I find this all the time

Dave

I agree with some things need to be read (coding etc) but making models would be very difficult without pictures or videos to follow, the video tutorials I made would not be easy to follow if I had typed it all out instead of actually showing how to do something, and yes a lot can be said for reference manuals

Probably what it boils down to is that teaching is as much a skill as anything else, some people are good at it and others aren't.

Those videos of lees weren't really tutorials, they were live streams, so they tended to drag on a bit because of the community discussions that were going on in the chats. If they had been prerecorded tutorials they would have been much shorter and more focused.

Still not conducive to future reference though.

I have received my copy. I think it's really well done. It's my new bible.

I have a couple of questions:

On the back cover it mentions custom assets included. Does this refer to the Lua code snippets or something more?;
The back cover also mentions a Day & Night & weather script created by BAG. Does anyone know where this can be obtained?

Thanks.

The book doesn't mention it? Usually they should mention it in the Introduction or if it is an example then go to that section of the book that explain it.

Regarding video vs book. I think there are good and bad examples for both.
What I do like about videos is that even if the author don't want to explain something, you can spot it on the video while in text they simply don't even mention it and you can just look out on the window and try to read it again in case you missed it but if something is not there, it is not there.
It is just happened to me recently. I was reading a scripting tutorial for an other engine and I had no idea what to do with this instruction:



The engine might have changed since the tutorial was written for example and now it makes no sense. In a video I could spot exactly what I need to do and where should I write that piece of code.

Regarding GG tutorial videos, they are making new ones on Youtube now, next week they are getting in to some Blender staff. I'm actually enjoy watching the tutorials even though I don't really use GG. I'm looking forward to the Blender parts next week:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1q1e3Q9IKMk4nDlAGb_5Jg/videos

I just wish they would put them through QA before releasing them, haven't watched the second series because Evan made some very fundamental mistakes in the first series and even gave some misinformation (for example he said that snap mode was the same as grid mode but in smaller increments, when it's not, in snap mode you can snap models to other models that have similar faces).

Indeed, for official tutorials, they are quite sub-par in my opinion

Really? I did not pay attention to what he was saying, I just kind of enjoy watching as he designing the levels and demonstrate the tools how they work, what they do. Find it relaxing, no code, no logic, no brain damage just pure creativity, remind me for the good old days when I had lots of fun with FPSC. But yeah for official tutorials could be better I guess but I also don't really find any unofficial tutorials neither.

hi i purchased to book (kindle editon) this evenning on amazon.. waht can i do to reiceive the goodies?

Getting Back to the book I wish I could afford the Hardcopy I like real books (I'm old) but at $242 au its around the same as my Quarterly rates for me.

But I did manage to stretch to $88.40au from Kobo the cheapest I could find as I already have an account with them and a reader(the reader cost around $130 au on sale a couple of years back) so a bit like a real book.

Thanks for all the comments guys. It's really surprising to me to see so much activity on the book in general.

For the record, I have zero control of the price. When brought up to the publisher, they thanked me but said they will price it how they feel it should be priced.

The best I could do realistically was get the 20% off coupon and provide it to those interested.

From the standpoint of the book's contents, it really depends on what you are looking for. It is intended as a start to finish guide, so yes, there's a lot of basic stuff in there (the first 5 chapters, honestly, are very elementary for most users barring the part about building realistic terrains).

I'd say for advanced users you're going to find the most information in three basic sections:
1) My two chapters on optimization and testing, which comprise a large chunk of the book. There's really good info in there and a lot of time went into those two in particular.
2) The AI stuff. I'm an AI geek, going way back, so deconstructing the methods the AI used to navigate were important to me and finding workarounds using the existing system was also important. Topics such as floor zones, cover, waypoints are all covered.
3) The addendum/references. I literally went through every single error code I could find and put together a list of 'what could cause this', every Lua code is addressed (borrowing heavily from my previous work on the Lua API), every FPE file setting, every functional gunspec setting. This entire section probably comprised the last 25% of my work on the book before the dreaded proofing and typesetting stages.

There is a HUGE amount of info in those sections.

If you want a good example of my work, one chapter I started after the book finished that I just kind of let lie as a rough draft is available here:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/220802

I'll believe that you'll see that it's a fount of information that literally NO one knew before. Granted, I still have more to add to it, like the dang files and I still run into weird issues with it, but it's already gotten several users on their way towards custom projectile usage.

Thanks again to everyone for the interest. For the record, the bulk of the files (barring the cybernoir assets which are still being finalized with some finishing touches) are available here:

https://www.crcpress.com/An-Introduction-to-GameGuru/Messina/p/book/9781138612631

Specifically under 'additional resources'. And yes, I am aware that anyone can download those. Some of the resources were generously donated by members of the community. Some of them are my own resources available on the store. There's a ton of maps and the like to help you along though most of them are based around being able to reference them from the book

@Bolt Action Gaming
Quick question why is there a _MACOSX directory in the Resourses.zip file containing a copy of the content (making the zip twice as big).
Are you hinting at a Mac future for GG.

Update:
Had a few minutes to spare so I thought I would try to install the resource kit files.
Please Note I have not yet finish reading the book I am working thru the sections on Lua at the moment.

I make these observations
1) I already had the all the character_creator files I believe the files you supplied are part of the standard install(if they are different from the standard there are no warnings about overwriting the standard ones) .
2) The LOTGD directory containing zips inside the entitybank\cybernoir in the cybernoir_anim.zip is a little confusing as the "how to install" instructs to copy all the contents of the cybernoir_anim.zip strait into the files directory with no mention of it (if I had not checked I could would have missed the zips in the LOGTD directory.
3) the 2019skies.zip in the skies directory comes up as a corrupt archive.

also I note the text in the book implies these files will be organised in chapters and there would be an unfolding example can you give an eta on the rest of the resources and do you intend on releasing addendums covering any of the new stuff added/altered in gg since writing.

The book has corrected a few miss understandings I had and showed some stuff I completely missed already. It is very useful I'm glad I spent the money now.

Thank you

Rick aka Ratall