Here is the recording of the live broadcast that went out to the GameGuru community, and it was great to get plenty of watchers and questions, even though we wrong-footed you on when you expected the next broadcast. Here it is again:


I also had time to answer some questions live, so those and the rest of the answers you can find below:

Q> Just curious will GGmax work with the TGC store too?
A> Yes there is a FILE menu item called Download Store Items which will grab your store-bought content and add it to your Entity Library.

Q> Will VR functionality have limitations upon release? Currently, I did not see a way to change weapons, reload in WMR. Is it because we will need to code lua scripting for this?
A> No need to code that. We intend to add weapon switching and reloading functionality to the VR experience, in addition to any other aspects you will need to complete the game without removing the headset.

Q> I still cannot get VR on my Quest even though I am familiar with Link. Am I missing something or is it just not working at the moment.
A> We will support Quest via the Oculus Link, it is likely it has been temporarily broken in the alpha build. It will work find in the betas.

Q> We cant hear you!!
A> Sorry for that, my YouTube Star Skills need some work! Might need to do some debugging on 'how to use the broadcast sound mixer'!

Q> Wonder if we will have in-game options in the beta for music volume?
A> Yes in standalone in-game menu you can change the music and sound volumes.

Q> Is there no AO between the floors and the walls which don't look connected?
A> The gap is related to when shadows start and stop casting, we will be looking to make sure shadows have the controls you need.

Q> Is the release date on 30 Sept still actual?
A> Yes we are still aiming for a release on that date but it will be an uphill charge!

Q> ​Everything we have already bought from the game creator store will be usable in Max?
A> It will depend on whether the asset conforms to the slight differences of how MAX loads in models and textures. There are some gotchas we have already found such as 24-bit DDS textures, but we have added a converter program to hopefully help with some of those migration woes.

Q> ​Will there be health and enemy ai implemented in this beta?
A> Yes the enemy characters and combat AI will be functional in the beta.

Q> ​This is a presentation of GG Max which is 64 bit?
A> Yes GameGuru MAX is 64-bit and now installs to the correct Program Files area.

Q> Can we load in our own HDRI skies?
A> There are no plans to support HDRI skies for release, but if you send us a sample sky in that format we can check it out!

Q> ​Hello, is there a driving system ingame, like cars?
A> There are no plans to add vehicles or driving systems in MAX for release.

Q> ​With dynamic LUA, will checkboxes be possible? for values of 0 and 1?
A> No plans to expand the current dynamic LUA gadgets for release, but it is a good idea and should happen quickly after release.

Q> ​How will we attach levels together to make a final game?
A> You will enter the name of the secondary levels into the IFUSED field on the WINZONE marker, and when the player enters that zone, the level specified is loaded.

Q. Does the tesselation feature work currently in the visual settings I don't see any difference when I click it?
A> Tesselation does not currently work in the alpha build you are using.

Q> Will we have wind zones to make trees etc. move?
A> There are no plans to add wind zones or trees that respond to wind strength and direction. You could create this yourself however with 3D models, animation, and scripting.

Q> Will TTP be available at any time in Max?
A> There are no plans to support Third Person Perspective for MAX on release, though we are interested in learning if this is a key feature the community want us to focus on, or whether we continue our focus on polishing the first-person experience for non-VR and VR games.

Q> ​In a FPS game, can you load a player character so with reflections/mirrors and what not you can see your character?
A> No plans to add mirrors which can reflect the player character in MAX.

Q> Why does max install to Program files [86] rather than Just program files being 64bit?
A> In the next build it will install to the correct Program Files area.

Q> ​Physics in Max?
A> Yes you have physics simulations in GameGuru MAX for boxes, polygons, cylinders, and spheres.

with terrain added hopefully

Sadly I won't be able to catch it live but I will watch it after work. Thanks Lee & Co.

You shouldn't use tik-tok they farm your data

@Lee - I should finally to decide if buy ggx or not, 3 questions about the new engine please
- How to create a branching dialogue system in which player can choose from a set of answers to give to the npc he's talking with (and the following npc's replica and so on)?
- Is it possible to import assets purchased from turbosquid?
- Is there a night/day cycle?
Thanks

P.s. about first question, I forgot to say that I mean without coding, using dynamic lua via editor

@Petr Surtr
You could probably import some models from Turbosquid but you can do that with GG Classic already depending on the model. As for dialogue you would probably still need to script your own and a day night cycle may be possible via scripting now we have a movable sun.

You already can in GameGuru Classic, so you will be able to in GameGuru Max. However, as in classic, you will still have to write the scripts for it yourself.



Absolutely, otherwise it would be pretty pointless having an importer that handles FBX, GLTF, OBJ etc.



Agai, as above, not by default, you would have to script it yourself.



Dynamic LUA is not what you think it is. It is NOT any kind of automated scripted system that lets you hook things together visually.

Dynamic LUA simply means that you can, while writing a script, put flags in that script that tells GameGuru Max to allow the user to adjust the variables in that script via the properties UI, basically you can tweak the variables in the script you have written without having to edit the script again, but you have to write that script first. Nothing more.

I'm working in a QA dept. for over 20 years, to be honest, I have my doubts about the release date October 1st, 2020 (german release date on the Steam website).
2 weeks for a beta (alpha) version is not enough for this type of software (complex game engine). Or do you have a large internal testing team? End of October would be more realistic for the engine. Or there will be endless bugs in the engine and then a lot of negative reviews will follow on Steam. But maybe I'm wrong, I hope it

But yes, the visuals look good so far.

Btw. you should update the Steam page with more up to date screenshots. Then maybe more people add the product to their wishlist, then the product will climb up in the ranking..... then more and more people add it and so on... .. ... .. ....

Regardless when they release it, it will be buggy for 100%, to make it bug free they should release it in 2 years, classic is buggy until this day and its 7(?) years after release.

Sure, there will be bugs inside... but you could avoid a bug-festival And 2 weeks without a professional testing crew will be a bug-festival-release. even with a team, 2 weeks is not very much.

@MooKai - From what I understand, the release September 30/October 1 will still be a beta, so there should still be plenty of time for fixes and to come to an official release. In other words, the September 30/October 1 should be feature complete (as far as the initial release features are concerned), but still be a beta (unlike the alphas, which are missing features, like working terrain, etc.).

Beta is still an early release with bugs expected. Basically we are all the beta testers.
Clue is in the name

negative reviews on steam or wherever mean nothing if TGC gets a very stable/amazing engine at the end of the day. imho.
Of course, beta most likely will come with bugs, after all, it is an engine being building.
The official release will come with Santa as usual.

sorry, my fault... I've not seen the big letters on the steam page " Early Access "
I guess then the steam users will not complain too much, hopefully

"negative reviews on steam " do have an impact on sales.

@synchromesh @belidos thanks, I understood... so it's not for me (I hate to script)

I think you will find it tough though looking for an engine you do not need a script for at some point. If any at all.

Agreed. There are some that give you basic stuff, but even then, you still need to add stuff generally unless you are making a really simple game. Generally, the better an engine is at providing all the code behind the scenes, the more it is aimed at a specific game type.

When a game engine makes stuff available to you, it also makes it available to others, which is fine to take your first steps, but there will always come a time when you want more, and that is when you will need to add some extras if you want to make your game unique.

Hi,

I think it could be possible to reflect the player if the game was played in 3rd person mode view.
Test with GG Max Alpha 6.1 : EBE material (color only) used for that purpose.

Please note that the mesh "New Site.x" in the ebebank/builder" seems to have been created in a deprecated format not compatible to build the standalone game. Therefore I deleted that file there.
A few other adjustments are required to successfully create a standalone game; among them the replacement of some encrypted files by non encrypted ones.
I tested successfully Smart Packer Pro X to create a single encrypted .exe file for the standalone game.

That looks neat

Dave

Sweet effects. Happy Birthday September 21 2020

Hi,

Granada (Dave) and GubbyBlips, thank you for your comments

Please note that I am not a professional game designer.

Here are the links to two uploaded videos on Movavi Cloud :


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited a few hours later :
The UV map of my tubular structure was not good enough for the Wicked render engine and it explains the lack of uniformity of the PBR rendered texture.
I created a new mesh with a much better UV map as shown in this new screen capture :


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://cloud.movavi.com/show/d41YRih8qTEHQDmSgks6KelLyoA7MPct
http://cloud.movavi.com/show/szj6B4cA2LWkwTCGRoOPrHu7UiY0mDf8

The first one is a study of the collision in GG Max Alpha 6.1.

The second one shows a game that I created in the year 1999 with Microsoft Visual Studio (Basic language). It is the digital version of the game Avalam Bitaka (designed by Philippe Deweys - http://www.abstractgames.org/issue-18.html ). That project took me two months in my spare time.

Thanks for watching.

The physics in MAX is identical to Classic btw.

This is one of the best stress tests for physics / collision I have seen in quite a while. may I ask what your system specs were for this video?

@AmenMoses, interesting information. Thank you.

@Ertlov, I appreciate your comment and it inspired me to freely share that little project 'novempus' (simplified version) with this community.
Here is the link (secured Microsoft OneDrive) where it is available (approximately 15 MBytes), instructions for the installation are inclosed : https://1drv.ms/u/s!AjokN1FU3jK1kj1fpzNqLTKPklXB?e=nXs1gO (*1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(*1) I uploaded a new version of that project a few hours later :
- a) tubular mesh improved.
- b) the user's data are now enclosed in a dedicated folder 'novempus' to be placed beside the 'user' folder; in this way, you can easily manually remove that project installed in this path 'Documents\GameGuruApps\GameGuruMAX\Files\entitybank'.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


About the specifications of my OS and hardware :
Windows 10 Family 64 bits, processor x64

Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz
RAM : 16,0 GB

Graphic Chipset : Radeon RX 580 Series - Memory Size : 8192 MB
Memory Type : GDDR5 - Core Clock : 1366 MHz

Monitor LCD : Resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels