Check out the new sneak peek video taking an early look at the all new character creator:

You wont hear that often from me, but I am impressed.

Amazing!
Don't miss some sort of IsPlayingSound(e,0), so we can do:

If (not IsPlayingSound(e,0)) then
--Play the next sound
end

Rather than using timers or wharever workaround. PlaySoundIf Silent(e,1) doesn't do the job, at least not itself.
Per-level file sound will be useful , however if you want to show the inputs and outputs on the screen you may need to know them, so I wonder how to ask them via lua and where?

Ok, make some custom convo system just 4 you or 4 your game it is realtively easy, problem comes when you want to do that convo system for everybody, where my code can ask for those per-entity inputs/outputs?

Thinking about more complex convo, it is doable but with the needed lua commands.
Thinking about player and/or npc needing 2 or more options to choose, how you show that options on the screen if you don't know their inputs or where the code can ask about?
A plane file with all the inputs/outputs (talking meanly about tts) will be necessary to work with, even with some sort of tags to know who is who, whats inputs/outputs belong to npc1 or to npc2, and so on.

Or do you already has think about something to link 1 input with the next?

In any case, the user will have to be cautious when it comes to building a conversation, organizing the dialogues and the inputs and outputs well, in addition to the end of the conversation, good practices will be very useful here.
You will have to take into account if the player will have to perform an action so that the conversation continues until it ends.
The non-linear conversations are even more complex, making the game development depend on an answer, well that is something else.

Edit: just adding something.
I have broken my head trying to find out the duration in seconds of an audio file, via lua; but without luck yet, any lua command that can help?
Knowing the duration of the next audio file helps calculate the pause between one file and the next.

Nice speech system, i hope there will be still the possibility to put own CC parts in.

Thought you were using global sounds? It has a command to check if it's playing

good video, a muchly improved CC with speech system. Excellent so far Lee

Yah, in fact I've that issue solved via Global sound system.
Anyway I want to try GGMax slot based mode, you know PlaySound() rather than PlayGlobalSound and so on. I've got nice results with that mode too, anyway some new lua commands might help.
I hope maybe that slot based way with an accurate inputs/outputs file, reduce a lot the work in the user side, it is the main goal for me.

Seriously impressive Lee, already my brain is flooding with new ideas........ looking forward to the next video already.

Agreed. This is opening a whole new world of things I wouldn't have been able to do
cant wait till April just to test out what's there.

Love it! Now, the question - will there be a possibility of importing/using our own models? Could I, for example, create my own hair styles, my own set of eyeglasses, my own shirts, pants, my own head models, etc.? I mean, even if I could just load the bones/animations into a modeling program and ensure that everything fits to that ...

hey Lee is the shader system going to allow more bones on the characters?

I really can't wait for this.... so excited... thank you Lee!

It looks easier for use and more versatile; and the "speech" feature is way above excellence.

This is much more like it! Looks great so far.
The lip sync looks like it needs a bit more work I think. I couldn't make out the lips very well. Variety also needs to be a lot better, but that is a given(hopefully). The in engine voice recording system looks nice and quick!

Great stuff Lee

What I find really ironic (and amazing) about that recording voice feature inside GG Max is this came at the right time. I spent all night using text to speech MP3 online sites to create all my place holder dialogue a few days ago. Took quite a while to convert those for use in GG. Hours of work really. But with this new feature in GG Max my placeholder voices dont have to be male and female British robots... they can actually be something more akin to what I have in mind before reaching out for actors. Something I can use as a template for when reaching out to them AND can study the timing required for text subtitles.

So thank you very much for that Lee. Where do the audio files get stored? I dont see "project modes" in GG Max so I'm assuming everything gets thrown into a root cluster of other files? Rather than project based folders?

Looks great- excellent work Lee+team.

Everything looks well integrated and smooth and I'm not taking away all that
great design. But this is actually a pretty giant thing that has emerged-
especially if or when custom additions could be added and bought in a store--
NOT TGC store, but an actual MAX owned store- for MAX income.

Then if it where possible to provide a format like .fbx or .obj then it would be that
much more incredible. Maybe large numbers of Unity, Unreal possibly even
Cryengine users would buy MAX just for this feature--- (and that's not a bad thing
for the business!) and modifying the models into their own projects-- if that's
possible, wouldn't seem impossible. They would have to contend with the
proprietary issues/ animations, etc. I'm no modeler so IDK?

Hopefully all the animations from stock Classic (And even more!) are available!

Ok you got my attention but how much variety does or will it give how similar as in 1000s people have max and is there enough to keep it varied still
Will there be a huge array of tops heads legs etc
The ai i have no problem with but its originality and unique characters that will make this a truly winning stroke from you
Get this right and world systems like particles amd weather night day amd you have a winner xx

I suppose we can just dive into the asset bank there, create copies and then alter whatever we want, or build our own following the specs there. The last time I was that excited about GG was around the time I built Fathers Island

@ Lee
Just some idea to generate TTS file, that file come in candy to show inputs/outputs in the screen via sprites.
Enclosing inputs between tags might help to work with file data. Just using tab+npc name ie: tag = "name=" and npc name = "whatever"
so, tag = tag+npc or tag = "name=whatever", as you can see in the vid.
In my previews post I've explained something about tags.

I will expect some great games from you ertlov your father's island was ace and you can really start to populate and make immersive games

Thanks!
We have an official announcement going out tomorrow (tonight your time)

EDIT - this was going faster than expected. Read it up on IndieDB here.

I am impressed ..

Wow! That looks great! Thanks for posting Lee!

Cthulu ertlov im Your underworld slave heading for madness

We will need a dedicated LUA scripter for sure, I am too old to do that myself.

Sounds interesting.

YOU would be hired on the spot ^^

Lol, I'm up for a bit of freelance work as long as it's something I can fit around other commitments.

Oh and as long as it's fun!

There you go ertlov an eoic game in the making. And amen i may one day may call upon your freelancer skills.
At present im chamging jobs moving house and jus got engaged and thats just the tip of the iceberg

That's what the captain of the Titanic said.

@ Lee
Please don't take my questions as claims or as request tha most likely don't fit with your roadmap, just take them as suggestion, merely ideas and nothing else, nor presures, just good end results.

Video show very well the mic record way, and it work amazing, quikly generating audiofile and attaching it to the npc plus behaviours, well done so far. Anyway it does not talk about TTS way, I guess because you still are baking it, so again not presure, anyway I've some another question that has to do with my convo system project: Does GGMax will allow batching audiofile process?
In my video you can notice I'm entering several inputs so several audiofile paths at time, thru copy&paste them, assuming each line is a audiofile path, or maybe with has to go entering one by one?

Meantime working on some sort of project-based system taking profit of saving map when GG generates required files list for mapbank, in order to get entity and texture list use in the map to build a project folder with all the related dirs and files inside and ready to work with.
Till now there is not a clear way to get that list, just possible workarounds, such as reading X file to get that info, but that will be like reading the first 44 wav file bytes to get header, and thetefore to get the audiofile duration, realy tricky and time consuming, so there will be another way to get that list being life saver and time saver? I must add that I already know you won't add project-based system, but some tools might help us to being able to continue thinking out the box.

Working too with some sort of standalone setting thru dedicate windows, but this is another story I'm not going to bother with.

A question Lee - sparked by 3com's post -
Why are the constituent parts of the map zipped up whilst it's still under development?
I've pondered the matter and cannot see any benefit in it - to either TGC or the users. Surely a simple folder structure would suffice?

Probably because that's the way it's been since FPSC. I assume the code to extract the files will be similar. Probably just the easiest solution at the time. There was a command in DB Pro (possibly DB as well) to load and display a level with no fuss. Of course this functionality makes less sense now, but was great at the time. I originally bought FPSC as an aid to DB dev and rarely used it in itself to make games.

Like I have said many times now, for GG Max, I'd be happy with no backwards compatibility at all if we can get a better product from it. Of course it would be nice to work on an idea now and port it over when it is out, but I hold no illusions in this regard. DB Pro was backwards compatible, apparently. Still killed my projects dead trying to use it. Literally didn't work in either version after I had tried to run it. Back up people! Gods, Antimorph was pretty good for it's time, but never got released; was a resident evil type game. Screenshots will be the only thing left from it now, if they even still exist.
Pro killed a Desert Strike clone as well, which I thought was as playable as the original at the time. Although that was down to wanting to update the matrix for a "cool terrain" rather than DB itself killing the game. I know it must have worked in Pro, as I spent some time updating the water from the old matrix to a shader effect, which worked, although slowed things a tad. I honestly can't remember why it never got released even as a one level demo now. Probably wanted the terrain update and somehow lost the code at some point
Slightly going off topic here. The moral being do not trust to the hype and fully back up any game you want to test in GG Max

@ Lee
Working in the TTS system I have observed that the space that has been allocated to enter the text is very small and making it larger would take away space for other menus, so I came up with this idea, maybe you like it.



In this way even you will gain more space since many of the buttons would go in the configuration window (TTS Managerr or whatever), and thus it is more practical and intuitive for the end user.

More voices can be configured, it is incredible the many things that can be done.

I still haven't delved that deep yet I'm still using both voices by default, I need a clock with 27 hours or more.

Edit: Wrong video.

@osiem80 and @Argent_Arts : You will be able to create your own character creator parts if you are a 3D artist and can use our templates (3DSMAX) and follow the guide we will write for September. There are no plans for an 'easy import' feature, you will have to do the same work our current artists performed to create additional body parts.

@MXS : No plans to add more bones to the current base models for MAX, they will be fixed for release and the templates/guide likewise. We have left open the possibility for more base models in the future, which could be drastically different (even animals, aliens, etc) but we are not promising this functionality.

@DVader : The lipsync is a first stab. It has all the phoneme shapes, but we might do some coder/artist comflabs before we release, see if we can get some more rounded mouth forms. A previous comment was the talking looked like a simple jaw wobbler, so it would be good to resolve that before we make our final official release videos.

@Teabone : There is a new audiobank\recordings folder which voice recordings are stored in. For TTS speech, this gets stored inside the FPM level file, and uses a smart system which makes sure WAVs are not duplicated by scanning the TTS text and voice setting to ensure only unique WAV/LIP file pairs are stored.

@science boy : There are no plans for a massive library of character creator parts, we will provide some examples, templates and a guide, and it will be up to artists to provide the material for your game. We have supplied tens of thousands of assets in the past over the years, and never really been thanked for it, instead getting a constant bombardment of critique over the quality. This time we will reduce the quantity, and focus more on quality. I am sure we will still get flak for the lack of variety, but it's just a case of being damned if we do and damned if we don't. Please do not upgrade to MAX based on the assumption of varied selection of character parts, best to wait until September when we will release a demo so you can try the samples for yourself. By then we should also have an idea how many artists are wishing to create assets for the system too.

@Ertlov : I think you will quickly see how the system works from the assets in the 'CharacterCreatorPlus' folder That said, we will be providing the samples and guide so your artists can reproduce the required parts to work with our system.

@3com : No plans to add a project management or batching system in GameGuru MAX (as I guess you suspected). As I am in the process of being slowly cooked for pseudo promises from the last seven years, my new policy for MAX is pretty much to stick with what the official announcement says and provide details on what has already been done (as I can be reasonably sure the code I've already done will make it into the September release). If any of your requests are deal-breakers, I recommend avoiding the pre-order, and waiting until we release a demo in September so you can find out what you are actually buying as that's the only safe way. I can say however the current MAX version uses an external executable process to convert the WAV to LIP files, so I guess you could make a batch script and call that part to speed up your game project management a little. I am also inclined to make a big thing about GameGuru MAX being unsuitable for professional games development in light of the competition out there and the reality of the development resources we have to work with. I think I have my work cut out just making something that does what it says on the tin, and not crash in the process.

@benjiboy : Zipping up the files in the FPM allows various pieces of data to be treated like files by the engine, but transported about in a single file for convenience. There are no plans to change the way FPM files are created and used, to retain backwards compatibility with GameGuru Classic. MAX may introduce additional file types into the FPM, so it will not be possible to load an FPM created in MAX to load in the old Classic engine.

@DVader : We will be adding new things over time with MAX which will allow us to expand into the future, but we are holding onto backwards compatibility with GameGuru Classic as there are very many users who are steadfastly sticking with that version until it is function complete and bug free. They will want to move their game projects over when its time for them to want new features such as 64-bit and a new lighting model. I also agree there is no such thing as 100% backwards compatible, the old character creator assemblies won't port over for example, and I am sure many more Gremlins too. The only guarenteed way to have backwards compatibility is not to upgrade to MAX until you start a new game

@3com : Your idea and video for a sensible TTS system with space to handle large conversation trees is a good one. This is not planned for MAX, only the small text areas you see and limited to a few slots per character. The focus of the development will be mainly around 64-bit, terrain and a new lighting model. The Dynamic LUA system already coded will be pretty much the same in September, with perhaps some more scripts and slightly improved capacities and layout.

Is there any possibility to get this template in FBX (or even GLTF), which 3DSMAX can export? That way any 3D artist, regardless of what 3D modeling package they use, will be able to utilize your templates to create character parts. I currently have licenses for three different 3D modeling packages that I use for work. Unfortunately, none of them are 3DSMAX.

To be fair, the huge amount of assets was always a selling point you listed quite high on your points of sales. We list RISK on Steam as having almost 40 maps you can play on, I will *NEVER* expect anyone to thank me for that, and I have to deal with the negative feedback regarding some of them.


If you word it that way, it is a public statement that any product created with it is not "professional". In that case, I would not be pleased. I might even get annoyed if I spend a high 5 digits or low 6 digits budget on my game and then every wannabe reviewer will have a screenshot of your statement in the video about my game. Thinking of it that way, I might even become angry, especially with that coming up AFTER pre-ordering.

I suggest a wording along the lines of
"While GameGuru Max is capable of swiftly producing actually playable games, professional game development using GameGuru Max requires an extended knowledge of all underlying technology, the scripting language LUA and a vast array of third party tools not included in GameGuru Max."

That way, I am not angry, you have a legally bullet-proof line and it still sounds cool.



Yeah, luckily others have to wrap their head around that. My job is just to nod and pay the bills But seriously, glad to hear it will be that way. Also, we have our original Lead 3D Artist back on board, who has kicked A in the meantime for companies like Don't Nod Entertainment and their Vampyr. Already ordered him a Max key. Curious how big his culture shock will be when he does the first imports

Fully agree with Ertlov - please don’t state not suitable for professional development - I think you will be surprised at what can be achieved given enough commitment and resources to the game dev. All engines can churn out rubbish if driven inappropriately.

However, if there are aspects to this you know now will impede a ‘professional’ output could you indicate what those areas are please - would be food for thought.

Cheers.

Agreed too with Ertlov and Ciber.
It is a long way and I would be willing to go with you if you are too.
For me it is important to know that this path will take me further than GG classic, which will offer me other new things that work 100%, obviously the fact that GGMax does not include this or that I respect that decision, but this will not prevent I keep thinking outside the box, or at least trying.

Now it is not about including these ideas as a function of GGMax, now it is only about it being compatible with GGMax, for which I will obviously wait to have GGMax installed and working on my computer.
By the way GGMax pre-ordered days ago.
I want to make it clear that I did not buy GGMax for what it will offer or stop offering, I bought it to support a project I want to believe in.

Keep running with the ball Lee, we’re right behind you , please keep in mind the make hole in terrain feature that was discussed in the chats please .

Dave

I think that is subjective.

Dimoxiland early on in even FPSC Reloaded Beta stages was developing some fantastic AAA quality work:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/217908

I understand there may be concerns for setting out too much expectations. As this could be perceived as the source for bigger disappoints when expectations are not met. But i will counter that it "cannot be used for any professional development". Given the cache of amazing WIPs we've had in the pas 5 years with GG Classic. Underrated section of the forums, I might add.

Lee, two questions if you have the courtesy to answer:
_ is it possible to have a more detailed explanation regarding what will be possible to do with the brand new DynamicLua system?
_ Since windows mixed reality headsets are supported (i.e. acer ojo 500), we will be able to create a whole playable vr game, except for the menus (the player will put his wmr headset on only after having clicked 'start game' on the menu) _ is that correct?
Thank you very much in advance, sorry for my english

I ask the following with the proviso that I am not a 3D artist and probably therefore asking naively.

Regarding the character creator would it be possible to incorporate morph slider adjustment to allow for the creation of highly varied character models without the need for a huge array of body and head parts ?

Thinking along the lines of how the many games that enable you to make and customise your own player character function.

I know this would be easy for the end user to create diverse and unique characters but perhaps I'm neglecting how difficult that might be to implement ? Possibly if you applied more extreme morphs the lip sync may look a bit broken too ?

Apologies in advance if this has already been discussed and discounted.

Lee, to add onto Petr Surtr's question, how far does the VR support go? As games like Boneworks and the upcoming Half Life: Alyx show us, a BIG part in selling a VR experience is in the little details; being able to pick up nearly any object and toss it, being able to physically press buttons or grab levers, reloading your weapon by actually putting in a fresh magazine instead of just hitting a button, etc.

In a "pancake" game, some things that seem normal would stick out like a sore thumb in VR. For example, if in a normal game you're unable to lift up a mug off of a desk, that's totally fine. But in VR, since the world "feels" more real, it's very strange to be unable to pick up any random object you see. If the VR support in GG Max is just "you can walk around in VR" I think that many people would feel mislead by the claim of "VR support".

Oh and another few rapid-fire questions while I'm at it:
1: Will you look into allowing larger sized terrain? (I recall someone on the forums found GG can easily handle terrains MUCH larger than it currently allows)
2: I saw you mention possibly adding Alien/Animal character bases for the new Character Creator. Is it possible to support user-made character bases? So if we wanted to say, make a specific alien species or design a type of fantasy character unique to our game?
3: Will the new weather types be changeable/controllable via script? (Besides just toggling weather on/off, would it be possible to set "intensity", so you could smoothly transition into rain rather than a sudden surprise downpour?)

@Argent_Arts : The raw files are provided to me in 3DSMAX (.max). I am sure there is an equivilant FBX export that can be sorted, but need to check that with my artist friend.

@Ertlov & Others : You make some good points, and I agree if you put the effort in you can create a professional job of work, but from the feedback I have received over the last couple of years, the product apparently implies you 'should' be able to create professional games (i.e. just like Unity and Unreal (which are free)). Not sure where it says that on the product page, but I think a $20 product developed mainly by one guy is not the solid foundations you need when approaching a publisher to invest £10 million in your game idea. I do however like your rewording of my original sentiment Much more sensible.

@cybernescence : The main impedence is the lack of field testing, MAX will go out fresh as a daisy, and as with all indoor propagation you need some outdoor time for the thing to get world-wise and solid enough for the masses. If you are planning to use MAX, I would plan in six months of additional time to work with the new tool and give yourself the confidence before you release. It harks back to the above comment about professional development, and the importance of using something that has been used before to create commercial successes.

@Teabone : In think without a lengthy contract, most things are open to interpretation, such is the way we prefer to communicate. It could be this subjectivity gives rise to the very creativity we enjoy Alas it can also be weaponised For MAX, I want to create realistic expectations, and the moment I claim MAX can produce professional results I am doomed!

@Petr Surtr : There is a Sneak Peek video on the horizon which covers the Dynamic LUA system in more detail, so watch out for that. It's not groundbreaking, it just takes another useful step to making scripts friendlier and accessible to more users. It is NOT the all dancing all singing solution to the non-coder, and will still heavily depend on generous scripters to provide the raw materials to make it work. The VR support will be limited to playing your game in stereoscopic mode using a Windows Mixed Reality device. With the exception of the VR controller, the game experience is identical. The VR experience ends when you press the ESCAPE key. For standalone, the app remains 2D until the loading has finished, at which time it switches to the VR experience, and returns to 2D when you return to the main menu. To access the in-game menu, you have to flip ip the headset (a very cool feature of the WMR devices) and control the menu in 2D. If you are pre-ordering, or have pre-ordered MAX on the basis of more than this for VR, I recommend getting a refund and waiting until September when a demo will be avialable.

@SAR1 : No plans to add morph targets to any part of the new character creator. A great idea and one I would have been happy to discuss more, but my opinions may well turn into either hype or future promised features, so for now lets say there is no intention of adding this feature in MAX. It does give me some cool ideas though You will customise your game characters by hiring an artist and providing them with our templates and guide which will allow you to create your own heads/bodies for your game.

@fearlesswee : As above, the most minimal VR support you can imagine. Effectively identical as your 2D experience, except you use a VR controller to move about instead of the keyboard and mouse, and only lasts while the game is in full 3D mode. Any menus/etc are not being converted to VR. There are some special scripts that can detect you are in VR and give you a better experience (or a given value of better), such as the 'pickupsimple' script, which knows you are in VR mode and allows you to pick up an entity if it uses this script and you can both inspect it with your controller as your hand, and also throw it away. That's about the extent of it. There are no plans to match the quality of the new Halo game, just incase you thought of writing the sequel Your other answers:
1. We are 'throwing away' the old terrain and only retaining enough to be able to load old terrain data in. The new terrain system is still under research but the early conclusions are that you can create larger ones (and smaller ones), as this was a very popular request.
2. There are no plans to create alien, animal or any other character base models to MAX. In fact, in a recent management meeting, I have been asked to remove boy and girl from the base model collection as we might be seen as promoting violence against kids. We will probably supply those base models through the forums as searchable content for those who are not set on corruption and instead have a game that requires kids to be represented.
3. There are no plans to be able to change the pre-set weather choices in MAX. Controlling the weather via scripts is something I think we can do, and I will promise that one As the weather effects are already a combination of scripts and shader effects, you can of course create your own and add them to the choices available.

Well, that`s what I did for a living in my first years in AAA publishing

that's cool!
Weather settings via tab tab, or tab tab dissapears?

@Lee



Any answer about the cut hole in terrain

Dave

Ok lets look at it. there would be no need for massive library of character creator parts, if you plan the new
character creator correctly, that means why spend all this fighting forward and backwards over things like this, you know the community by now, why not make the character creator so that you can change body parts like long legs or fat arms stuff like that, it would Make GGMax just more special , get it done once and for all then you don't need such a massive library of characters, give them the freedom to change a character from fat to small to thin to short whatever, then at least on that one they will be off your back.

I remember what my father said to me once ( when he was still alive) i was complaining about my work, i told him i work my bud off and i never get a thank you from my employer , He said to me why do you want them to thank you, they pay you for the job, you don't do it for free.
if supplying all those thousands of assets in the past was not part of the original payment agreement of purchase GG then why supplied them in the first place , why did you not sold them separately , if it was part of the payment agreement then i rest my case for supplying the assets in such a state that the people complained about the quality.

Lee Sorry for me complaining , i just had to say what was on my mind.
Thanks still for doing a great job.

Ps ( thanks for all the thousands of assets in the past , we do appreciate it. )