GameGuru MAX News

See all the improvements developed over the past month in this September update video.
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If you want to see GameGuru MAX in action join Lee Bamber, CEO and Development Guru at TheGameCreators, every Wednesday at 7pm BST on the GameGuru YouTube Channel when he’ll be talking all things GameGuru MAX!

As covered in our newsletter last week, we are making some changes to the way we deliver GameGuru MAX from 1st September onwards.

In order to focus more of our time on bug fixes and functionality, and less time on builds and announcements, we are ending support for the non-Steam version of GameGuru MAX at the end of the month and will be providing Steam keys to all TGC customers who have the non-Steam version. 

Other TGC account benefits will remain unaffected while we perform this transition and this includes the ability to download older purchases.

The general goal is to have Steam do the heavy lifting when it comes to infrastructure, announcements, auto-updates, beta testing and content curation, so we can concentrate our efforts and resources on delivering a fully rounded GameGuru MAX to you by the end of the year. 

Fear not! We will not be leaving anyone behind and will work with our community to ensure you have what you need to continue using GameGuru MAX for years to come and, of course, benefit from the extra boost in development time we ultimately free up by not having two side-by-side build versions to support.

Another big news item is that we have just opened up the source code of GameGuru MAX which is now available as a public repository on GitHub. We saw the engagement when we did this with GameGuru Classic and are looking forward to seeing new community contributions on the GameGuru MAX side to accelerate the features you are looking for down the road.

As heralded in our live broadcast last week we have also made a policy decision regarding any new GameGuru MAX DLC. We will not sell functionality as an add-on during Early Access. The community quite rightly pointed out the moral ambiguity of this with our recent release of the Particle Editor and, thanks to this feedback, we have since included the Particle Editor Tool as a core feature of GameGuru MAX. From here on in DLC will be only game assets that extend your choices, similar to shopping on an asset store, and will not include any kind of functional advantage over a user who only uses the core product.

And finally, not to be overshadowed, we have a shiny new Friday update for you, including many fixes and also some noteworthy improvements such as:

• Improved model importer to allow characters to be specified and animations organized
  
• Smart Objects can now store their own local thumb image for use in the library
  
• Multiple fixes to ally AI, line of sight detection, and animation glitches
  
• New ZDEPTH mode 2 allows objects to render without penetrating geometry, like HUD weapons
  
• Added 20 new behaviors to the Behavior Library, courtesy of Necrym59
  
• Added 28 new LUA commands to control entity object material properties
  

We are the first to say the current bug list is much too large for comfort and we are dedicating a good portion of our newfound development time to work through the backlog and get the count right down. If you find something that is not yet reported please do let the team know via our GitHub issues board.

Also from 1st September, we will be replacing the regular twice-monthly Friday updates with a flexible cadence so we can release things as they are completed and tested, rather than pause activity to prepare a big update.

Sometimes we have new code ready just days after a Friday release, other times we need 3-4 weeks to finish something solid. So we are trialing a more ad-hoc release schedule and increasing the use of beta and public preview builds - so you will not be found wanting when it comes to updates.

Happy Game Making!

Just over a week ago, we launched a screenshot competition to see what you could create with a single screenshot of a GameGuru MAX scene using only stock assets and your imagination - and what imaginations you have! The entries came in thick and fast and we were blown away by just how varied the visuals were.  

As always with our super creative community, picking out just five winners from the entries was not easy, but we've finally settled on the following submissions:


This was our top pick. Not only is the scene beautiful and commanded a sense of scale, the detail was also excellent and most of all it showed skillful use of the subtle art of lighting. Making a scene feel real is not easy and this entry managed it very well. Congratulations!


Right out of a western movie this screenshot uses the classic setting sun and long shadow trick. The silhouette of the gunslinger's hat and gun are a great touch. If this was a game you would want to check it out!


An amazing level of detail in this scene! The clever part is the use of realistic lighting to cast shadows that reveal some things and obscure others, forcing the eye to go wandering around looking for things. 


Another poster waiting to happen! There is so much story here, the shadows casting deep into a foreboding cave, the three adventurers clustered together in safety, but you just know they are going in and adventure awaits!


You can feel the heat in this one and it's clever of the author to provide objects to go with the orange blaze of lighting, picking out a great level of detail that would not be out of place in a modern game. 


We also want to tip our hat to everyone who entered - thank you! We are looking forward to sharing your masterpieces on our socials in the weeks to come - every single one is worth showing so everyone can see the variety that can be produced with a helping of imagination :-) But do let us know if you prefer us not to use your screenshot ;-)

Congratulations to everyone and keep an eye out for our next competition!

 

Today we make a key change in response to feedback from GameGuru MAX users - The Particle Editor Tool is now included as a core feature of MAX and the Particle Editor effects library now becomes the Particles Booster Pack!

Leverage the power of your GPU to add complex effects with high particle counts - without a big performance impact!  This collection boosts the particle effects available in the Particle Editor library from the default 28 particles to over 270!

Each particle effect can be controlled and moved by building a layered stack of influencer effects such as reflectors, swirls, forces, and attractors.

Once an effect has been chosen from the expanded library, you can export it and use it in your GameGuru MAX games by adding it from the particle library.

Features found in the new particle effects include:

• Burst emitters for explosions and sparks
  
• Textures for common effects
  
• Different tinting and gradients
  
• Orientation for camera facing, billboard, full 3D rotation, and movement speed
  
• Turbulence system for adding natural-looking randomness to the effects
  
• Layered vector fields controlling movement and flows
  
• Shaped layers for directional forces, attract/repel and swirl particles
  
• Reflectors for bouncing particles
  

All existing owners of the former Particle Editor will automatically get the newly named Particles Booster Pack, no need to do anything as Steam will update you automatically.  All GameGuru MAX users will get the particle editor tool, but only existing and new users of the Particles Booster Pack will get the full library of effects.

You can find out more information by visiting the official GameGuru MAX Particles Booster Pack Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1418110/GameGuru_MAX_Particles_Booster_Pack/

Fixed crash bug introduced in 2022.08.05 with the new compact object placement system.