I remember that being a static Frame with a punch, pointed to the window entity with the shatter decal attached to it. Fire off in script with a no health then destroy and play decal, play sound.
We can probably do that now. Not the punch, but the dynamic window part should be very do able.

UPDATE MIGRATED FROM PAGE 7

Seeing how I just posted a larger update and how future ones will focus a bit more on issues I have copied it from the previous page. [/center]



UPDATE

If you followed this project since its inception you might have noticed that it went through several iterations of character designs.
Initially I was working with Errant AI's character collection. However, despite being very versatile they are barely usable as civilians and entirely geared towards military type games. Modifying them to look the part for anything else would look extraordinarily cheesy. I'll still use them as armed enemies as their animation pool is just perfect and there are enough masked variants to hide the difference in style with all the other characters.

Secondly I just used retextured versions of the stock Game Guru characters. These came with pretty neat scifi versions and with a few edits to the fantasy pack types I had neat cyberpunk characters. However, I did not want the characters in my game to be instantly recognizable as GG chars. I also found a lot of the civilian and military types to be very generic in style. I understand that this was made on purpose as GG should allow the user to have the ability to make a videogame in any genre he likes but it was rubbing me the wrong way. The androgynous looking female character variants did not strike my fancy either.

Apart from some testing with high poly variants that where all not for my skill level I finally came to a decision.

I own a lot of chars from arteria 3d. Especially the FPSC versions (generally perceived as low quality as it seems they have been made FPSC ready by brute force, quality be damned) have a pretty low polygon count. The retail versions from their store have LOD versions and look genuinely decent. They have an impressive animation pool and can reach quite decent quality. And with owning so many of them I can easily have enough variation going on in my levels without being too taxing on the engine.

Now, there is one extra point to using these. I enjoy salvaging and retexturing old media to my liking. These chars are perfect as they have barely seen any use in FPSC projects. Feel free to guess what pack they are from if you own them

And here are those I have ready so far:


She was pretty much ready to go out of the box and is one of the higher quality characters in acythians collection so far. Same level of detail as Shavra characters later in production.


Talking with Pirate Myke he suggested that I make a smoother version for an up close LOD level of this one. But alas, I came to the conclusion that I sacrifice a lot of quality on other chars and that no matter what I do, I don't have the necessary skills to significantly improve this one. SO this is what he looks like



A military type char I converted to look more like a street crook.



He looks more like a leather gimp than a char to be taken all too serious but I think he turned out neat, despite having some of the worst UV mapping I ever made. Ha!



The outfit turned out alright. I deal with the unfortunate face texture stretching later

LODS, POLYGONS AND ILLUSIONS

Even if I use Lowpoly characters. There are a lot of performance and stability related factors I have to keep in mind.
Naturally, no chars are active once a level starts. This goes without saying. But I have looked for more solutions to keeping those FPS high even with a lot of characters active. Here goes:

*Spawning (of course).
*LOD levels. Specifically a LOD stage that has no mesh (if this does not load properly I just make it a single polygon. I have to test this)
The idea is to completely remove the character mesh once the player is far away enough that he would not see the character anyway. This can be set very close for indoor levels but I need to avoid model popping.
* NPCs just standing or sitting around can be entities rather than characters that loop a single animation track. This alone should have a positive impact on overall framerate.
* Lower texture resolution.

A few more impressions from the city level.

Now that the character issue is solved, I need to figure what kind of vehicles are being used in this games universe. Cars are more or less obsolete in general but I also don't want to just copy something as iconic as blade runners flying vehicles. In the background of this screenshots you can see someone dealing in "vintage vehicle and machine parts".







Yeah, the lack of real time shadows is very rough but I hope the urban decay translates well anyway in these tunnels.







I am also working on a better fire effect to replace these stock decals.



And that is all I got for now. C&C welcome as always



-Wolf

I have planned that in every outdoor level the player should be able to enter 1 or 2 buildings. These interiors will be part of the same map and load instantly.

Now you might have noticed this sketchy looking dive in previous screenshots:





Yeah, you can enter it. However, I am not yet sure how much of this will be in the final version because I can not predict how it will perform once I have animated characters in it.

So here are a few shots without any chars or animated entities whatsoever. (I'll replace that tiling ceiling later)

Most importantly, you might notice that these shots are oddly "off", lack depth and seem floaty and just plain odd. This is because despite all the lightsources, not a single shadow is cast with GG's current dynamich lighting. While its cool that lights reflect in metal with the lates PBR update, having actual shadows would be a 100 times better.

It looks off, yeah, but I hope that with a little imagination you can tell what it would look like if we had dynamic shadows... like any other game engine currently available.












Thanks for viewing and feedback is always welcome.



-Wolf

I never no what to expect when you post shots from your game but they never disappoint, it will be interesting to see what happens when you add characters to the game.i hope it holds up because I’m looking forward to playing this .as you say it’s a shame about the lightning, shadows would bright it to life

Dave

Thanks!! I am confident that I release something to play for the whole community this year. As to exactly what, I can not predict.

Dont worry about silly things like AI and a story.
I just want to run around and admire all those amazing visuals

Thank you!
Given the time I need to develop this and my current machine being too weak to accurately test this I'll probably just release a "walking sim" demo for a few testers on discord. As I said, something playable this year, probably nothing major again.
Things will probably slow down a little now that its spring too



-Wolf

Supper nice characters and supper nice scenes,
Wolf, you always amazed us with your talent.

I keep meaning to write a comment in this thread but I keep getting distracted

Really enjoyed reading your detailed post about characters and performance optimisation, your retextured characters have come out great. Nice to hear some first-hand experience of Arteria 3D too because I've often looked at their models and wondered how they'd fair in GG. I heard somewhere that one of the reason GG characters slow things down is because they all have a hundred animations in the .X file, most of which are superfluous because the AI module only calls 10 or so of them. Perhaps another way of optimising your GG salvages would be to delete all the animations you don't need? I'm speculating here, I don't have much experience with Fragmotion's animation tools.

The screenshots of your level are, as ever, very impressive. Great texture work and nice use of colour that is at once both muted and grungy, yet (particularly in that bar) vibrant. You understand GG's limitations but are very skilled at working around them; even with GG's sucky lighting and lack of shadows, your areas look well-lit! That's an achievement in itself! Looks like there's also some great opportunities for some immersive sound design in this level too

AE

Hello!

@PCS Thank you!

Oh, its more "Jack of all trades, master of none" than real talent. I grew quite good I'd think at putting things together and salvaging from my media collection, making it all blend together, but the real talent are with all the people that made these things in the first place.
Take the weapons for example. Sure, they have my visual style to them, some are my own models but at the end of the day they are 85% Errant AI's work.
If I where to make a game from scratch it would be pretty pathetic, I am sure, but here with GG its always built upon community progress.

@Avenging Eagle: Thank you!

Really well, their stuff is versatile enough that I got most running in FPSC, but you will need to factor in a lot of tinkering. If you where to use unity you could just drag them in though.

Thats right. GG is actually really underpriced if you where to look at these characters like an asset pack or "raw material". Its commendable that they come with tons of animations but its true that it bogs down GG when they are not removed in a practical sense. I'll try to remove animations that are not used for my characters, I had success with that whenever I use a character like an NPC that idles and loops one animation, but I have yet to see how it fairs for actual characters that have to source several animations.

You did not miss much, its really inconvenient



Thank you! Thats really what I wanted to invoke too. There is a lot of consideration in how things look in this game and I am glad to see when people notice



Thanks, I really appreciate that. In fact I'd be working a little on this every day if the lack of actual lighting wasn't so disappointing.



Haha! Yes. I recorded a full soundtrack already but I'll mostly rely on ambient soundscapes later on. I just hope I'll get to that phase. I mean, I am an optimist but its glaringly obvious that GG's future is not particularly secure.



-Wolf

Hey folks.

Now, some of you might know already that I have jumped the Game Guru ship and am using Unity now.
Once I mastered the engine, this project will continue... I have already imported all my media and rewrote the GDD to incorporate all the new possibilities.
If you want to follow the project you can do this on IndieDB or on my Website.

You can read all about my decision and experience using unity so far here.

Now, I am not going to lock this thread as I find it to hold quite a lot of Game Guru work and screenshots that I find worth sharing but I obviously can no longer update it with progress of the game, as the game is now running on a different engine.

Cheers!



-Wolf

I'm doing the same (following a Udemy course which is very good), but i'm not getting on very well with it, the controls when placing objects are way too clunky, when you rotate in the main view it doesn't feel like there's a focus for the rotation and your view just goes all over the place, trying to rotate around a placed entity is almost impossible without micro adjusting.

I'm having more of a learning-by-doing approach to it but I hear Udemy courses are quite good.
Hmm! I haven't had the issue yet. To be honest I really like how entity placment works in the engine. I assume you have familiarized yourself with the hotkey commands?



-Wolf

Wolf, I enjoyed reading your blog post about your experiences with Unity. I've often found myself contemplating a move, and you've helped allay some of my suspicions about jumping ship. Not quite ready to do it just yet, but your post gives me confidence that it isn't beyond my capabilities.

AE

If you want to try a Udemy course, i can't recommend BenTristem enough, all of his courses are top notch, and his unity courses are so easy to follow, and most of his courses are on sale right now:

https://www.udemy.com/user/bentristem/?key=taught_courses&taught_courses=1

@Avenging Eagle: Well, I am certain that you would have a good time using a "bigger" engine given your skill set. I'd guarantee it even.

I mean when it comes down to it we have a fun an interesting hobby, sure! BUT we also want our games to be played, to run and to be enjoyed. I have gotten new hardware recently and was pretty stoked to see all the games I've made on a big screen and on highest settings.
I was shocked to see that some of my FPSCreator games hold up better than my GG test games. (albeit not amazingly )

Now, I've made a lot of questionable design choices here and there and the terrible grammar in my old games is especially cringeworthy but nothing was as irritating to me as GG's obvious flaws. Now you must know that I never saw my levels on highest before, only as a 4 fps slide show where I was taking screenshots. Playing them now in full HD and really getting a feel for the level I must say that the super artifacty rendering in older games like Redacted and Redacted² is plain ugly. I am not tooting my own horn here but I really feel like these games where well designed visually, its really GG's technicalities that render them so "crusty". Add to that the instability, it took me ages to get redacted² to run and redacted1 gave me a few run time errors at first as well. Its certainly a grim reality that the games we make and want to enjoy every now and then will likely not run in the future. We had this same issue with many really fine FPSC games.

Back then I was astonished that I could make larger maps and have normal mapping at a time where that was the standard for years. For some reason I was convinced that games like Shavra and Acythian where the peak of my skill set. And even then I would still need to rely on a solution like GG to even get that far. I must have somehow decided that I don't have the talent to develop "proper" games when I tried UE3 back in 2011 and that somewhat decent GG games was the peak of my abilities.
Well I was wrong, I can do a lot more and I am confident that at least visually my games can resemble studio products in the future and so can yours.

Thanks Belidos for the link! Certainly great value for the price!

Glad to see you're moving on to an engine that will really allow you to harness your talents and show them to the public.

A LOT of people fear learning a new engine like Unity. But the fact is, the time you spend on work-arounds with GG will be more than time spent learning Unity. There's an abundance of resources for Unity. You really don't have to learn how to program, get a visual scripting editor like Playmaker and you're set. Heck there are even free ones out there.

Unity + Playmaker will make your game dev dreams come true. I jumped ship months ago and haven't looked back.

Hi Wolf, I was kind of sad you have moved from GG as I (selfishly) really enjoyed seeing your visual and game designs here. I also learnt loads from you over the years.

I do totally understand why and I can see the shackles are off now with your new choice so I bet you will find it amazing.

I’m going through another despair period with GG (just found another big issue and am tired of fixing stuff) so may follow you down the road

Cheers.

@Landman: Thank you! I feel the same.

@Cybernescence Thank you, that means a lot coming from you!

Software like FPSCreator or Game Guru are great learning experiences. I won't knock the software for beginners because I feel that if you can make something decent in GG you should be able to quickly adjust to a different engine.

You however have the skills, experience and dedication that I strongly feel like your talents be better put to use in something with more potential.



-Wolf

In the words of David soul

Don't give up on us baby!

Dodgy 70s song from starsky n hutch fame
Anyway don't give up on what we got don't let go wolf you done a lot. We got a lot of world's between us. Hang on hang on hang to what we've got.. Another song. Frankie valley

Come back and stay for good this time guys
Paul Young

Anyway don't give up your works are amazing

Im still working on 2 GG projects... which i will finish this year.
But well, Unity is already installed. I already played around with some demos, the editor is nice.

to be honest you guys have me intrigued with unity and maybe i should give it a little test run. if i dabble in both i can then see if gg is procrastinating as it has pretty much for 3 years, little bits here and there getting done. i understand the reasons and i think that maybe it is time to have a look at something that can work a treat but i aint finished with gg just yet but it rteally has got to advance this year as it is losing ground on the entire world and dated hard to run games aint a good thing. jury is out

OMG!!!!!!!! m8 sci fi I totally love your sci fi stuff (well your fantasy stuff as well), gimmie your graphics card lol totally fantastic screenies m8. hey but I would expect nothing less as your work always totally inspires me! Beautiful levels

@Science Boy: Sure! Give it a whirl, maybe you like it. Also I didn't give up, just changed the tool I'm using

@Honkeyboy: Thank you! haha, well all GG screens in here where taken from a puny office laptop. I finally had the spare cash to upgrade recently but before that I mostly saw my games on highest as a slide show when I was taking screenshots.



-Wolf

You going to Unity..... I rather say nothing.
But you work , .. it is still an inspiration to me.


Ps( i Need the Big Wolf to look over my shoulder so every now and then. )

U switch to unity?I hope its not a "goodbye forewer", u will still post some models here and review other peoples projects?

@Wolf - just read your blog. Wow!!

Always thought your work as displayed here is amazing, but honestly the screenies from Unity - just awesome - there is simply no comparison.

Sure makes the old horse looked dated!!

Just a shame TGC don't see the potential of GG and just put all their effort into it.
Really makes one wonder why we are here.

Reliquia....

That settles it then 2 versions of twin worlds unity and gg.

And i will see which works kut the best
Im media ready just the animations and the way it works i guess. If ibwait around anymore for basics i may be dead before its sorted. 7 years in and still a lot to do. But i will persevere and keep juggling both

Agree, seems like lot of work, wating 4 more

Hello!

Thanks for the kind words!

While I don't actively use GG for now, I'll remain in the community. Its one of the best game dev communities out there, even though I am saddened to see that, a few promising projects aside, its been very quiet lately.

Those who want to see some more work from that prototype shown earlier can click here.

The pictures on that link , is brilliant

Thank you PCS!

Also, a few samples from the soundtrack can be heard here. (timestamps in the description)

Amazing screenshots... Maybe one day, I get to play this... just brilliant.

Gotta say looming pretty pro wolf

Thanks guys!

Wow what a world - great stuff !!

Great world Wolf.

That is a pretty believable landscape happening there.

OldFlak....

Thanks guys! It took me a while to get used to outdoor level design, after doing interiors only prior for years, but I feel pretty comfortable making these now.

i agree wolf i been stuck indoors for far too long i kinda need to get out into the wilds again, when you gonna drop one of your magnificent games on us bro? there are some amazing talents around but you really are at the top of your game, and cybernescence too too games i will also buy fear not on that and i will back you on steam if any little cant swear start on your games

Oh thanks a lot!!



If you mean a game guru game, then I'd say early 2020. however, if you want to play any new game I made, you can play this:

Amytric Pulse : Operation Euridike

It takes place in the same SF universe, albeit a few decades before the story of Acythian



-Wolf

Just finished up playing and reviewing Amytric Pulse (over on the TGC forums showcase thread). It's great to see these test levels in action after so many enticing screenshots. They look and sound great, very atmospheric as always, I actually prefer the swamp with PBR override switched off; the rocks look more unified. Interesting approach to design your game world first before adding any gameplay elements to it, I would have expected the two to go hand-in-hand. Or maybe you're just saving the gameplay for later...

Anyway, good job - hope to see more in the future!

AE

Thank you AE!! I gave you a reply. Let me just reiterate how much I value your feedback



Me too, and my future attempts with GG will ignore PBR entirely. I'm just not fond of its implementation.



If you are interested, my work flow is this:


The swamp level there was an introductory level to Acythian. There would be a short intro sequence with a cryptic monologue. You'd meet a hermit in the small bunker area that allows you to sell various scrap you can find throughout the map for better gear and ammo but he also gives you an optional quest that would lead to that abandoned building there. (here the gameplay was an experimental idea akin to the shalebridge cradle in thief or the hotel in vampires: the masquerade bloodlines. I have never gotten to do it as I was never quite happy with that level.) The only thing that I ever implemented was the hermit character but I took him out for the vid because he kept spawning with a second set of hair hovering above him.



Thanks and: soon! Got a bit more time on my hands now which I am glad for.



-Wolf

Its been a while since I put up a proper upgrade and you are aware that I was learning Unity and also made a fun simple shooter in GG predecessor. Yet, inspired by Duchenkuke's latest achievments, I gave GG another spin to see what has changed, look at that draw call optimizer and try to see how my scenes look in it now.

Naturally, if you know me, my first order of business was to turn off the pbroverride.

Now, I must say, the performance has dramatically improved. Other issues I have with the software (you know the big one) still persist.

Here are the results: I had a short spin off episode in mind but I will probably shelve the idea. However, with rumors of a decent upgrade coming soon. I might very well just pick up Acythian again where I left it, provided that upgrade is substantial. Thats enough from me for now, please let me know what you think!

























As always, thanks for taking the time to check by



-Wolf

Gotta say WOW. And im loving your rocks and stones wolf very well done.

Sb

Thanks!! I can't take credit for those, they are part of a unity pack I grabbed and dare I say: GG's asset import pipeline makes it laughably easy to import assets from other engines. I am surprised so few people do it.

You see: I was taking a look at current gen games... splendid landscapes and I noticed: If you take the trees/foliage from older games all the way back to the mid 2000s. (Oblivion for example) and render them in a modern engine, they wouldnt look dated or out of place. Yet one thing has changed a lot since then: Rocks and topographie. Now I am in no way claiming my stuff comes even remotely close to modern games... but good rocks can really enhance an outdoor scene so I started importing them.



-Wolf

These recent screens and the back alley ones a page or so back look super good. The smoothing on the broken overpass is killing me but otherwise really nice.

Thank you! Means a lot coming from ya.
Hehe! Ah well, I think the overpass does more effectively than it does badly. Its just such an iconic structure that radiates doom and gloom
I think I have worse technical sins in my games than this

Yey you’re back ...

Looks pretty !

Cheers.

Thank you! Ah well, you can check out...but you can never really leave