Well,,,,,,


"Yes, and it doesn't help, that Lee told me to use Unreal or Unity instead... "

See the smiley behind the text... nevermind.

"in a totally different light."
Nope, its broken... LOL


Back to ... topic

I can also confirm that the store downloader seem out of order right now.

Not talking about the sunlight, it has it`s limitations, but works fine and the shadows can be (at the cost of FPS) tweaked to a level that looks professional. It has an issue that makes it affect indoor scenes. This is a MAJOR BUG.

Now, the core of GameGuru is a level editor. In this level editor, I can place static lights and dynamic lights.

What does a light do?
It lits surfaces and casts shadows. If you ever find a light in your life that doesn`t do that, call Fox Mulder.

A static light needs, due to the rules of 3D game making since the dark ages, pre-calculation. This is lightmapping. GameGuru has a Lightmapper capable of some really nice results. Not state of the art, nothing to write home about 10 years ago, but overall not entirely bad.
However, it has a MAJOR BUG that makes scaled objects (scaling is a feature) vanish. Annoying and should be fixed. Even worse, in combination with the engine limitation regarding memory, it can not be applied to halfway detailed mixed indoor / outdoor scenes that are larger than 10-20% of the possible map size. In every game dev environment, from collaborative student project to AAA, this is a CRITICAL BUG.

A dynamic lits surfaces dynamically and casts dynamic shadows. And even if you dont want to move the lights, this is an essential feature. For indoor evnironments, a dynamic light is the only way to have a dynamic object cast shadows. We have great underground DLCs and packs from talented artists. But if you would move around boxes, or have a train drive through the subway stations, there is currently no way to have those objects, as any other dynamic, mobile objects, cast shadows. A moving object not having a shadow is desastrous for visual credibility.
This is depending, how you fancy our naming conventions, either a CRITICAL BUG or a CRITICALLY BROKEN FEATURE.

So, instead of talking about "dynamic light casting shadows is a feature" vs. classifying "light doesnt cast a shadow", as the BUG it actually is, we have to summarize from the high level perspective (In JIRA probably an EPIC), that the current light & shadow system, is a CRITICALLY BROKEN FEATURE with too many BUGS to mitigate by the user himself.

According to the multiverse theory, there are infinite universes with infinite possibilities. Even if that was true, there wouldn`t be a single one in which a sane Producer or HoQA would sign off the current light & shadows system as functional and fit for release in a game engine.

The store downloader won’t work as I think Lee has missed the security key when building the beta, if he adds it back in and rebuilds it will work.

Lighting has been GG's biggest failure since release As stated above so much media for indoor scenes, but that is where GG really falls flat. The baking bugs, are a problem as most of the really good looking stuff done in GG has been baked.

or is 99% outdoor.

Hi all
Using Beta, have an indoor scene that uses _CUBE maps but they are being ignored in latest build.

Reliquia....

Lighting, whether dynamic or lightmapped - whether we want to call it a bug or a feature or whatever - in its current incarnation in GG, it is keeping me from even considering using GG for my project. It's that simple.

To add to Ertlov's list: A game with full dynamic lighting has been released nearly 19 years ago.



Its a fundamental feature. It is true ignorance of how compelling 3d works that so many people seem to perceive it as "extra" or a "special effect" rather than something mandatory that needs to be overhauled yesterday. Especially since PBR rendering is extremely reliant on good lighting to even be remotely decent. Modern shading in general requires it. This is why even well made GG games look atrocious once its an indoor scene. Games like "Screos" or "Urban Histories" clearly show this as these are otherwise competently made.
My usual picture to highlight what games look like with and without lighting is here.
I've been talking about it since 2015, perhaps earlier so I won't repeat all of my statments as I no longer feel what the core user base here has to say is being taken into all too much consideration.



-Wolf

Anyone noticed the sun surface slider now working in real time …
However has the direction of the slider changed ?
Or it could be just me as it never worked before in real time so perhaps im just having to reset now it does ?

I started out with unreal and unity, and I refuse to use them anymore.

I love Gameguru. This engine is so close to being awesome, I hope that the lighting and other bugs get sorted out.

And being 32 bit engine is fine. A lot of amazing engines are also still 32 bit, like the XRAY engine that drives the STALKER games. And look how awesome those games look.

And all engines have bugs and growing pains, not only GG.

It is unfortunate that that it takes so long for bug fixes in GG, seeing that Lee is basically the only main programmer, as I understand.

But I have faith in Lee to take his awesome product and make it even better.

TL/DR: Gameguru rocks!

@solar
Funny enough I was playing your demo this morning …
Time we had and updated version

From what I understand Lee is not taking lead on bug fixes. He'll be working on merging fixes from the community members and anyone contracted to support.

Reliquia....

That`s what I tried to state, but with a detailed explanation "why".
The problem is - if we have LM only, we don't have mobile objects casting shadows indoor. Which would be a severe limitation.



Same here.

Really ?
Or am I misreading that

Ahh but it doesn't seem to work if you use the apbr_basic.fx shader
Or at least not for me ?

The light source unfortunately there is still from the sun, even though its an indoor scene.

Would be interesting if we had the option to use the one dynamic light/shadow for either the sun or a flashlight or one positioned light at a time?

Yes your right … Myke just went through it all with me so in fact the light mapper just used the sunlight for the shadows.
As I don't normally use the light mapper I didn't realise

Yeah, that`s actually a bug with the sunlight. If you look at the videos, the shadow comes from a directional light far, far away, while the lights placed in the scene (visible on floor and ceiling) dont cast a shadow at all. Preben had cooked something up for AGK that allowed at least spot lights casting shadows, but that never made it into GG.

A few of the light mapper issues not recognizing Illumination and custom cube maps appears to be working now in the private beta.



Looking better. Thanks for the fix guys.

don't ask for a better Light/Shadow system... the answer will be unreal ... LOL

Anyone else noticed _cube maps not working.

Of course it would be good if we didn't need them at all.

Reliquia....

@synchromesh

Yeah, I think I should update some of my older maps. Hehe!

I tested custum cube map in beta and i am seeing it for static objects dnsi and pbr after light mapping.

@Pirate Myke: Great looking video

Yes i did add illumination/emissive support to light-mapper. and it looks great.

Here is my current change log for the june beta, if you want to read what changed:

---

23-06-2019: Found the big z bug, after years of searching there it was, im so happy
22-06-2019: Looking for the z depth problem.
21-06-2019: Looking for more z problems.

PE-June-4 committed:
20-06-2019article - Fixed bug that can cause any random object in level to get particle shader effect. ( z depth , transparent problems ).
fix issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/548
fix issue: https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220798?page=2#msg2616640
20-06-2019: Bug - Gun smoke setup , was changing effect on wrong object.
20-06-2019: Water Bug , some transparet objects did not display below water line.
fix issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/473
20-06-2019: Added lua command FireWeaponInstant()

19-06-2019: Lightmapper - Added illumination/emissive support to lightmapper.
fix issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/345

17-06-2019: Tried to add mipmaps when using dividetexturesize=2 (terrain) but failed, looks like it only do one mip the rest is black ?
17-06-2019: Fixed - Some of the shader settings (settings.fx) did not work, normals was changed from float4 to float3.
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/458
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/484
17-06-2019: Fixed shaders so SurfaceSunFactor also remove specular from sun only. So slider can be used to remove all light/effects from sun. (indoor levels)

16-06-2019: Added startanimingame to fpe to start a speical animation when game is starting.
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/178
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/195
16-06-2019: Fixed Export standalone, level names to also accept small names:
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/444
16-06-2019: Fixed standalone, hide EBE markers.
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/341
16-06-2019: Fixed - illumination/emissive/cube was not added to standalone.
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/315

16-06-2019: MEM bug resizedTexture was never released. in CImageC.cpp DirectX::ScratchImage resizedTexture; if ( bWasCompressed == true ) {}.

PE-June-3 committed:
15-06-2019: Possible fix for issues (need confirmation):
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/206
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/273
15-06-2019: Ups my bug, fix animations, dont start animation if a lua script if assigned to control them.
15-06-2019: Changes so SetEntityHealth(e,-1) is needed to produce a headshot effect.
15-06-2019: fixed issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/466
15-06-2019: need confirmation: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/301

14-06-2019: Commit changes.
14-06-2019: fix issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/511
14-06-2019: Check issues bugs with most comments. and mark them.
14-06-2019: fix issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/429
Physics was lost after several spawn, and you cant shoot char. Explode state did not reset.
14-06-2019: fix issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/330
Something is disable Z depth buffer when 3rd die, EnableObjectZWrite.

12-06-2019: Set editor to default to Full SurfaceSunFactor.
12-06-2019: Fix Shaders - SurfaceSunFactor is used to even out directional light.
12-06-2019: Fix - 3rd / Wizard / Others did not work correctly (HierToo please have a look at comment).
12-06-2019: fpe - support for playanimineditor=0, animations are re-enable in test/standalone. (https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/178)
12-06-2019: bug - editor - Loose animation speed on cloneobjects when returning from test game. (https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/178)

Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/366
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/178
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/425
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/195

Issues fixed in 11-06-2019 (PE-mem-speed-bugs-fixes) Branch:

PE: setup.ini - This will enable delayed Video loading, and will not use any memory before a video is actually playing, and when video is done all memory is released.
So if you use Video in your level this will save you around 90mb memory for each video you have on your level. ( no matter if they are used or not ).
videoprecacheframes=1
videodelayedload=1

PE: setup.ini - For games that dont use AI, setting these to 1 will give you faster loading and save you around 300mb on a avg. level.
aidisabletreeobstacles=0
aidisableobstacles=0

Should not be used for now, but will be expanded as we move forward:
skipunusedtextures=0

PE: Shaders - allow artist to make glass not cast shadows, by splitting out normal alphaclip and shadow alphaclip.

PE: Help needed to solve issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/504

PE: Terrain LOD levels never go higher then 16, so set this as highest to save some CPU and mem.

PE: BUGFIX - Some animations have bone collision problems and cant be selected in the editor, so test mesh if this is the case.
issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/502

PE: BUGFIX - Sometimes we get double load, due to upper/lower case. improve loading time and mem.

PE: Add: Additional dialog before "Launch multiplayer" to stop accidentally start of multiplayer.
issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/505
issue: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/457

PE: Add: Faster log files , on large levels (standalone) the old system could take up to 2 minute (additional) starting a level. to be used for faster debugging when using producelogfiles=1.
Plus additional function to only sent messages to your debugger.

Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/505
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/502
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/457
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/432
Issues fixed: https://github.com/TheGameCreators/GameGuruRepo/issues/366

----

Is that lot all in the master?

@Preben
Thank you, that is a lot of work you have put in.

@ Preben - thanks so much

All fixes seem to be working - sorry can't help with the monitor aspect fix as don't have a variation

Cheers.

So far so good with what i see.
Thank you to all who contribute.

Thanks Preben, really appreciate the work you put in.

Can you please also weigh in on the discussion regarding dynamic lights casting shadows?
You were the only one coming quite far in experimenting on that.

Hey everyone, if you use the lightmapper (Shift+F3) with the sci-fi pack the white models will only disappear if you have pbroverride = 0 in the setup ini. If its set to 1 they will not disappear.

Good to know. Mine was at 1.

Not sure if this is a bug or what or what. Does PBRoverride, ignore PBR? or? Wondering why it works when this is set to 1.

Multi texture models will become invisible after light mapping unless the importer is used and all of the entity texture references are explicitly listed in the fpe.

Entities can also become invisible if they are too large. This can be fixed by splitting the model into groups and attaching a limb to each group before export.

I had a number of lovely pbr assets (houses) each with many sets of textures and was disappointed they wouldn’t light map for interiors. However exporting with limbs on groups and explicitly stating the individual texture references fixed this and they look great now.

Pbroveride=1 means treat all assets as pbr and substitute in pbr textures if they are missing based on material indexes in the fpe. Don’t know why setting to zero would affect lightmapping though.

Cheers

@Teabone , @cybernescence

Yes there was some problems with pbroverride=0 and the lightmapper so:

24-06-2019: Added lightmapper support for pbroverride=0 (DNSI).

@cybernescence mainly the problem is that the correct shaders is not assigned when using pbroverride=0.

It will work after my next commit / update.

@AmenMoses , most is in the master, only what i did not commit yet is missing

@Ertlov: Dynamic light casting shadows , is that a bug or a new feature ?
"kidding "

@Preben, just amazing how much you get done so fast.

Using latest beta, for me the _cube maps only work after light-map. Just to let you know

Will try verifying install, and recompile shaders. But can't get to it till tomorrow.

Reliquia....

fantastic list of fixes there

@reliquia: just tried the shiny skull in scenery and it looks like that one works , do you have another setup ?

If you could email me a model with cube that dont work i will have a look at plemsoft@plemsoft.com

Very good work. Well done.
Now, where is the easy .fpe, .ini editors?\ + Documentation on settings as well?
Asking because of course we want to implement these features!
(As a noob, I have no problem asking this...)

It's called notepad :p

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220822?page=2#msg2616924

I don`t care as long it is done.
Any prognosis or even ETA on that?

+1 with Ertlov on the lighting issues.

Nice list of fixes I particularly like the sound of the loading ones

@Ertlov : Can you post the links to the issues from the Issues Tracker that relate to the lighting bugs you are most interested in, thanks. Maybe start with your top three

As most issues are write ups of mixed issues, here a clean slate and reduced to one issue only:

1. User-placed Dynamic Lights not causing shadows

I've been working on a bit of a FPE write up for some time. will be doing one for setup.ini soon as well:/

Its not 100% complete yet, but once it is, I'll make it a PDF and we could then add that to the github for the documentation folder
http://freetoronto.org/gameguru/tutorial_fpe.html