yeah I cant find that its been stopped now either, lol.. hope im wrong though!! conkit is my most wanted feature afterall

either way though weather stopped or not, if it worked very well I don't see tgc holding it back for the sake of top down mode tbh, I would think they would have it out and getting used more than likely for better testing and such.

To end the pointless speculation in this thread.



The conkit was not ready, it didn't work as many of you seem to think, it was very much a prototype that will have to be heavily changed to work correctly. It had a size limit on buildings and it also had absolutely no way to edit buildings in the editor, which is a really bad point when you actually use the system. As expected with a first release it also had many bugs with what did work.



To that end it was decided by almost every tester that the system should not be included.



The conkit is not a priority right now. TGC want to release what they have so far on Steam to generate extra funding to push the product forward, how do you think a project like this is funded? With two developers on the engine things don't move at lightning speed. Just keep in mind TGC are dedicated to making the current feature set work well before adding more features and introducing more bugs.



For those that don't know the new internal test version fixes loads of bugs and the product feels really stable right now, not to mention the addition of multiplayer and character creator, that allows far more characters to be created. More to be done obviously but the Steam launch is the time that TGC want to release a stable build without bugs and have people be able to build games with what is done so far.



Anyone that wants to continue to question why TGC are not creating the construction kit right now will be doing so in vain, the reasons have been explained to you. It won't speed anything up to rush something that isn't a key focus of the engine at the moment. Feel free at any time to take a break from the product and come back when construction kit is implemented.

sounds great m8
so assuming all things go well is char creator going to be in with steam or shortly afterwards or? that sounds good to me lol, also to clear something else up quickly, the build lee mentioned being hoped for by end of month is that beta or hot fix or just an internal he means?

also a sorry for the pointless debate part m8

The build Lee is discussing will go out to internal testers and may, although not confirmed yet, go out to everyone before the Steam release.

The character creator is planned to be in the Steam version as it will be integrated with the multiplayer system to allow you to create a character to play with.

awesome and great to hear thanks m8!!

This may be the confusion...



I think wording is something that can also cause confusion..



For me its hard to tell whats going well and whats not sometimes ...

What I mean is it worked but not as a construction kit as such, more as an in-game small concrete building designer.

Ah ok I see what you mean...

For now though ( forgetting the conkit for a minute ) Im looking forward to the next build..
Going by what is forecast it should be a good one.
Especially looking forward to MP ..... Just wondering......will there be a chat feature ?

You know I had no idea, so I checked and it is on the list to add in-game and in-lobby chat for the Steam launch. Not done yet though.

You should run for political office, mate. I've been hearing that since before the addition of "Build Game" to the engine. Now we're adding a construction kit, more character features, a character creator, multiplayer, chat room, and how many more have I missed in-between? We understand you need the funding, but don't urinate on us and call it rain.

That's a bit rude xplosys ! You missed out the Zombies on your list... but I think you ought to chill out a bit.. these features will be great even if they do take time to implement. Just remember there are 2 people working on the engine and there is a lot to do! It would be bad marketing if they weren't telling us they were making all these things. Even if some things are temporarily on hold... I'm excited to see them arrive also but we just have to be patient... and that doesn't mean you have a go at the dev team - try to keep it constructive.

I just wish they would go back to the original segment way of building indoor levels . Moving up and down 'layers' , able to punch holes into walls and floors and great snap together . I am a little disappointed in the way the construct kit thing is going . The least they should do would be to let the original segments be imported into the new 'Engine' (add on DLL ,free or ($) or just plain built in ) or something to generate money for them while making most of us happy .The segment way was about the best thing going for the original FPS classic.

If it isn't broke don't fix it .



Any company has to made money to survive so going with Steam is good for the FSPCR team but don't forget the original supporters on their wants and needs .



Lance

@xplosys



This is so Uncanny ....

I was looking for you as I found some of your old models that work great in Reloaded...

Searched your name here and could not find you...... then suddenly here you are ......weird !!

I was wondering if I could h

Yes, I show up in the strangest places! Host away my friend and thanks for all you do.


It's nearly impossible to open my mouth these days without someone being offended. Sorry if that rubbed you the wrong way... the urination thing is just an expression. I assure you that I am quite chill.

Brian.

Hey guys I was just reviewing the making of Oblivion again where their lead level designer shows us how he constructs his cave levels. All it really requires is snap-able static pieces of cave parts that have no plains/sides on the outside so the editor can view through them (and to reduce poly count). I may try to give this method a try in Reloaded. Though if I were to use some of the walls and floors from x9 i can assume I'll face problems with trying to see what im doing with the limited viewing options in the editor (camera control). But I'll see what I can do. I've seen others do indoor scenes before so its not impossible just tedious.







skip to 7:00 in the video.







I was a bit impressed with the Conkit the only beef I really had was the camera control. I hate that we are stuck playing minecraft when trying to make a genuine video game. I'm tired of being forced to the mouse-look and edit. I want the mouse to be free from the players perspective point (center of screen). I'd like to draw segments with the mouse and by moving the mouse but not have it orbit around the "player's" restricted view. I think with some improvements on that end the conkit will have more potential.

In reality its the same sort of Segment system as Creator Classic used....

Reloaded could do that



PS.. Thanks xplosys !

All of this discussion raises the question: why not simply incorporate the FPSC Classic code (for creating levels) in FPSCR?

I don't think its a simple as that ...But !!
I don't see why a segment creator like the FPSC Toolbox could not be created and just saved as simple .X models instead of the old format...
That would be a pretty handy tool

If we could simply use Mixamo Fuse or Poser Pro Game Dev with FPSCR then there would be no need for a character creation kit - or we would use a conkit to change clothes and guns, but in order to make a game your own, you need your very own custom rigged models - good guys, bad guys and other animals and characters that make up your storybook world.



Otherwise, it should be called FPS Shoot the Terrorists Creator Reloaded.



Using FPSC Classic works well as a inside level editor - or use/create a plugin kit and use SNAP TO GRID (or hopefully in the future - SNAP TO OBJECT) to 'assemble' inside structures.



I really hope they release everything in parallel - STEAM release and non-STEAM release at the same time. I will not be using FPSCR with STEAM at all.



Mike

I could talk at length about poser models which require a separate games license, also the issues with decimating these meshes for games use. There is also the issue with not all models being covered and the amount of time and money to get permission from third party creators, which the game license doesn't cover. In fact the only models you can be sure of being covered are those which ship with Poser.

Mixamo isn't cheap either, if you want to use Poser 'game license' products then that's fine but be aware of the restrictions before tossing anything into your game, if TGC can integrate their own character creator then it can only benefit their users who won't have to be tracking down all the model creators to seek permissions for use. Smith Micro are in fact selling you a donkey disguised as a racehorse with this 'games license' since they know full well that over 99% of available content isn't covered by it.

There are no shortcuts and TGC are doing the right thing trying to integrate their own easy tool kit. This topic is a big one with all game engines particularly Unity, where users seem to think they can take any model from the Poser/Daz store and freely drop it in their games.



This all becomes even more relevant if you consider the young uninformed user base and the fact that TGC are on thin ice with games released which contain unlicensed media onto Steam servers using their product.



On the subject of the conkit I reckon it would have benefited TGC to build upon the old segment method which was the best feature of Classic FPSC. Instead they appear to have started at the opposite end and will have to work their way backwards to get there.

Cosmic Prophet has shown just what awesome stuff could be done...

His Sci-Fi pack uses a segment system so its not at all out of the question....We just need a tool to build them with

We already have this tool it is called 'snap to grid' if you mean the tool to to build the segments then any modeling program will do the job. The quickest and easiest way to solve this would be to add a unit snap for height so floor levels can be built.

The only great addition I see so far with the conkit is the ability to 'combine' and collapse meshes with textures into a single model and without the height alignment the problem of multi floor levels is still there, they would be better to stick with primitive brushes for simple builds, like other engines do and leave the complex stuff to actual modelers, this may sound arrogant but I fail to see how a user who cant model is suddenly going to be able to create complex structures using the conkit, at best they may be able to 'combine' already available meshes. in which case they really need 'snap to vertex or object' to align these structures in the editor.



These snap features are what they should be concentrating on instead of floundering around with an in-game modeling app. You would be seeing far more indoor scenes right now if they had this.

This was asked for months ago when Bisella was creating his Construction Kit...
Lee said it was a great idea and said he would add it to the list.... But where on the list he did not mention ?

It is such a minor but necessary feature I am astounded it has been ignored for so long. It is the biggest drawback this product has is fact that objects drop to terrain after you spend a tedious amount of time getting them to a height required they need to be 'snapped' to height and if I want to come back and align any further entities to this height I shouldn't have to go through the whole process again with the risk they will all drop to the floor if I make any kind of change to the terrain, it very frustrating.

a snap to height would make life easier, a combo of the b and pg up/down buttons really should of been done by now.



yeah, I have my doubts on if I be a good user of the conkit tbh. after all im not a builder of houses or an architech.. lol
and from looking at the vids of conkit it is currently or was currently very limited looking for complex structures, by which I mean very square and diagonal no curves or anything. not sure whats planned for it later on, when its being used ect more, or even whats possible to make it do tbh. is the guy making it able to get it to make things we would think complex even? is he a buildings designer or have a indepth understanding of all the parts and styles required who knows lol. the hope is when finally ready and done its so easy to use for any purpose I hope user skill at modelling wont be an issue... time will tell I guess

To be fair any of the pros out there will probably build their assets in blender etc.... I know I would if I could get to grips with the damn thing
Also I predict one of the top questions on steam will be .. "Can I import my own models" so on that basis I feel the conkit for beginners is great and covers the other top question " Can I build structures in Reloaded ".

But as you say Rolfy .... Snap to height should be there for custom modelling

Just a little additional detail, I know the conkit itself is planned to use 'snap to vertex' and some users may be thinking "Well I can build the entire building or whatever large structure and don't need to align it all in editor" the lightmapper will not handle entity's over 10,000 faces so at some point 'snap' in x,y,z or vertex is going to be needed in the editor to piece your creations together. I also dread to think how collision will be handled with huge overly complex 'collapsed' meshes as well. Not to mention loss of poly and texture detail if users were to throw the kitchen sink at it.

Also I am unsure that these structures will include the normal and spec maps in the equation and output those as well as a diffuse 'Atlas' for the model. (the lightmapper will currently break down a model into 'parts' if multi textured and handle larger face counts that way, but you lose shader effects with this). All things that need to be considered before getting too carried away with the idea.



It is not, I think, a solve all solution for those who don't want to or cannot model, it will be a great feature but there are simpler things to concentrate on before this which would be of greater benefit. There are also things being introduced all the time to the engine which may affect its use and performance, I think users need to be aware of this as it may be sometime before it is 'usable' as a serious tool for building your levels.



Of course all this is just my own opinion based on my own limited knowledge and experience with Reloaded as it is now, Lee and co may know differently or have plans I am not aware of.

Rolfy made good points about the pitfalls and financial repercussions of licensing out third party tools. However, it would be nice if Character Creator would still follow in the same footsteps as those tools you mentioned. It appears Character Creator will only contain a bank of prebuilt heads and bodies that can be mixed and matched with no further customization. Ideally we will be able to select a preset head and then manually adjust parameters including nose and mouth size, eye distance, forehead length, etc. Same with body to adjust weight and overall build. As it is, if we have 8 heads and 8 bodies there will only be a maximum of 64 possible characters so games will still seem awfully repetitive if using the toolset provided. To allow for creation of truly unique characters per game will require substantial more capabilities of Character Creator.

OR



The give us a preset rigged humanoid and a preset rigged quadraped (horse, dog, etc) and we can then load that into our 3D software and customize it much further.



There is also MakeHuman - which is 100% free to use in anything you wish, but is only able to create humans.



Also, Reallusion iClone allows for characters created to be used in games when you buy the game distribution license and gives you the tools (along with their Pipeline product) to create a very large quantity of different characters, monsters, etc. It also lets you animate said rigged characters. We just need to know if we can import these models intact with rigging and animations.



Anything you buy on Mixamo includes the usage in your own games (but you have to have a subscription plan, I believe).



The Poser Game Dev product comes with a 6GB library that allows you to create a massive array of humans, animals and monsters and includes amazing tech to create textures and other clothes - and all of it is usable in your own games. Just don't buy anything else in their catalog outside of the Gamedev library expecting to use it in your own games. However, there is enough customization to allow for a large array of your very own bipeds and quadrapeds.



So, these tools CAN be used in your own games - you are BUYING the rights to use them in your games with the added expense of the product and in the case of Fuse, the subscription.



Just don't buy/download indiscriminately off Daz, Poser, iClone and other such libraries and think you can use them in games - those are for 3D scenes for animation or pictures. However, using software bought specifically for creating characters for games includes the license to use what you make with their software and included library in your games - just don't stray from the built-in library unless you made the texture/prop yourself or bought it along with a game distribution license, which Reallusion allows you to with their props/objects.



Mike

I am sure artists around here will add to any library of assets for both character and construction kits



I merely wanted to point out the fact that poser content is not exactly free to use in your games as some may get the wrong idea, I see now that what you are asking for is an importer for models created in the game dev creator tools. Making new content using bits of unlicensed content doesn't count for anything.

All the same I always thought the Poser game dev kit was a separate product which didn't actually come with shipped content, will have to look at it again to be sure it's been a while and not something I had any interest in at the time it was developed. Their license was very misleading last time I looked and a few horror stories with Unity users falling into the trap when releasing games publicly.



All the same poser content tends to be way over the top with poly counts and decimating these meshes can be horrible at best, so if you want to use their dev kit get a trial before even thinking of forking out cash for it and read their licensing very carefully for both Poser and the dev kit.

Here is the product - pricey, but that's the point - it's expensive because you CAN use it in games:

http://my.smithmicro.com/poser-pro-game-dev.html

Mike

Just looking at the 'smart' poly reduction I can tell it still isn't reduced enough for games (that hand looks like it would still weigh in over 1,000 faces never mind the rest of the character, and the mesh would not have good deformation for animation if further reduced. Don't get me wrong I am not hitting on this product exclusively, most mesh decimation will do the same awful job and make the same claims. It might be good enough for a static model but not for an animated character....... it is up to the individual but personally I wouldn't use it,

It is best to start low poly from scratch when creating game characters rather than looking for shortcuts by decimating bloated meshes never intended for game use, just my own opinion, but hey!...if it works for you then go with it



On the other hand as it is a game product the actual media content provided with it may be created low poly exclusively to work as game ready models, which will be fine if you have a use for these and you can create unique content with them, otherwise you are back to square one with the same generic media everyone else is using in their games. Makehuman mesh as I remember is also high poly but again I may be out of the loop as far as the product goes.

I agree. Consider the video I uploaded above about Oblivion level building. I just want to be able to properly snap things together than I won't need the conkit. I really am not comfortable in the F9 editing mode. I don't use it. I've explained why earlier too.







I do intent too.

You are not alone when it comes to NOT using F9 for editing .
Lance

I tried the F9 editing mode and not only was it clunky, at best, but it only seemed to work with terrain editing. I could not seem to edit any entities/props/objects.

It was very unintuitive and downright painful to use. I'll likely never use it again ... on purpose.

For me, I need multiple angles in the editor for proper placement, terrain editing, etc.

Mike

Have to admit F9 doesn't work for me either..... Properties for tweaking and adjusting a model is ok in 3D but even that could be improved.
But I do like the top down for the basics ...

pan, rotate and tilt camera all must haves for top down view editing imo, though I kinda like the 3d mode for some things, its easier to see how deep a ditch or pond is for example, and better for small hills and sometimes placing things (not often though) I find the lack of ability to pick up an entity in 3d mode annoying, and don't get me started on the almost total lack of ability to rotate on more than 1 axis in 3d lol..
properties is about the best of both worlds so far for fine tuning placings for like roads and such no idea now I think about it if rotating with the 1-6 keys does anything will have to look and see now lol, but would be nice to have multi axis rotation in the properties panel.