, and reply with, don't worry we will get there, we just taking the detour around mars to get to the moon.So you end up conforming to their ideals and practices, and end up with some really bad habits especially modeling wise and level designing wise. TGC has now invoked the response of don't like it, there is the door, instead of the don't like it, tells us how to improve it.So you can't help but wonder what change drastically over the past 3 years to get a response like that.Mounting pressure from poor sales and bad steam reviews.

Bad steam reviews mention performance and graphics, and odds and ends in between, but predominantly graphics and performance and that has been they way steam reviews have been going since it's release on steam, very little has been done on graphics front. TGC has only them self to blame for that, it's not the steam users, dated graphics will do that.I mentioned two years ago the one shader fits all approach isn't working.Lee even mentioned there is an extra slot in the shader to deal with possibly metal shininess and that was 2 years ago.

There is no bumping to speak of, and when you do ramp up the bump map the shader deals poorly with it by adding normal map seams not texture seams but actual normal map seams as the shader is incapable of dealing with seamless textures correctly which has been pointed out before.Even the terrain shader suffers exactly from the same thing, the biggest reason why there are still black lines on terrains, and to remedy the problem you need to add a normal map that is close to zero or else you end up with normal map seams.

Is it amateur week at Disney studios ? Because 2001 called they want their graphics back

@MK83 because C++ gave us 300% performance improvement. Lee did not know or expect for the conversion give the engine so much more speed so he postpone the DX 11. problem here is that guru only got half of the optimisation upgrade than it was suppose get. plus it did not help the fact that the people in this forum ask for Lee to get as much out of DX 9 before moving on to DX 11. but that's the problem here now the community holds back this engine every time for there own reasons.

@Lee I will say no the the unity/udk ideal I personally don't care for the graphic being better at this point for guru. more game mechanics over all and Lua commands. I myself am no coder or good at making scripts. but I'm learning Lua. the only reason I have unity install on my pc is because of the store asset models they carry and I use them in guru and fpsc. I hate those game engines and their map editors just get all the small feature in guru and move on to DX11.

I personally don't want the EBE right now or any graphic overhaul. there are things in guru that needs to be finish like the lightmap and 3rd person. the lightmap still have it's bugs and the 3rd person is unfinish. I would like to skip EBE more on to the next feature. we have inside building assets that is way easier faster to use and would take up less draw call than the EBE. we have grid and snap which works great. we need to think about the most important things that is missing from our game mechanics that can make it easy for us to finish a game. hint Multiplayer is not much of a game unless it is two players vs the AI.

I don't look at guru as a AAA engine or feel it needs to be anything like a unity or udk. I don't like those game engine or the fact of working with them. I am a one man show here so I need a engine that is made for that. this is why I pick guru and like it. it is a game engine made for indie developers like myself. I don't plan to make any clone games like AAA developers. I want to be in a league of my own and that is what game guru is. this is why I use game guru and why I will defend this game engine 100%. indie developers is a new way of game development and we need a game engine that support that one man indie developer game maker. that is what fpsc is and what game guru is and more.

now about the voting board
there is so many things that should not be left up for us to vote on like.

Infinite Terrain
Rendering engine overhaul
and some other things that takes too long to put in the engine.
this game engine needs some type of foundation that support the core it self. Lua is part of the main support that will ground this engine between what it can and can not do. I support what the engine needs now to make a decent game which is good Ai good game play and game mechanics. things like EBE large levels and graphics can come later but also before those things good performance is a must.

if we had C++ DX 11 and Hardware Instancing, Tree batching, Rendering distance for static meshes in the beginning most of our problem now would have been solve. some things on the voting board can not be done without DX 11 like Unlimited Dynamic Lights. the community is what held back this engine by sticking with windows xp for so long and using low end pc and graphic cards. it's time to dump DX9 and move on if you you all really want better graphics and more performance. but being like other game engine is not the way to go for guru.

note also AGK is TGC bread and butter and they make more money off the software than guru. I really don't think this software is worth $20 the assets alone is worth more. so I would not complain so much about the price of guru and comparing it with other game engines. it's too late now anyway you own the game engine and it's assets.

skip EBE
Bots to navigate stairs / heights and Menu Editing Should not take as long EBE.

Talking Characters / Quest givers Can be done with lua.

Free player app for non GameGuru users Do we really need to wast time on this feature now?

Third Person Mode for any character This is already done just need game mechanics adjustments.

Inventory can anybody who knows Lua make this and set up a default imagine for the Inventory. if so what commands are needed?

Day & Night system I personally can work without it for now. might be done by Lua

Cut Scenes They are just trigger zones and avi videos. so why is this up there?

Weapon Editor I so just fine using the fpe to change things. also don't need to make my own weapons to many draw calls parts like the character creator.

Quests done by Lua

Ally Characters I think we can make a Lua script for that.

All settings to have equivalent LUA commands put it in there already.

the list goes on to some things not needed yet or won't play a big role until DX 11. I say put in all the Lua commands needed and cut the the feature list down. all 3rd person needs is to be able to shoot in different direction and use a X Y Z to where the player can shoot or attack for Platformer Games

Blocking zones use invisible wall

Grenade throwing enemies projectile system needs to be more open to enemies characters once this is fix we can add Grenade to them. I have told Lee to fix this with the projectile so we can make our own and add them to enemies. with the right script we can do this our self. by opening up the Lua commands and fpe commands we can cut the voting broad list down and allow Lee to get back to the core.

I think its time Lee dropped the windows xp support idea, given that even Microsoft doesn't support xp any more.

Also I vaguely remember reading that Microsoft is planning to eventually drop all legacy support and only support the latest versions of each of its core products (for cost cutting reasons) so X9 -11 may well have a somewhat limited life expectancy too.

@MXS

Actually most people forget that a graphics update has massive benefits other then pretty graphics.It brings a bunch of performance boosts as well, especially the way meshes are rendered, and most importantly hardware instancing, with hardware instancing you can have a few 1000 AI running around without a significant performance drop.

If think people forget what lee is talking about here when mentioning UDK or unity layer.Basically it would be the gameguru GUI build on top of UDK or unity meaning that users are spared the complexities of unity and UDK, an engine with in an engine in layman's terms, but basically UDK or unity doing all the heavy lifting.

Have a look at axis game factory it is basically a unity build APP, by using it, you would never know it's unity.So basically gameguru would a unity or UDK build app, bar the issue with license fees and as such. It is the best and quickest solution to get gameguru where it needs to be.If lee does that, you are open to things like speed tree, voxel terrain editing, better model support, lee can even incorporate the level editor and allow primitive creation and editing no need for things like EBE.

It would also mean lee can have a standard version for us commoners and add a additional product on steam that sells a source code version for a couple of bucks more, much like leadwerks.

Seriously what is not to love about building on top of some thing well established and 100X the speed of gameguru, I can say with certainty you won't be exposed to the bottom layer of the engine in any way, and will be completely shielded, you wouldn't know the difference

If it comes to that I would jump on that bandwagon, with lots of candy to lure gameguru users, a white van and duct tape optional to those really difficult ones.Lee definitely needs to define and explain the unity/udk layer better for users to get a better grasp.If you concern is license fees I have already pointed out, it's 50K and if you managed to make that much, license fee of 25% is of little concern or value in the grand scheme of things.

While all this is still hypothetical, I have some remarks as the old grey-bearded guy who has shipped some Unity & Unreal AAA games as hired producer:

When it comes to brute force rendering power, Unity is quite inferior to Unreal and not THAT (still largely) better than GG in it's current state. I am not talking about polygons and draw calls alone, and yeah, I know the nice Untiy demo videos and some, very few, Unity games with excellent GFX. But if you take the same asset and drop it in GG, Unity and Unreal with a decent lighting scenery, you get something that might look "ok for GG" in GG, "actually not bad" in Unity and "jesus christ, it's gorgeous!" in Unreal.

We did build a part of our Into the Ice prototype in GG, Unity and Unreal and I can tell there is a huger jump from Unity to Unreal than it is from GG to Unity.

@wizard of id you do make good points about that but my only real concern the editor and going about it easy to create a level. I want to focus more on that over all. but if it comes down to it then I guess I don't have much of a choice but to jump on the bandwagon because I guess that would mean the end of guru as a standalone engine. but if it don't work out for me well it was nice while lasted and I will just try to get into this other engine I have. but I must say after all of this I am not supporting nothing else from TGC or the store until this is clear on what direction guru will go and what it means as an engine.

If it were an unreal or unity renderer under the hood, with an easy AUTOMATED way to get all older assets working perfectly (no compromises), and the Editor from GG unchanged and expanded with more access to the LUA goodies, I woudl imemdiately jump on and pay another 100$.

Jsut saying.

I kind of agree .... I posted a long winded way of saying what I would like ...What I should have said was ....
GG with the performance and graphics of Unreal/Unity/Cryengine. would be a wish come true ...

Whether its a Untity or Unreal Layer added or Lees engine enhanced ..... I would match your 100$
But preferably his own engine if I had a choice ...

@Ertlov

I have seen the noticeable difference, performance, graphics and the like between unity, and unreal, even leadwerks, there is remarkable differences in the way it handles and feels.

Why all hypothetical, I don't see lee doing drastic changes to the way the GUI works and the way Gameguru operates, would alienate far too many people.I do see some performance loss coming in as being a build app and not some thing directly build from the engine, but see and playing around with axis game factory it's minor.

What I think is quite nice is the ability to use which ever directX version unity/UDK still supports, and migrating to a new version of the engine should be a relative breeze.Meaning for once you can stay ahead with the new Directx versions being released, without having to do massive amounts of code rewrites.It is definitely an interesting subject, it means getting the upper hand for a change, as there might in return be slightly less to do.Which would give TGC ample time to do a proper job behind the scenes on their own software.For a stop gap in the short term might be a good idea, for building a long term strategy for gameguru version 2.0. I am pretty sure funding and sales would increase exponentially.Cross platform development will also be possibility obliviously it has it own set of pitfalls and licensing issues.But you cross that bridge when you get there.

I for one would love to see the massive amount of multiplayer features that would be at your disposal, as online play has always been the future.

Definitely some clarity to intentions is needed.However while not ideal, lee can look at leadwerks as a possible solution, considering it has the source code available and no royalties might not be as fast as the big 3, but they are still doing exciting stuff.....really interesting subject in general.While I would love to stick to gameguru as it is now, we sort of hit a massive performance road block and without a major rewrite we might not see and benefits any time soon.

@wizard of id

I largely agree to all what you said here. The point is, the accesibility and easyness of workign with GG must not be sacrified, not even compromised.
If that is a given, any established underlaying Render / Physic technology that can be upgraded on the spot would be appreciated.

I'm going to chime in here (after reading through these threads for days) and say that if using Unity as a base for GG would mean another 2+ years of converting the interface and usability over, my vote is a solid no. If it could ensure that things are knocked off the voting list like dominoes and be done in the time it takes for an update or two, then my vote would be maybe.

Everything aside, bouncing the engine away from the core as a quick patch for performance problems is some cause for concern since it seems like new features and bugs are just going to pile up by the truckload. Unity has it's own bugs, combining that with GG bugs is just going to double Lee's workload. In addition, GG is made right here, in house, we can talk more or less to the developers. Unity is a whole other company and would fragment updates as "more plates" begin spinning to fix Unity bugs and compatibility with the interface.

My vote stands at a no currently. I've never liked Unity and using that as a base for GG just seems unethical in comparison to how I've seen TGC progress over the years. Yes, there can be performance limits, but even AAA games sneak in the odd trick to keep things running smoothly. The biggest obstacle right now is just releasing a few more features that will get GG at least to the point of FPSC. For myself it is the water-filled level option, it would essentially solve my whole anti-gravity roadblock and let me finish my game since it was already done in FPSC (just don't need the fog and poof, anti-gravity!). I realize that everyone has their own essential feature(s) that are a breaking point to their game(s).

I think at the moment Lee is overwhelmed trying to match the requests of long-time users as well as newcomers from Steam. It was something that was going to happen, but it's still solvable, focus on 3 to 4 feature requests per update. If something (like the EBE) begins taking too long, don't halt the update, rather just include some other feature and still keep on track with a release. I remember when there was a mostly consistent release schedule, there was something to look forward to and it wasn't as heated of discussions around here.

EDIT: By "feature requests", I meant from the voting board, not from random threads of "I absolutely positively definitely NEED...". The loudest threads should not be a development roadmap, it should be the list that is voted on by the members.

@geistschatten

There is a problem is you can't keep on adding features, without addressing the performance issues, to address that would require major, major code rewrite, gameguru basically hit another coding road block.In order to address the performance issue, would require not only rewriting the rendered, but occlusion , the way is meshes is being dealt with, shaders ect, it basically has a knock on effect on every thing.

There isn't a reasonable way out of what we currently have.Your estimation of 2 years for building on top of another engine is definitely wrong, the development cycle will be a lot shorter. You can probably get some thing up and running to the current gameguru in 6 months, as you simply not having to worry about the engine it self.

I understand why lee is suggestion moving away, some thing will have to give, as it isn't particle to keep on adding features you have to eventually have to face the rewrite beast and in return you would probably need to address and alter the features added, not only is it counter intuitive time wastage will be massive.

So I wouldn't be entirely that dismissive, you definitely need to understand some thing will have to give, and there is no guarantee a rewrite will improve things drastically either.Building on top of some thing at least gives you some comfort and guarantee of improvement to a much larger extent.

I think people forget just how much is actually missing from gameguru in general and just how much needs to be added code wise to get it up to a respectable level.It's stupefying !!!

The main GUI by my reckoning will likely stay the same, however subtle differences in the terrain editing will likely take place, as you could use voxel terrains, EBE will not be needed for one, not that it was particularly good to start with, and some minor changes here and there, don't think the changes will be massively drastic, there might be a need to run additional exe files for some thing, but I don't expect some thing majorly different, unity and UDK is quite an impressive beast concerning how flexible it is coding wise, looking at axis game factory it is entirely possible to get some thing exactly like gameguru and not being able to tell the difference.

Only other possible scenario that I will be quite happy with is adding some more functionality and such. Freeze the development release the source code, and work on a new version in which ever engine benefits the most and call that Gameguru 2.0.

But like I said some thing will have to give, and as proof users isn't going to like it, but we can't go on with this current trend indefinitely TGC can't afford it.

one thing about the features is if Lee adding the main feature that are not graphic features the performance should do good with an update like that. the SAO was pointless and only eats the performance. if we could get the actual features in guru like Bots to navigate stairs / heights and Menu Editing and other small ones like Dual Wielding Weapons and things that are missing from 3rd person and so on. it would make more sense then move on to DX11 so we can get a graphic and performance boost, it will be the best of both worlds. so while we wait for that we will have most of the feature in the engine to play with right along with all the lua commands.

I know what's being said here but I really hate the other engines and eye candy does not mean anything to me. if game guru can allow us to create a game with very fun game play that is all that matter to me. I want to make fun games not realistic looking game. can of like how Nintendo make their games. so you can see going fall for unity or udk for the graphics. now for the performance once DX11 is in the engine we can have things like Hardware Instancing, Tree batching and Rendering distance for static meshes.

Okay, I'm sold, but please don't use Unity, use Unreal!

another thing I hate just as much as the other engines is MODS. I do not and will not support a Mod version of guru. I have learn my lesson from fpsc that nothing comes good from using a mod version. it screams bugs alert and I don't thing anyone here will be able to change that. I have try every type of mod with fpsc and they all had a show stopper.

NO WAY

can not merge, we paid for a freedom of selling. i am not wanting at all to be merged and forced to be slaved to an engine that demands profit,

x11 was dropped, i think worst decision made, we could be x11 by now and running, why drop that for minecraft tool.

ai lua plan works if you ask me, ( maybe do a collective of scripts, an ebe maker with scripts, months on a script maker a drag and drop design is not too much to ask for?, as to mercenary, it was more meant as if you had the same amount of models as there are scripts that came with gg, there would be a lot more complaints, and if no character creator or ebe, then 20 - 40 models except what was on the store there would be a lot of complaints, i ain't against selling scripts at all, its someones time and effort and if you can why not, my argument was not really with anyone, it was more how about putting as much energy into making scripts in a simple but effective way as they have done models free or ebe or character creator.

and with x11 would come better shaders wider pipelines faster renders, instancing and tree batching, all this is what is needed to be fast efficient and more universal. so i think lua ai creator with navigation, x11, instancing and tree batching, lights and shadows and better shaders, etc.

no offence meant just what i think is sensible and should be making more sales and changing of opinions.

This is the only option to fasten the hole development process. Sorry all these rewrite things or port things need so much time, we could start from scratch.
Also you use a modded version of FPSC, nothing else is GG. Or do you think all these airmod features are written from ground up. I do not think so.

I read this thread now since it started and wow. Very professional opinions. And after I read a lot of things about unity or unreal, I even search some engines which are open source. Now my mind is bursting and I am not sure how I would feel when GG becomes a overlay for Unreal.

I present my opinion short to speed development:
- DLC with Source Code
- Source code has a different licence, open source/private mods are free, free mods need a little one time payment, paid need to give tgc 50 percent

Sorry