I'm interested in using GameGuru as a 3D art program to create comics. I think it has a lot of potential for this, since you can create all sorts of backgrounds and do a lot to control the lighting, etc., but I'm not sure what would be the best way to make the characters work. I'm hoping I can create characters in another program, import them into GG and then pose them in the program, but I don't know how I'd do that. Would I have to create and pose the characters in another program and them import them into GG? If so that'd be really awkward, because it sounds like for every new pose I'd have to pose the character in that other program and then import them into GG again. (Can you even import characters into GG with a custom pose, a custom facial expression, etc.?) Maybe I could take screen grabs of a character using a pre-set animation, capturing them mid-pose, but the animations in GG are pretty limited and it would be hard to tell a story with them. Maybe I could use GG purely for environments, create and pose the characters in another program and then superimpose them on the GG backgrounds, but I'm really hoping there'd be a way to do it all at once. I think I'd gain a lot from being able to pose and light the characters, etc., all in one program.

This is something I have high hopes for, and I'll be very thankful for any advice!

You would either have to make lots of the same character with different poses and place whichever one you need at the time, or create one character with each pose as a single animation frame, then create a script so you can choose which frame to show.

Either way you would need to do a majority of the work in a modelling program first.

To be honest your best bet is to use software that is designed for scene rendering, things like Daz Studio (that's the only one i know the name of myself, there are more and much better), or you could use a modelling software like blender to create scenes and render the images out from there. That's what those kinds of things are designed for.

You could do it in a game engine, but it would be far more work than using software that is designed for that task, and you would need to use external programs anyway.

A user named Beanz did create this using GameGuru Backdrops with illustrations added which I thought was genius .. Not sure if its the same sort of thing you want to do though
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J1VZRYC

Here is the link to Beanz's thread if its of any interest to you .
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220115

I would say GG is better for creating backgrounds than it would be for using it to pose your characters for the shots.

I used to used Terragen for something similar, but GG has improved a lot to look almost as good as Terragen for 3d background creation.

I did it using fpsc classic. Just made a character in in many different poses. imported them into fpsc. took a screen shot. edited it in a video program so i could add voices. just takes a bit of planning.

Fragmotion will make sprite sheets of animated characters.

If you just want a story teller then you could use sprites.



Create the cover of the book, animate the pages when they change, and so on.

Well, that's disappointing. I might still see if I can figure something out but it doesn't seem promising at all.

3com, I was looking for a way to use 3D characters, not for a viewer. But you have great taste in comics! Justin Green, Charles Burns, Crumb... and who's the artist for the page after Crumb? I don't recognize them.

@ MindiFlyth

David Lapham

are you wanting to make 3d scenes of guru to view as a story?
if you explain and give examples maybe it is possible, you can pose unanimated characters and take screen shots and mess with the snapshot, or if you want speech bubbles next to the character and wander between the still scene then that is possible too, if you give us what you want we can give better directioin

It would be entirely possible, screenshots are random pages from a graphic novel I was doing some ten years back in 3dsmax (never completed as I moved to the States). One of the reasons I started looking at FPSC was to find quicker and easier ways to do these among other kind of visual presentations. Instead I got sucked into designing media for game making
If you were just wanting to capture screenshots then static figures posed and exported from the likes of Poser or Daz without need for rigging or worrying about fps would work just fine.
The problem you might have is screen capture resolution compared to render if you intend to go to print, if it is merely for web or fun then you should be okay.

@Rolfy ..
So Cool

Sorry, I wasn't really assuming people would get back to me so I didn't check this thread for a few days! Yes, science boy, my plan would be to do mostly online comics using screengrabs of 3D characters in a GG environment, kind of like the (very impressive) work Rolfy posted.

So, Rolfy, are you saying I'd have to pose the characters in a program like Poser or Daz and then import those pre-posed figures into GG? Would I then have to do that for every panel, pre-posing the same character and then importing it with that single pose?

It would be the simplest and quickest way, you'll have to pose them whatever, so might as well do it in another program. Exporting to .obj will retain the the pose and exclude the rigging and you can then convert to fbx for import to GG. Expect problems if you use Daz or Poser figures though since these can use too many materials for GG to handle. Probably best to use premade and rigged character models such as those from stock and retexture to suit, I do remember however that there is a script to run through character animations provided with GG (Not sure if you can pause per frame using this though) but there is a bunch of animations not used that might suit the purpose such as sitting etc.
If the script doesn't pause per frame then maybe one of the kind scripters could enable this for you.

The script is called ai_viewanimations.lua
It is located in the scriptbank folder.
Assign it to a character and run test game. Walk up to the character and hold the shift key and press the left mouse button to reverse animations and right mouse button to forward animation. The frame numbers are listed at the bottom of the screen.

Here is a youtube link for a cut scene, for a game i worked on. Game was made with fpsc classic. I just posed the characters in fragmotion. Imported the static mesh into the game. Took screen shots. quick edit. and here we go. Not to difficult.

WARNING: contains graphic language. Should not be viewed by youngins.
Remove link is this is too offencive.

https://youtu.be/BHSPwHrLrQo