@GraPhiX : Can you send me a link to a technical article and/or SDK for UDIM, I can add it to my thought sheet when considering what our new engine needs!
@cybernescence : I will be pulling together a more detailed testing plan from March to figure out the groups of testers we ideally need to make sure MAX goes out the door as solid (and as few holes as possible) for the September release. I remember back in the boxed-product days, this was not optional
@OldFlak : I think the 'drop in another object and transparency messes up' might be a bug. Is there any way you can create a simple FPM with stock media and post in the GitHub issues tracker? All transparent entities are sorted back to front, and then rendered over solid geometry, it should always work out the box. By the way the video you shared looked great!
@MooKai : Make sure all your wishes are on GitHub. I will sort through them in March, see which ones tally with the feedback we have so far. Nice list!
@GubbyBlips : Spawning new entities from your local library is a great idea, please add this to GitHub issues tracker as an Enhancement. Right now all you can do is drop in and hide an entity, then hijack its position via a script. It would be good if we could have a box factory, which just spawned the things until a fixed maximum which I think we had back in FPS Creator days
@Teabone : The community has made it VERY clear, and I completely agree, that Classic needs to continue so that the remaining bugs are fixed, the promised features are added and the software becomes a rounded self-contained product. It is what everyone bought into, and I personally want to finish what I started. The bugs are no problem, probably a nightmare to reproduce and solve, but a definitive list Preben and I can work through. The promised features however I am finding much harder to pin down. Over the last 5 years there have been a lot of feature ideas. I have asked about for some direct links to a list from 2013 which showed what we promised during the Reloaded Pledge campaign, but I have been unable to locate it. If anyone can find this link that would be great. Five years and constant updates has been a long time and I suspect many of the features on that list have indeed been completed. It's almost a catchphrase now to say 'delivery what you promised' but I cannot remember what that was
Thanks also for the 64-Bit thumbs up, I think the community have spoken!
@Zigi : Thanks for the extra thoughts. To keep on track, my plan is to release the new DynamicLUA in September and see whether 'tweaking a few values' provides the necessary logic control for most users. I think you might be surprised just how a few sliders and controls can eliminate the need to code anything for most typical game mechanics. I personally love to create logic, but I learned a long time ago not to inflict it on others
I also have an ambition to create a visual coding solution that does not spiral into a damn mess once it starts to get tasty large, and so it's likely if Lee does decide to add a non scripting logic layer, it will some mad experiment that will probably try not to look like anyone elses, such is my curse!
@Avenging Eagle : I have suggested your idea to my team as I think you have a good point, but the verifying Steam owners is the tricky one. Back in the day, we would even ask users to scan the front covers of their box product before manually processing an upgrade. Yikes!
@fearlesswee : Your points:
1. Yes we will be doing MAX DLC specifically in the form of KITS so you can make complete mini-games in that specific theme, so all the things you need such as structures, scenery, character parts (you build your own characters) and game logic parts so you can quickly create a game in the theme of the DLC.
2. I think you can get the Photon server code installed on your local machine, and then tap that server to run your game in a LAN stle fashion. You would need to check how Photon licenses that option however.
3. The standard multiplayer game will remain much the same, except that it does not require Steam and your players don't need to buy GameGuru. The good news is that all the multiplayer logic is now in an external LUA script, so you can code it whatever logic you need. Your multiplayer game, your rules.
4. We have improved the Save Standalone UI for MAX, and will be expanding it a little with some extra core tweaks such as custom icon, splash, etc but there will be no huge screens editor, new functionality, etc. Once we release, we can look again at the Feature Requests and see if an editor for all standalone game screens is high on the list. You will read me saying this a lot, mainly as I want to focus the next 6 months on delivering a solid platform, rather than 50 half baked features. Hope that makes sense!
5. I tried animation blending but it has some issues, and can sometimes look outright nasty. No plans for inverse kinematics, I will leave that to 3D animation tools which then export a nice animation file. What we will be doing is overhauling how animations are managed, so gone are the days of a single model holding onto 65000 frames of animation, now models come with one default animation, just to show its alive. The rest of the animations will be imported into the model as you need them, and for MAX we will be starting with some basic animations as you might expect to get things moving about. For the alternative to blending, we are adding LUA code to control animation more tightly, so for walking you would have three animation sets, start walk, walk loop and stop walk. The script would coordinate this and you end up with a character that actually looks like they are setting off walking, walk about a bit, then gently and accurately come to a stop. Gone are the splerging into whatever animation takes our fancy, as now it's more a state engine style approach to getting animation under control.
@Belidos : Your points:
1. For MAX, I would hesitate to scare the GameGuru community with the word 'work-flow', but they will be able to import a model in the format of their choice, give it a name, adjust the scale and textures, and here is the cool part, import compatible animation files to stack them right into the model. For some models you may only need a single animation loop, for others you might want a full set of character actions. In the importer, you will be able to prepare the animation slots, preview them, manage them and finally save out as a regular GameGuru entity. From here, you are back in the real world, choosing a script for your new entity/character, selecting the animations previously prepared using the DynamicLUA system if animation slots are exposed, and away you go. I have not figured out if adding names instead of ordinals would be a nightmare, but ideally it would be cool to reference your animations by name instead of index.
2. All previous entities and formats will work in MAX no worries. There is a LOT of stuff out there in GameGuru land and being able to load in existing levels is gonig to be important for lots of users.
3. Alas the boat has sailed for our naming convention and we are basically stuck with _gloss storing toughness (the inverse of glossness). To change it now means all legacy PBR assets would look wrong in the new engine and I am not asking all GameGuru artists to change everything they ever did in PBR
We would certainly add more naming convention so adding support for a '_metallic' texture which would simply read in as a metalness map. Alas for Gloss, we are smegged unless somehow has a suggestion how both the old and new worlds can live together!
4. Funnily enough, having done such a slog of work, I am finding the AssImp FBX import can run rings around mine
I know what I am beat, and if all tests work out, the new MAX importer will handle FBX in it's sleep, in addition to other favourites like OBJ and the new kid on the block GLTFv2.
@JC LEON : Your points:
1. No plans for a heightmap importer, but we are working on the terrain creation system so it might crop up to add an import button. It's a good idea! BotR, if you want to send me a link to your height map progress, I can add it to my thought list for the engine (which includes what technique we are going to use for the new terrain system).
2. EAI is a top artist ultimately it's his DLC so I am happy to go with what he wants. If his pack does not require any new features from MAX, such as integration with the new particle system and perhaps some of the HDR ideas we have on the render side, then it could remain a Classic DLC. Alas, the Steam community are pretty angry right now about DLCs and announcements about DLCs, they don't seem to understand it does not detract in any way from the development side
3. Yes we have backwards compatibility, which includes support for all assets currently on the store. We are only adding stuff, not throwing existing formats and structures away that currently work and are depended on (with the possible exception of converting terrain data to the new system as the current terrain system has had its day I think).
@Ratall : A good point about writing all this down to refer back to it! I have stated before and its a good idea to state again that my replies here do not constitute promises of any kind, we are only having a conversation about what I intend to work on and hope to produce. The only thing you can officially hang your hat on is the text from the official announcements which has been pre-approved and ratified by the whole TGC management team. If everything I ever wrote on any social channel was deemed to be a cast iron promise, I would be busy for four lifetimes and the PC would probably not exist by the time I release the finished product. I have asked a few times now if anyone can dig out the list that must have been created in 2013 to list out what was promised when Reloaded was pledge funded, so I can separate out that list with the subsequent seven years of things I said in forums that later turned into legend.
@SOLO DESIGN : No need to buy MAX, we will still be fixing Classic and adding functionality. Sounds like you have some ideas what Classic still needs before we work on MAX. We are tackling the bugs in March (potentially all of them) but it would help if you could dig out a link to the list of items from the original Reloaded pledge (I have had a good scoot but cannot find it). One of my jobs in March is to try and separate what features we listed in 2013, and which feature requests appeared later on. There is a sensation of 'you did not add the features you said you would', but no-one can actually show me a link or page that points to it specifically. I think a lot of it came from my posting on the forums, long after the product was bought. As it stands, I could keep working on the product another two years and not really know what checklist I am working to as it keeps growing and changes with every telling. Any guidance from you would be helpful!
@Supe : Best if you put these feature requests as GitHib issue items, that way we can go through them in March and assign some popularty scores against the feedback we have received over the years. Seven months seems a long time, but it will fly by once we tackle upgrading the software to 64-bit, writing a new lighting model render system, a whole new terrain and general scene editing controls, and that's just the enhancements. No plans to add an unlimited map for the September release, so I would hold back until September when we will be releasing a free demo so you can try the new terrain system yourself. You might decide to buy, or stick with Classic which will be much more solid, have better functionality and feel like a rounded product. It would have taken five and a half years to develop, but we hope it was worth the wait.
@Tarkus1971 : You will still have backwards compatibility with all your maps and all old assets will still work. They may even look a little better being rendered in a more real-time light and shadow friendly scene! You may have read ALL my answers above (poor you) but I am dealing with pages of features requests by requesteing that you make sure that have been added to GitHub issues tracker so we can sort through them in March. The only 'promised' features for September will be those on the official announcement as it's the ONLY way to control expectation. If someone is not happy to pre-order from what they see on that page, then my advice is that they DO NOT purchase until they see more concrete progress posted, which I will be doing through screenshots and videos as the development evolves. Can you send me a link to the post about "better lighting and shadows and many improvements were mentioned for GG Classic a while back" as I am getting a lot of similar conderns voiced at the moment. I would like to read my own words back to me to understand what it sounded like from the other side, and work out a solution that will please everyone who decides to stick with Classic.
@Teabone : I love the raindrops on screen, can I buy the effect from you to integrate to GameGuru MAX? Please email me to discuss if you are interested, and we have some other similar effects we have in mind like snow fade. We already have some weather effects up and running but we will be enhancing them for September.
@MXS : We are not planning to add an inventory system for September. Aside from the items listed on the official announcement, we will be pretty busy writing a new 64-bit engine, new lighting model engine and a completely new terrain, grass, tree, atmos, sky and cloud system to go with it. As Teabone demonstrates, there is a huge amount that can now be done with external LUA scripts, including an inventory system. I would not want to be beaten up four years from now because I promised an inventory system in this thread and did not deliver
@Unknown Nomad Studio : All are welcome, here you are points:
C1. The original release of GameGuru in 2015 did not cast dynamic light shadows, and in fact only had four dynamic light in any one area. Can you send me a link where I promised to add dynamic shadows that had a direct influence on your decision to purchase GameGuru (or pledge to the Reloaded campaign). In March Preben and I will be going through the bugs, and I will be going through the enhancement requests to find the ones that we promised to add to the 2015 product. I have been unsuccessful so far in finding any links from that time which lists the features. From this I can determine which ones we NEED to do for Classic, and which ones can be safely moved to MAX as part of the evolution of the technology. It may slow down MAX development, but I do want to finish what I promised when I sold GameGuru to you five years ago.
C2. Now sure what you mean by "How much quality of live improvements will be made". If you mean will we be developing Classic outside the bug fixes we are planning to do in March, the answer is yes. If the community wish it, and the functionality is necessary to complete our promises from 2013 and 2015, then we will be working on those too. We have no present plans to decommission Classic, it will sit alongside MAX as the 32Bit lower-end alternative to MAX.
M1. We are still at the research stages of the new terrain system. The primary goal is to allow terrain creation that is more realistic, both controlling geometry and how textures are applied for a realistic visual. I think it's a good idea to allow terrain size changes, but on the advice of my solicitor I cannot confirm nor deny that such a feature will be present
I would not make a purchase decision based on whether the terrain can be resize.
M2. Yes we will be throwing away the old terrain painting and banding effect, replacing it with some kind of texture splatter which allows paints to be overlaid in any order the level designer requires. As we are completely rewriting the terrain system, we have the option of fniding a modern day game engine technique that will maintain performance for this effect on higher end graphics cards.
M3. There will still be a delay when you click Test Game to calclate the pre-baked data from any edits that happened in the editor, such as working out the new AI obstacles for the pathfinder. We will be able to do some optimization however with the new 64-bit engine as we can keep more things in memory and side-load them using a thread so UI performance stays responsive and reduce the need to unload memory when bouncing between editor and game.
M4. We have moved the SETUP.INI changes into a new Launcher app with gadget controls. No need to open notepad again. The parent settings of an FPE are not designed to be edited while the software is running, that is what Entity Properties are for. We can add more properties to this panel if we get requests for it, and many of them can now be hidden in an Advanced tab so less used values are hidden from the main editing experience. Typically, FPEs are created by the artist and then added along with the asset media to the library folder and remain unchanged for the most part.
M5. There are no plans to substantially change the functionality of the standalone game menus, only minor things such as customizing the icon and splash screen. We will not be shipping a full blown screens editor with the September release but we can look at this afterwards if there is demand for it. I think there will!
M6. We intend to keep the scaling drop downs in the Test Game so you can set terrain, entities and grass to quality levels that suit the performance you need. As we are increasing our minimum specification to something like a GTX 960 we should be able to produce a better visual even at the Lowest of the settings, and hide away the extreme performance hog features to the Highest settings.
M7. There are no plans to add an in-game console to control the underbelly of the game. It's a neat idea, like a CLI you can bring up and make hard edits to the game settings, but I am pretty happy with the TAB TAB panels right now and it seems to cater for most needs.
M8. Once we determine which enhancements are required for Classic, and the amount of time needed to implement them, we will have a better idea how much time remains to implement the priority ones into MAX. The remaining will be transferred to the MAX Repo and we are looking at tagging them so everyone knows what the priority ones are post-September.
M9. There are no plans for Linux support in any way. GameGuru has always been an Windows PC product, and looks to remain so for the time being. The only caveat is the game cloud which will be used to host games on the TGC server so you can download them to an Oculus Quest headset and play your game in standalone VR. The player for this will be a cut-down renderer (for obvious reasons) and be limited to stock media, but with the shortage of VR content out there right now it will give you something new to try if you happen to own this particular device. It's a bit left field for the GameGuru community, but it will already have been developed for the VR Quest sister product by March so there is no harm in using it for MAX in September.
M10. The GameGuru MAX team consists of myself, Preben (who everyone knows) and small group of trusted, experienced arists. We have a project manager and the use of part-time freelancer coders who will be helping us along the way. We could probably squeeze onto two large couches, but we are certainly not what you would call an elite AAA room sized team. For room sized teams, you need to aim higher!
NOTE: Disclaimer, all the above are my own thoughts and are not part of an official announcement that can be construde as a promise of features. They are merely ideas and hopes that I will be working hard to attain. Do not make your purchase decision based on anything I write, best wait for a demo and some actual reviews post September, its the safest way!
EXTRA NOTE: I cannot make the promises you listed out (cap the discounts, no bundles, give it away for free, don't sell to Russians, stop sending users to Unreal), as I have learned that making too many promises can come back to bite, and oh do they bite! Thanks all the same for your points and I understand the merits of your advice, but in business you really cannot rule anything out, the industry moves too quickly.
@Tarkus1971 : As above, I recommend given your reservations you do not purchase now. We do have a schedule to release the first alpha build mid-April which will show off the new UI, some VR, the new Character Creator, new Importer and some other toys we kind of have right now, just cleaned up. The later alphas will be much better as we delve into testing out the new lighting model and terrain builder, but as I said, probably best you wait until you have something concrete before you make a decision. We will be doing a demo at launch which is a free demo sporting our new showcase level (probably a Tropical Island but we will see).
@Earthling45 : Thanks for your comments. I plan to release lots of progress news running up to September, but your plan to wait until its done and check out the demo is a very good idea. You can then decide if it's for you. I think you will like what you seem but don't take my word on that
@UNIRD12B : Excellent, thanks for sharing some links, I've been asking around a lot now
Can you send me one where I specifically promise that VR is going into GameGuru, or a listing which had VR in it which caused you to buy or pledge? I need to start separating what was promised, and what was talked about in forums and posts as future ideas.
@KapitanNemo : There are no plans for GameGuru to be anything other than a Windows PC product. We are heavily based on DirectX, a Microsoft proprietory technology. Plus it's much easier to support one platform when you're a handful of people
As mentioned above we will be doing a sort of export for Oculus Quest but more on that when we get closer to September, and the technology we need to use might spawn some other opportunities, but I know better than to mention them
@Mrs Baird : If you can put your Audio-Engine ideas in a GitHub report and send me a link, that would be great! For Skyboxes, I understand they are not too tricky to make, perhaps a small video tutorial would be better than writing a whole sky maker inside the product? As you say, Classic will be there offering 32Bit to all those who are happy with the Classic community for as long as its needed, no need to upgrade to MAX if you don't see anything you like. MAX will be fully backwards compatible so you can load in your existing game levels no worries. Great question on the RTX, and the answer is do not worry you don't need a monster-RTX to run MAX, I think we are years away from top games using realtime raycasting as the primary method of lighting scenes. We are aiming for GTX 960 for now (until our research changes this) which does a sort of cheap raycasting using Voxel shaders (if we use the VXGI approach), but the effect is much the same, really nice indirect lighting on every surface, so a single light changes quite a lot of the scene as it moves about.
@benjiboy : Thanks for your comments, I am interested in your perspective on this one. Going back a touch. What would you have done differently for FPS Creator? I think we sold it for around £20 originally in 2005, and released free updates for many many years, released over 70+ model packs for it and grew an amazing community around it, slowly discounting it until it was about 70% off. After a short break, we felt the market needed something with more up to date technology, so we planned a new product that would use newer more up to date technology. Would you have continued developing FPS Creator and providing free updates up to 2020? How would you have funded that development? Unlike our counterparts back in 2005, we did not charge for an upgrade each year. If we did it like Sony Vegas for example, FPS Creator would be on version 15 now and I would have charged the same user 14 times. For FPS Creator, I charged them once and gave out free updates as we went along. I am curious how you would have done it benjiboy? Do you see a better way?
@osiem80 : Can you create a GitHub report and put your sound system ideas there, including your link. We do have 3D sound, but it's not great, and sound detection, but it's mostly via scripting. Sounds like you have a feature request coming on
MAX will be backwards compatible with all levels, assets and scripts so no worries there, we will mainly be adding in that respect. We are also keen to add import of animation files onto models during the import process so you can stack only the animations you need. You just need to make sure the animation data is compatible with the rig of the model
@World Class Multimedia : if you have not already done so, a GitHub entry with your ideas on better music and sound support would be super helpful. The old terrain system did not lend itself well to footfall materials, only EBE structures. The new terrain system should definately have materials tied to sound footfalls, so I am hopefuly you get that report in so I can find it when it comes to sorting through what new features go into MAX. In fact, all your ideas need to be reports in there, and the more detail (and perhaps even links to 2019 games which use it the better). Alas, we've already chosen IMGUI for our entire UI rewrite, which is very much a graphics based rendered interface. The good news is that it looks very cool, is super quick and slick, very easily customizable and we've already finished it. Once you get your hands on a demo, feel free to let us know if we have missed anything. I checked out the C4 (now Tombstone Engine) engine, and noticed it was retired in 2015, do you have updates from them newer than 2015. Are you able to quickly export a demo using the engine so I can see how it looks? Their website is pretty thin, but I think they are open to technology licensing.
@3com : Your points:
1. There are no plans to add functionality to add entities to the first person player, it will be pretty much as you have it now. An invisible avatar in FPS mode and anything you collect will likely be controlled by a custom script and the entity disappearing.
2. You can create a script, associate it with a zone, and have objects magnetise towards the player. I did this recently for something else and it works great. Right now only the province of scripters but it is possible, and I dare say someone could write a script and sell it on the Asset Store.
3. Fluid dynamics is VERY expensive, even for most GPUs today. I am afraid you will have to fake your quicksand trap, perhaps with some nice geometry and textures, some good sounds, clever custom script to freeze the player and shake the camera, and we have particles now that will work for you. No new things in MAX to help trap players in quicksand though we might have access to the particles creates in the AGK Particle Studio if the author likes the idea of a Particle Editor DLC for MAX which could be accessed from within the software UI.
4. No plans to build an RPG style inventory system into MAX, this can be done with scripting and we want to focus on engine as mentioned in the above pages. Thanks for the thumbs up on the 64-Bit. It is definately a no brainer now over 40 users have said yes
@Argent_Arts : The S2 engine is a great looking product and an amazing price. I have not used it myself, but the results are very cool! As you say it is developed by a single person and that guy or gal definately rocks! I would be pricing a lot higher for what you get, or switch to free and use Patreon as the primary funding model like GODOT did a while back.
@fearlesswee : Your approval of the idea to work on an actual game with the tool you have just made is an awesome one. We actually did that with DarkBASIC when we created The 3D Gamemaker using that language, and the same with DBPro when we used that language to create FPS Creator. It really forced the languages to get good fast as they needed to work for a real project. I am not ruling out making a cool game after September, but we would need to convince management that spending half a year on a glorified tech demo is worth it. I suppose we could tell them we intent to sell it
@Teabone : The GG Loader is a good starting point for the Quest Player, but there is no plan of attack on how it will be coded. Sometimes it is better to start from scratch when the outcome is sufficiently different. Something I will be looking at from next week. I imagine though you can guess the consequences
@Peri : We will be fixing the current TPP issues, and adding small functionalities in Classic based on some cool third person projects being worked on right now, but there are no plans to add significantly new features in the third person control system. Hopefully there are other benefits in MAX you like the look of, but if you are only pre-ordering for new TPP features, there are none planned, and it might be prudent to apply for a refund until you see more news on the TPP front. As a Classic user you will get the fixes and functionality boosts for free! I know, very anti-business, but I am a developer first
@JC LEON : Don't listen to the monkey, he's a bad monkey!! For MAX, because we are not tied to Steam anymore, we will have both Steam and Direct Download options, and any DLCs will be released both on Steam and TGC for direct download. The direct one will also have auto-updates so no need to keep installing new installers with each update. We will be sorting out a COMING SOON page on Steam soon, but you won't be able to buy from there until September when it goes live. I would always recommend buying direct from TGC, not just because we avoid the Steam commission but because we have greater refund powers. You have to be pretty stealthy to get your refund from Steam given the conditions they impose.
@HeadClot : Your points:
1. GameGuru MAX will continue to use PBR rendering and support the metallic workflow, all be it with a reversed gloss texture requirement.
2. If you pre-order you get a choice of Steam Key or Download. This time we can offer both options to users.
3. The player actions using the VR controllers is all handled in a LUA script, so we will start you off with some default stuff but you can add to it as you need custom player mechanics. The standard stuff will be there, looking around, moving, teleporting, detecting buttons, picking stuff up, dropping it, running, opening doors and activating things.
4. Only Windows Mixed Reality will be supported for the September release (and in a smaller way Oculus Quest standalone VR). I am watching the OpenXR tech closely however, as this promises to support lots of hardware under a single API which would be very cool for me.
5. For locomotion, you will have walk forward, backward, turn left and right, walk and turn left, walk and turn right and finally teleport (already in).
PC SPECS: Windows 10 64-bit, Intel Core i7-8700K, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1080 GPU, 16GB SYSTEM RAM
