For those who missed the broadcast, here is the recording:


And here are the answers I could not get to in the live chat:

Q> Is there an alternative to the mouse scroll wheel? I can't use mine. Also, will mouse keys be supported?
A> There are no plans for mouse keys except left and right clicks, but the idea of a replacement shortcut for the wheel is interesting. Do you have a suggestion?

Q> When will the death animation for the enemies be fixed? They just keep twisting and floating away?
A> The shooter gameplay stuff is still quite a ways, but when we get to it the plan is to make sure characters can perform all the animations needed for great close and distance combat, so no more twisting and floating, and a much improved method of bringing in characters from third party stores and solutions too!

Q> In Max there are wind and snow i mean the last in terrain?
A> We will be providing rain, snow and wind, thunder and lightning. You should have quite a storm by the time you are done adding these!

Q> What version of fbx dose the importer use?
A> We will be supporting thr FBX versions that are preferred by ASSIMP, the import technology we will be using. We are also making small improvements too in order to make sure the FBX from major asset stores can be imported and configured for use in MAX.

Q> Logick System? Levers, Buttons?
A> These will be focused on further down the road when we do the Puzzle gameplay mechanics, but we plan to have a side variety of these game logic elements which you can use in any combination to create the systems you need for your game.

Q> And about heigthmaps?
A> There is still no plan to add a built in height map importer function for the terrain system, but we see it has advantages. Once we are underway with our revised terrain work (watch this space), we will have a better handle on how and where a height map import feature would work best.

Thanks everyone for your questions, and I look forward to answer more next week!

What's about the user providing heightmap files and GGMax generating terrain from these heightmap files?
Even users might provide texture files as well.

@Lee - With the Tab key clipping function, if the players selects and entity first, take the clipping level mid-way between the selected entity.

eg: if the entities base is at 500 units and the top is at 1000, then the software could calculate the tab clip point at 750 units. That way any adjustments using the scroll wheel etc would be very small.

Any thoughts.

Would it be too much trouble To give us am estimate for the release of v1. Measured Within years

Classic took 8 years and ran out of cash in 2 to 4 years

So can you give us a year it will surely be released by?

As in 2025

I don't think there is any point chasing a release date. It's obviously going to be done when it's done It would be nice to have it a little more functional before then though

You mentioned during the stream about the possibility of adding VR functionality (as it is) as like a developer tool. With the caveat that its not finished. You also said if that is something you are interested in, make a comment in the forum. I would love to see rudimentaty VR back in with the understanding its not in a near finished state. Just enjoy looking at what I create in VR. Thanks for considering.

@68chase. If I owned a VR helmet I would be the same. It would be a new and exciting way to view your creations A few things have been removed in the latest versions (as far as I can see) ; waypoints for example, used to be in, but if they are now there not exactly easy to spot. I think we are all looking forward to features being added into the mix.

Agreed!!
I was seriously thinking about investing in a VR set myself for this very reason, and then it was taken out, so that purchase is on hold for now.
But if it was put back developer tools - then I will be off to the store....

OldFlak....

please add ide or unite the appgame kit studio into a single environment or sub-environment

I also Agree with re-enabling VR in Dev Mode no matter how basic it is right now.
Last time it worked i tried the cellar Demo which looked really good. Plus Walking around in my Protascope Demo was like being sucked into my screen. Eerie but awesome
Its not about how optimised it is at the moment. Its all about checking stuff out in VR.
Im not usually one for asking for anything special but i really would like to mess about with this once again

Hi @GameGuru I have a question. The Engine MAX also imports objects or 3d static models, for example, it will take a long time and we can do it right away without needing the textures or not? I say this because in the Classic version of the Engine we had to do what I said above.

Now a more personal question, can I "run" the GameGuru Max engine with these specifications?
512 MB Video Card AMD
4 GB RAM
W10
Intel Core i3 Dual-Core 2.53

In relation to this, your page from TheGameCreators and Steam is confused, the specifications, please fix that. What I wanted to say is that they have different specifications.

Thank you and keep up the good work! And remember Quality over Quantity

Hi @GameGuru. And about lighting, I think it would be beneficial to have the light ray system; regarding NPC'S animations there should be facial animation to be more realistic and skeleton movement animation. The animations of both objects and vegetation should in some cases be able to be destroyed by having a system of its own. I also think that there should be a vehicle editor because, for example, when a certain type of game is fired at a vehicle it should start to deteriorate, the same for a particle editor but in the case of bullets. As for the character creator in the Max engine, can I import pre-created faces or even the entire body? Please I ask you to improve the NPC’s physics and their intelligence. I know I'm asking for too much but these, in my view, are essential in a modern engine like GameGuru Max. The last one I wanted to mention but I don't know if it's within your reach is the special effects like nuclear explosions. Thank you and I hope you understand my point of view.

I would say your specs are definitely on the low side. 4 gig of ram using win 10 in itself is bare minimum. The minimum spec GPU is a 960GTX, there's no way a 512MB video card is going to cut it I'm afraid. An I3 is also very low spec for game dev.

My system specs are below and I get about 30 fps with even a basic map with a few trees and a bit of grass. The GPU, a 970 is the main issue here. I'm hoping that will improve, as the card itself is not that bad with other engines, but it is what it is

It's not bad to develop with a low spec computer. PC games have scaling requirements, so it's actually really helpful to develop on a low end machine to make sure things stay stable for the entry-level players.

No, it's awful to develop on a low spec machine. Nice to have one to test the game, but to develop on, is a different kettle of fish No-one wants to have to sit waiting for things to compile when making stuff. My system is okay, but if I could get a newer CPU, more ram and a better GPU it would make things way less painful to work with in every way.

Agreed thats one thing that held GG back.
This time round its diving straight in with Windows 10 only and decent machine specs.

Hi @GameGuru Max I have a question related to the payment method to buy GameGuru Max. Sorry to be insistent but I am completely excited about this software. Can you pay with steam wallet or ATM and is there a possibility to add it, or not? Sorry to insist but I was watching on the forum now and there is a discussion about it. (https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/216540) Another question that is "bothering me" is whether there will be fire in the MAX version of the Engine, it was very good if it did. I am also grateful that someone replies to the post I posted before this one. Just a matter of personal lathe, can I use the engine normally with these specifications?

W10
AMD Ryzen 3500U Quad - Core
AMD Radeon Vega Graphics 8
8 GB RAM
512 GB SSD

Thank you and please answer me to these questions and the previous ones!

Literally a relative topic haha. If your computer is making you sit through lots of loading screens, that to me is a separate specific issue than the machine being low-spec. Low spec to me could mean running things smoothly at low settings. That's what I meant - using a machine that runs the game at its lowest intended settings, not using a machine that can't comfortably run things.

Even so, that's not how you want to develop your game. As was pointed out, sure, you want to TEST your game on a lower-spec system. But you really don't want to develop your game on it. When developing a game, you may have several different applications open - 3D modeling software, 2D art creation software, the game editor, and more. These all eat up resources. If your computer is of the "lowest intended settings" then it most likely will struggle when developing due to many factors.

From a 3D artist's perspective - I certainly don't want to bake high-res models down to low-res, creating normal maps, etc., on a lower-end system as it will just take an insane amount of time for each and every entity I need to bake. No. If I am going to develop a game, I am not going to do it on a low-end system, if I have any choice in the matter. Time is just as important a quantity to have as is the rest (coding, art content creation, etc.) and lower-end systems will just consume too much of it.

There isn't a game development house on the planet that chooses to develop a game on lower-spec systems. Test their game? Sure. Definitely. But develop? Nope.

heh. replace the 'on' with 'for', and see what happens.

Kinda like the terrain argument where we really don't want to quit TGC developing and provide a nice, pretty, and function rich terrain creation system, but sometimes we DO want to click a box to remove terrain or water from our own specific levels.

BTW, I agree the MAX shouldn't bend over backwards to cater to low, ancient specs. But it shouldn't either let bad code remain that is inefficient and slows things up unnecessarily. Having just recently been privy to a lower game-spec computer vs. a dinosaur from 123,456,789 BC has me convinced that better specs is really nice. And mine isn't even high end. (1650/ SSD) can do a lot comparably.

Literally matters what project you're working on and what's considered low spec. I personally find developing with the computer that matches the lowest recommended spec for my title to be fine. You must be able to imagine some game projects where this would be the case. Not everyone is doing what you think.
And notice I'm not saying development houses should make games differently. GG isn't the engine you'd be using to fit in when working in a development house ecosystem either.

...

[edit-double post- web issue?]

Yes it's possible, I am working on a very early editor that can now modify any height anywhere onthe terrain.
I'm waiting to see how terrain develops before I go any further with it. The pics below (not very exciting to look at), gives you an idea what can be done by manipulting the terrain height values. Every thing is automated. Unlike GG Classic, Blitzterrain is not used here i.e. my code does not use the BT plugin. This was quickly done in DBPro, but will end up in C+

Hi,

sorry if I missed it, but are there plans for Key Binding / Screen Resolution setup ingame?

Being able to set up the screen resolution is a good addition for test game and standalone build also (when it is added to max)

Essential for people using on MAX on a laptop, my new laptop (Asus VivoBook) runs Max pretty well, Ryzen 7 and Vega 10 graphics, 512Gb SSD, and gameguru classic runs like a dream on it as well, not the full 60fps plus sometimes, like on my main PC, but it is great for testing and grabbing screenshots I need.

@Tarkus1971 For devs yea, plus sprite adjusting is a pain atm. Changing desktop resolution to see if all sprites are OK would take months

And for players, its a great addition to let em setup their prefference.

@Medmatheus. Can't you just set your sprites size at the start of the script? Pretty sure GG uses a percentage system so should be fine for sprites in general. You can get it to fit any screen ratio by using -1 in the y size element.

That should make it half the width of the screen. The Y height should be automatic.

Just a little tip, I've done a lot of sprite based stuff in GG over the years

@DVader I tried that way, but didnt work for me (both of my games). It seems different resolutions mess up with size / positioning of sprites (they dont stretch / shrink properly, but still anchored to its original position).

Nevin project is an example of that:

https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/222256#msg2638853

A few issues you have to take into account with sprites:

1) If you scale images which are already anti-aliased then they will look horrible. (or to be more precise if they are scaled to a different aspect ratio they will look really horrible!)

2) If the sprites need to retain their aspect ratio in order to display correctly (circles for example) then you will need to make multiple versions of your images at different aspect ratios to match the different screen aspect ratios.

3) For best results make sure you set the SpriteOffset values so that the origin of the sprite is in the centre, that way you can specify exact screen locations and minimise the visual effect of 2) and only need one image.

4) PasteSprite commands take Integer arguments so you can only position them accurate to 1% of the screen size, i.e. if using a 1920 wide screen you can only position them to the nearest 19 pixels or so. If you need really accurate positioning use SetSpritePosition (just make sure you don't have text overlapping them)

5) GG handles most screen aspect ratios but the new ultrawide ones it cannot handle, not a lot you can do about that. (well you can detect the ultra-wide ratio and display a warning message I suppose)

6) GG text is pants, it will display at different sizes (as a ratio of screen real-estate) at different resolutions, mixing sprites and text and getting a good result is really hard, the best you can do is get a reasonable result in a few resolutions and recommend to the player that they use one of them.

7) As in all things the visual quality of the final result will depend on the quality of the components, one single poor quality image can make your entire screen look awful, mismatching sprites can look as awful as mismatching 3D models.