Hi All,

Here is the recording of today's broadcast:


And all the answers to questions not part of the live chat:

Q> Will you be able to add splash screens or cut scenes between levels in the storyboard editor?
A> Not for the EA version I think you can see the potential of being able to add as many screens as you need and chain them together with basic navigation logic. Game Project Storyboard will be a very cool feature!

Q> Can we have images instead of text in the storyboard scenes?
A> Yes you can remove the text and use your own custom images in different states, no worries.

Q> Does linking the game over screen to level 2 still display when you lose on level 1?
A> Yes every level you create can link to the game win/lose screens, and eventually you will be able to add more screens for different game endings, etc.

Q> ​Vehicles and driving them?
A> No plans to add vehicles in the EA version of GameGuru MAX.

Q> ​The software is looking good. How many types of zombies are we going to have? Are we going to have women & children and different clothing etc?
A> We are working on more Zombie body parts so you can make more zombies. There will be no children characters in MAX as we felt it was not appropriate. You already have a wide selection of female character choices in the current build.

Q> ​Will it be possible to have movable background menus?
A> There are no plans for movable backdrops in the EA version.

Q> Will there be an option to have a video as the background in the title screen?
A> There are no plans for video playback in the screens, only in the level itself via video zones.

Q> ​Can we have a storyboard element with more than one page, I.E. story intro/outro?
A> This is the future plan to expand the storyboard screens, but for EA we want to keep it simple and give you the essentials for customizing all aspects of a basic game setup.

Q> Will gg classic become open source?
A> There are no plans to make GameGuru Classic open source. Perhaps in the future, we can look at sharing the code so innovators can expand some of the low-level systems of the games engine, but for now we want to see if we can provide a level of customizability that most users can access without the need to know C++ and a myriad of APIs.

Thanks for all your questions, plenty more answers next Wednesday 4 PM GMT.

I am really liking the storyboard idea, totally unexpected but a fantastic addition to Max

yes, this is fantastic news, another great broadcast.

Super. One of the most miserable tasks in Classic refined into a fun activity itself? Splendid work that earns real commendation.
@ Lee-- I don't agree in the 'level-editor' remarks @ presentation. Providing such a nice tool to make menu screens is totally fabulous, but that simply is NOT what brings it out of the slump of being only a nice level editor. This is starting to be a pretty high tier level editor, but still only a respectable level editor that's absent significant game-engine components (as far as I know.)

How do people insert entities into the map? ONLY by UI editor? Drag-n-drop and done?! Everything must be there all populated already even before the first testing or compiling? Then it will always be a 'glorified' level editor, unless scripting is *finally* applauded (at least in passing) and entities can be assigned to pop into the game via scripting. Not until THEN it will be a *real* game engine. Just won't fit the criteria.

Now here's a cross-over topic I'll mention, and not directly related to @ above.
Couldn't you take that work on 'storyboard' and make an in-game screen builder? IE a TEXT image maker activated by such trigger points? I know you don't 'have plans' for such things, but what are your thoughts? I think it really needs this, and honestly I don't know how text is handled in MAX. Might be handy for this level editor.

i wonder if the game icon will be changeable... as the game is the ggmax icon.
also is the map none linear as in retaining and jumping back and forth. i like the editing of screens splash etc. be good to have an animated back scene to the game menu. so you can have say a shark swim past if under water etc.
this has lots of potential and look forward to the RPG elements will there be a character choice and design of character!! this would be brilliant

anyway one step at a time. and hope they have sorted out the physics and optimisation of the engine and terrain

Funny how you wouldn't code a node editor for AI but you'll do it for title screens. Not having a dig, just an observation. I think this new storyboard feature looks great, certainly 1,000,000 x more intuitive than doing these changes by hand in lua. Well done, it's a great step forward



This saddens me. I assume this is a limitation of the engine, rather than an unwillingness to code it. It's not like there hasn't been community pressure for years to give us the ability to use videos on title and menu screens, it's a standard for most games now.

Personally the thing I'm most excited about with this feature is the ability to add per-level loading screens (sad, I know). I'm so fed up with having the same loading screen before every level. Even FPSC could do different loading screens for each level!

Keep up the good work

AE

My understanding is that it's Preben's work.

Pity there is not more joined up thinking going on.

HUGE shame that, a static image menu feels so, antiquated by modern standards. The option to play a looping video in the background I would consider a bare minimum feature! There should also be the option to play a skippable "intro" video prior to the main menu.

This storyboard editor looks so much more "fluid" and intuitive than the one used for AI behaviors, is there any chance of the AI behavior editor getting touched up to be more in-line with this one? Not just for visual parity, but also just pure usability? The current one is a bit cramped and awkward to use, imo.

Also +1 for being able to change the final .exe icon, without having to use resource hacker as a workaround.

With respect to the storyboard, I would like to:
1- Have the ability to modify any setting of the storyboard via LUA, for example uploading images.
2- is related to 1, since I would like to be able to take a screenshot during the game and load it in the "LoadGame" menu, as I have done in GG classic.
3- Be able to include a video.
4- Or alternatively, have the ability to assign images, from animated gif files.

So far, we just have 2 LUA command (hardcoded yet, it need more LUA exposure) as for example:



I must also add that I am aware that the priority now is the terrain and artificial intelligence.

Im just buzzing that we have that and it really works incredibly well.
Yes this was Preben's work. Perhaps he will have ideas to expand it further down the line.
Meanwhile there is still loads more that needs doing and still a few things to come before launch
Only just over 4 weeks to go.

@3com- great ideas.
@synchromesh-
Talking about expanding..........
I expanded my post above just a tad, so hoping they will consider what I said, hoping this is one of the things to come soon.

Ok so this Fridays update is now available ..
I created this little layout to test AI and they seem to work well with it
I have attached it if you want to give it a try .. Just drop it in the GameGuruApps \ entitybank folder.
Chuck in some Xanders ( from showcase ) and off you go.

Thank you mate, this is coming in handy to test AIs
I gonna try a fresh install tomorrow, and then I will try Xander on your warehouse.

I agree videos should be an option. It's definitely not a limitation of the engine as videos work in game so it's there ready to be used. I think it will be added at some point, but the release date looms and there are more important things to get right.
Oh and also from a bug in the size of the loading image I have seen the terrain is in the background, just hidden behind the image.

So really, there is potential to have a nice 3D scene in the background as well.

I found during testing the exported exe file it fails and the EXE just crashes if I have an entity (character) on the map, without entity is works fine.

Curious to ask if anyone has used the game builder on Nintendo switch and seen the ease of linking programmability, and if a similar gui could be used Within ggmax

well the buildings collisions are working now so thats brilliant, and my inn looks dare i say close to a standards not quite aa and definately not aaa. but as good as skyrim and oblivion are and they are old school but stand up in gaming so im on the right path

new animals although the snakes are a bit odd on terrain, jolly good advances very impressed with this release i can jaunt around my buildings

keep it up guys.

Ps. The photo was taken off a tv via phone i did not have my screen capture on and ran out of time as had to dash

Can't even get mine to look like that in the latest max at the moment, it's as if it's not picking up the metallic and rightness, everything's flat and blurry, yet in Unity and other renderers they look amazing (and in Unity that's without setting up any lighting or anything, just dropping them straight into a new scene), i was thinking i was making my surface texture wrong, but i'm using Graphix's XPacker, so i know they're fine.

To be honest i have had troubles with the textures. And it is ridiculously hard getting them to work well. Some pick up and others dont. Metal i have not used as yet as this is wood n plaster my other metal works ok or did i have mot really used any for about 5 months

Depending on the model im guessing you have tried the " Edit all mesh materials "

Doubt that would do anything, there's only one set of materials, that's for multi-texture models isn't it?

also, my aim was to put my models in the store, i won't sell a model if you have to mess around with the textures inside max after downloading it, it will generate too many refunds or complaints because "they don't know what to do".

Models i have created using the same texture but are grouped i can select each individual group from that dropdown list and set the metalness etc for each group. Edit all Mesh Materials adjust them all at the same time.
It used to catch me out when the sliders did not seem to make a difference until I worked out what was going on.

I have absolutely no idea what you just said. What do you mean by grouped?

I remember in game guru classic it looked amazing to start with. Then to speed it up they sacrificed shaders and quality and from then on it looked tacky and unprofessional and remains a badly rendered bad quality engine.

Im actually wondering if they have done that with max. Without telling us. It started when they changed the engine. With apparently auto exposure i remembered my dungeon looked amazing then shocking again. Since messing with it my dungeon seems less of what it was. Maybe just me but something is amiss

Nothing except update the latest Wicked Repo which did have an adverse effect on many things that Lee had to sort out but it had to be done to keep up with the engine and give the ability to add some of the features we now have. SSR and the emissions for example are nothing like it was in the first Wicked version but its just down to wicked changes not anything the Team have changed.
Personally i still think it looks Amazing despite those differences

Currently I'm having trouble making it look good let alone amazing, i'm on the verge of just giving up and moving on now.

@Belidos at al: Email me your model/texture set and a 'before' 'after' screenshot and I will see if I can bring MAX rendering to what it used to look like. There was a Wicked update that changed a number of things, but from previous work in this area it generally gets resolved with lighting and setting changes. I am curious to see what issues remain to allow models to look great 'out of the box' which is obviously going to be a big plus for MAX

@Lee
When I first saw MAX/ Wicked engine snapshots here on the forums or your vlog-- TBH, it all looked rather drab, grey, dingy and lifeless.
Just an observation that apparently goes against remarks @ above. That's all l can say. Any use to you? IDK? I would suggest good color saturation.

As a general aside, I'm rather curious as to the dependency upon Wicked Engine w/ MAX.
I don't understand how it's all tied together. Scenario; if a certain Wicked Engine component seems utterly astounding, and must have for MAX... can't the C++ code just be extracted from Wicked and implemented into MAX- or does that go against some kind of license limitations?

Example 2, what if next month MAX changed drastically again (for the worse), would MAX follow suit because it's ultimately dependent upon Wicked Engine? Hmmm.... curious.

I can't give you a before, because i haven't used these models in Max before, basically it's almost as if the roughness and metallic aren't being processed on my models as everything seems to have a flat roughness value in editor and test game. Whereas the same models in Blender, Substance Painter, and Unity all show decent levels of roughness and metallic in even the default lighting they come with. I'm off work next week so I'll put together a zip with a model, it's textures, and a screenshot of it in blender, in painter, and in unity so you can compare.

You can even see it in your last broadcast, the building you use looks terrible, everything is flat as if it's just a base color texture and no surface texture, that's what i'm seeing with my models.

Agreed with belidos inhave to have my normal up to near max to get anything out of the textures
I have colour normal gloss metallic and ao all to work in harmony its not really blending them well hope Belidos can help with the textures as it looks ok in shot. but it does need something. it works in lighting as in lights placed but the natural sun light vanilla in gameit seems to not catch anything

@Belidos. Maybe send him a pic in the other engines to compare against. Gotta say the included buildings that I have tested look very lacklustre inside and out. They also suffer from the old GG light issue of leaking through edges of the walls and ceilings.

The stippling of the texture is very apparent as you walk towards the model.

Only when you get around this close does it appear to look solid and the stipple effect is gone.

Light is showing through the ceiling.

Just to show which building it is. It's the first one on the list.
Something about the buildings I have tested just don't quite look right, you certainly don't seem to see any gloss or any real bumpiness. The weird stipple effect is also a killer it really breaks all immersion as soon as you see it and you see it most the time it seems.

Does Max have a shadow bias setting? In other renderers, you can tweak the shadow bias to get rid of that light leaking effect.

AE

Yes there is a setting for shadow bias

Dave

It is true that GGMax is not getting the previews looks by itself, however, GGMax has some tools that help you to achieve something closest to.

the skybox looks good, is it static or the clouds are moving?

The sky is a stock one, cloud just on "simulate sky" feature, at least atm.
Although, you can add a cloud texture file and edit the skyspec file, at least in previews GGMax build.
Anyway, the sky system is not yet complete.

Graphix XSkybox can add them for Max on creation i believe

I found the issue, for some reason it wasn't adding the surface texture to the material, even though it had copied the surface texture over, had to add it manually. Also, it doesn't seem to be showing metallic on my models for some reason even when the surface texture is added, it's just showing as grey. Works fine on other engines and renderers. I sent you an email with the files on Wednesday.

Game guru max have all the editing features game should've had when it was first develop. What a shame. smh...