@synchromesh thank you very much for your support voucher code sent enjoy

please keep an eye on my models thread I will be adding loads of new stuff to the pack very soon

i can't do a donation the donation system is not working :s i use the latest version of chrome
Sorry corrected i did the donation right now for "Bugs from Issues Tracker" ($242.00) hope this help the freelancers

thank you for your support if you send me proof either via PM or email I will send you a voucher for my pack

i think for the proof you can ask Lee maybe ?
but here is my email receipt / screenshot

Thank you PM sent

i used the code, but i have nothing

fire up GG click on 'file' then choose 'download store items' have you not had anything from the store before?

also please PM me if you have issue dont post here we are derailing the orginal thread

@imothep85 : Thanks for the donation, I will see if I can find a worthy freelancer to work specifically on some bugs. If you throw me a few report numbers from the issues tracker, I can direct the freelancer a little to help with anything specific you are having troubles with.

Thanks Lee, i just have trouble with the fbx import and .x objects import.
im going to make more donations soon for GG
the only thing i would likein the future is to have an option, when we start GG instead of having a default green grass, if it's possible to start with no texture at all, just a grey shape, easier when you start importing assets for tests something like:

i did a new donation now of $181.50 for bugs tracking again

wow @imothep85 that is really generous of you thank you so much

if this can accelerate the bugs correction work... its better for us better product

That is incredibly generous of you.
Two very substantial donations in a few days is amazing ..
Thank you ..

well int the past i was ready to send 5000eur but then i moved to a new place maybe soon

LOL don't let the 1-0 victory over England go to your head thank you for your generosity this is why this community ranks number one

i dont watch tv

We let them win so we wouldn't have to face Brazil before the final

Hi i saw this:

"Miscellaneous
Test Room Mode - Create a 3D test room and flag in SETUP to replace terrain with empty test room - £75 - OPEN"

this is new right? this mean we can do a donation for the 3D test room
im going to do a donation for this soon bacause this is the option i was waiting for, asked Lee for that

@imothep85 : The good news is there is enough in the pot for this feature, but I've not had any requests from freelancers to take up this one. It would require someone with basic 3D modeling experience, and of course, C++ experience to make the changes to the engine and editor.

It means he's offering £75 for a freelancer to do the work, he already has the money, he just needs someone to do it.

ah oki well i hope someone is going to do the job

GameGuru started slowly and a little bad: very limited, "heavy" and buggy, it was literally impossible to create a full real game. But at this time, I think that in a few years it could become one of the best (not triple A) engines around.

...

Donations Pot news, two community members have bravely stepped forward to do some work on fixing Mega Pack 3 assets, part one of which is now complete and will be part of a DLC update at the end of April. When the new Mega Pack 3 DLC update goes out, and you like what you see, you might want to donate some more to the Asset Fixing pot as I am sure they will appreciate a few quid for the sterling work they are doing.

I don't want to sound mean or anything, but I'm just posting a notice--
Random items I have gotten from the store have been shiny plastic looking.
I've seen things I've put in maps that sparkle like water-- ones that should not
be glossy or look like wet varnished coating.
So I just want to give a notice, not trying to be a jerk. The sparkly wet look to plain,
non- reflective materials like concrete, plywood, bricks, etc should be watched.
Happy Game making. I thought better mention something now, than later...

If its a store item then you need to speak to the authors of the items, store items are third party, you may be seeing shiny models because a lot of them will still be DNSI textured and would need their textures adjusting to work with the PBR system, there are also various settings in gg to make them work better alongside the pbr system.

Well, thanks then Belidos. To be honest, there's a few items in the DLC's
that also seem overly reflective and wet looking.
To give a list of them would require I put hundreds of items on
a map and look them all over. Those who put them out should do it!
Examples I can mention right away are a blue warehouse building
and a brick shed building. I'm concerned there's more out there, and
that it's an easy mistake to make? It's the notice that counts mostly- Yo?

Again those models are ancient. The whole mega pack 03 DLC has just been redone in PBR and are being tested for a future release. There was no way anybody knew where GG would be today when those models where made. So a lot of the older DLC has this issue in DX11.

Most of the time it is the material listing in the FPE file that is causing this. Setting them to the right material greatly improves there appearance. You can find that list in the audiobank/materials folder.

materialdefault.txt

Okay, sounds reasonable. I found the list.
Is there anything you might suggest if this step
does not fix certain models? (( I have a large project I have
just begun. )) All info is kindly welcome!

Make the texture sheets into PBR maps and assign the new textures and shader to any FPE file you need changed.
That is the easiest thing to do.

in case you need more info on this there's a thread by belidos in the tutorial section that covers the texturing in GG

Shouldn't TGC pay the creators for the asset fixing? You're asking users to voluntarily pay for something that they've paid for? These are official DLC packs, not 3rd party items from the store.

The creators of most of this stuff are not around anymore for the Mega Pack stuff.
So this pot has been setup for that reason. But each mega pack are 1000's of hours to fix and make PBR.
I just spent 6 weeks on the part I redid.
Graphix has been working on this a while now.

No these are huge updates most remakes of the pack ... Plus many of us asked for the Donation system .. In fact it was TGC that were were not keen about it but the requests got overwhelming so they relented .. Its all purely voluntary ..

@Pirate Myke, Well then TGC should be paying you and Graphix and all the other contributors for keeping these packs up to date. Unless you're happy doing it for free. Thank you all for the hard work and contributions.

They paid what they had. But there is still a lot of media to update.
Hopefully everyone will be pleased with the stuff.

I don't understand the reasoning here.




Doesn't really answer the question. Besides I don't understand why when DNS shaders should work perfectly fine alongside PBR shaders these particular model packs require updating in the first place. If that is the case then all models in the store and all those which come with stock pre DX11 need to be 'updated' too.
These are 'for profit packs' sold by TGC so they should pay properly if they want these updated and remove all stock and store models that need 'fixing' to work in GameGuru till the creators update them. As a store vendor I have received no such notice that I need to do this so can only assume they still work just fine. So what is the problem with these Mega Packs other than TGC's need to make them more appealing as PBR? Looks more like a sales tactic than an urgent need to 'fix' things.
All sounds pretty cosmetic to me and therefore unnecessary.

Yes many people did ask for a donations system..........to pay freelancers to fix and update the engine, don't remember anyone suggesting they include donations to update media packs sold by TGC and not owned by many users in the first place so no benefit for them in any way.
If it is the case that these donations were made by current owners or even those planning to buy these packs then all well and good but not so good if the 'miscellaneous' pot get thrown in to do this. Somehow I find it difficult to accept that 250 gbp was donated by users who already own and want to see these packs updated after paying for them when they would in fact expect them to work just fine without PBR shininess.

If we are saying these models no longer work properly then why are donations required to 'fix' them when that responsibility lies firmly with the seller..?

@ rolfy

Exactly

Dave

I think it originally started as a smoothing groups issue. Lots of models in pack 3 (much of which began life as - dare I say it - somewhat underwhelming FPSC model packs) did not have smoothing groups applied, causing weird shading issues in GG. Since the pack was going to need fixing for this anyway, it seemed an ideal opportunity to update the textures too, especially since most of them were low resolution by today's standards. Some of the models in that pack don't even have spec and normal maps, let alone PBR maps.

The update to the pack was/is needed, the content in it is dating fast, and Graphix and Pirate Myke are absolute troopers for doing it...

...but I agree that it's TGC's product so they should be funding any repair/update work themselves.

Then again, TGC has often taken a...let's say...'relaxed' approach to quality control with its model packs. Not so much in the last year or so with the PBR-ready ones, but just think back to some of the dross they used to peddle to FPSC users.

AE

I know you guys are working hard on this, but......

//"Make the texture sheets into PBR maps and assign the new textures and shader to any FPE file you need changed.
That is the easiest thing to do."//

& @ Rolfy-- I'm looking at it the same way. I'm supposed to fix this product?
Well, I don't know how for starters-- and can't stop to do all that unless I quit
work for a while. Should I quit work? ((Actually work has been really crummy)).
Sensibly, anything offered commercially should be user ready- no?

I try not to be a loud complainer really, because I will find the items I need, that *might*
work to accomplish the goal. But if I did spend good money (I have) on a a set of items that
where crucial but not game ready- then- ya know. Disappointment.

I actually prefer some of the non-PBR items for this reason. If necessary to keep rolling,
and avoid the ThumbsDownX100 reviews on Steam, I'll keep an eye out for
the worst ones, try the 'work- around', and try to compile a list if that will help?

The non pbr items will still stay the same. All changes that have been made only effect pbr.

Well people know around here i tend to rant or write too much, so ignore if you dont want to waste 3 minutes out of your day...

For me personally, I greatly appreciate all the hard work that has been contributed by the community members in general to the github and to the media/assets associated with GG. Especially when it comes down to legitimately fixing things like scripting issues, soothingly groups, core functionality and etc.

On the topic of PBR I am aware that PBR is a big catch and buzz word in the game dev scene right now. In the Unity Marketplace for instance, I've actually been pushed there to create more PBR supported materials to "increase sales" and it seems Unity actually will promote packages with PBR support over DNS. This primarily is because Unity can support PBR with its 64 bit engine and is well optimized for it so its a very safe medium to work with in your project's workflow. So the expectation for that quality is there simply due to its available user-end resources. Game Guru however is very different. I could be wrong, but I don't believe the community (that's here at least), ever expected GG to support PBR. While they have provided some decent looking screenshots and videos for the marketing side of things.

From a game developer and game player user-end standpoint: GG runs as 32 bit so we have to be very mindful of the memory and GPU usage for projects that are intended to be finalized for standalone and played by varying user-end machines. Most games made with GG that are currently on steam have a high rate of crashes and stalls. (These however made prior to Preben's memory fixes. I have not yet tested Father's Island's latest build/version). These issues have resulted in some negativity towards the engine itself, as it had some very clear early optimization issues.

I would say that with GG and PBR materials you can have a lot of fun with them and create some fantastic looking scenes. Just for me personally, when it comes to optimization and making a full complete game, DNS is acceptable for me under the 32bit range of things. I personally have taken the Bethesda route and how they worked with 512x512 DNS textures for the most part with Fallout3; its kind of the safe route I've taken to ensure stability and avoid hitting the memory cap. No additional texture that PBR require. Personal preference. So the PBR DLC update news doesn't really do anything for me; As I'm more inclined to be excited for news related to engine bug fixes and feature improvements rather than tacked on and updated DLC items. All the while I'm happy there is still some updates of any kind going on and income generation efforts to keep GG breathing.

Like others, I have spent years contributing my time to fixing and bringing to life old content from FPSC over to GG and improving them where i can. Many many hours of mesh or tweak fixes. Digging through manually over 1000 files. its an interesting feeling seeing dozens of people create fantastic work with some of the contributed efforts Ive put in. I also attempted a bit of a hand on github to try to do some bug fixes and feature improvements of which was exciting at the time to be a part of, early on. I decided at the time not to accept any donations for the work that was done in those areas. As the community spirit was very much at its highest at that point from all fronts.

It all can get a bit weird feeling when its mixed up in a lot of business sort of things. That is when it gets a bit hairy for me. Mostly because I'm now but a broke man now struggling to get by who has very limited time for such incredibly amounts of voluntary work. I've recently gotten burnt out from working at this capacity, volunteer wise. I really commend those that still contribute freely or take part in the donated pool efforts.

I think as long as current contributors feel energized in what they are doing and are fine with the donations they are receiving, than that is fine. Just is a bit odd if those efforts are worked into some sort of company business model to have paid content worked on by members paid under the umbrella of donations by the community and not the company, at a low cost. I wont get too much into that, however as im not sure if contributors are being compensated by TGC with free model packs or other benefits or coin on top of those donations. I can see where rolfy is coming from in his post here.

With all that said, I'm proudly working full force on a Game Guru project. So I'm still very thankful for the continued development of the engine. From both contributors and TGC directly. I just know its best to work within the means of the limitation and not expect too much from the product in terms of all that.

donations are not purchases and as such TGC can do whatever they wish with them, it's voluntary and the categories are guidelines for what the money could be spent on but in no way does it mean TGC can't or shouldn't be allowed to spend it on other things - also why shouldn't the miscellaneous pot be used for this or any other use? surely that is the whole purpose of it?

on a similar note, charities run purely on donations and use nearly all of the money they make simply to pay wages, you don't donate to them and dictate what they are allowed to spend the money on, you're not even given a choice... in that respect TGC's system is actually much fairer to us

One of the reasons I haven’t donated yet,I like to no where my money is going.Thats like giving money to the postman and telling him to post it where he likes

Dave

Non of this was my intention I told Lee I would do it freely but the community persuaded him to create the donation pot and so he did.

Myke and I have spent thousands of hours fixing updating the assets I started back in October with the buildings pack no donations were involved I also started on MP3 at the same time doing a couple of fixes TGC then approached me and asked if I would do all of MP3 and i said yes.

Now this as seemed to have caused an upset so I will no longer do any pack fixing

To be fair to get the full story and context you need to read this first ..
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220156

The whole thing started as a voluntary effort with Graphix just playing with them to improve them ..
Many of us asked him to do more and the asset fixing donation came later .. From what I recall all the models still worked but were old and dated .. TGC were slowly updating them but to be honest most looked like inflatable models .. Then Myke jumped to help Graphix as well and they have been doing some amazing work .

That’s true the redone models look 100% better

Dave

I decided to allocate 80% of my donation to miscellaneous and to wait for TGC to decide where to invest this money.
So I thank all the people who have donated money and especially to people who have dedicated a large part of their time to work for the community without expecting an economic reward, just for the sheer pleasure of contributing, although on some occasions their disinterested work seems not to deserve even a simple comment.
On many occasions just saying thank you helps. You are saying that they recognize your work, the effort, and the hours you have dedicated, for free, even if you like it more or less.

I don't think anyone is upset with you and Myke at all, you guys have done an amazing job and totally deserve to be rewarded and reimbursed for your efforts to fix a commercial product that TGC doesn't have resource to support. It's just that some people think the onus should be on TGC to reimburse you from their own pocket rather than raiding the communal donation pot.

I agree with rolfy that this is what should be expected, but ultimately smallg is right in that TGC can spend donated money on whatever they choose at the end of the day...

But please do keep up the amazing work.

AE

Totally agree ,don’t take it to heart Kev.this is just us airing our thoughts on the subject

Dave