GameGuru MAX News

[h2]Today we've released an updated version of GameGuru MAX with a host of bug fixes, an improvement for Emissive light effects and a new Demo Game based on the Grand Canyon![/h2]

Let's look at these new features and the bugs that we've fixed this week:

[h2]Emissive Visuals[/h2]

This effect is now being rendered properly. You can see that the light from the radioactive barrel shines bright and keeps it's yellow colouring, whereas before it was turning white.
Here's the barrel again with both emissive and bloom effects combined to give it a very radioactive look!


[h2]Player Swimming[/h2]
The player character can now swim in the water! No more dropping like a stone into the depths and drowning. You can now swim above and below water.

Now - on to the bugs we've fixed! 

[h2]Structure Editor[/h2]

• Fixed - flashing white when another object is selected
  
• Fixed - textures keep disappearing
  
• Fixed - disappears when you open "Structure Editor Object"
  
• Fixed - feature freeze and crash GGMax
  

[h2]Rendering[/h2]

• Fixed -changing shadow quantity and shadow resolution in Editor didn't carry over into the Test Game mode
  

[h2]Weapons[/h2]

• Fixed - Muzzle flash lasts too long
  
• Fixed - MAX bug ( blood does not turn off )
  

[h2]Storyboard[/h2]

• Fixed - invulnerable Single Level + Invulnerable Standalone issue
  

[h2]Terrain Generator[/h2]

• Improved an issue when a small movement glitch would happen when the terrain is re-calculated
  

[h2]Level Editor[/h2]

• Improved the editable area box being out of sync with the marker
  
• Fix for undo/redo of groups not working
  
• Fixed the current object not restored when exiting test level
  
• Fixed  particles were not showing their names
  
• Fixed  the auto flatten so now it turns itself back on after a restart
  
• Fixed the auto flatten terrain under large objects being remembered
  
• Fixed the ability to enable or disable auto flatten in the object tools
  

[h2]Importer[/h2]

1. Fix for objects importing with a base colour of black
   
2. Fixed an issue when setting up an imported model, the thumbnail was being affected by the current level's lighting
   

[h2]Bugs without a name ;-)[/h2]

• Fixed an issue with MAX crashing
  
• Fixed "Screens" when shown on ultrawide monitors
  
• Fix for umlauts and other characters not displaying correctly in the window title
  
• Fixed a bug with show navigation debug visuals
  

In this Zombie fighting Demo Game you have to avoid the numerous undead and find three skull treasures hidden in and around the game level that uses height map data from the real world location of the Grand Canyon!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The height map import feature in the Terrain Editor means you can bring in real world height map data on which to base your game level's design - great work on this Demo Game by 'Ghost lol' from our great community!

Keep your eyes peeled later today for news of a great GameGuru MAX competition :-)

[h2]After another busy week of bug fixing and improvements we've released a new build of GameGuru MAX - here's the low down on what's new![/h2]

[h3]Rendering[/h3]

• Fixed a cloud flickerering issue that sometimes happened when choose an object from the object library
  
• Activated SSAO by default for all game projects, increasing quality of ambient scenes by adding extra shadow details
  

 

[h3]Object Placement[/h3]

• Fixed a scale value bug, it now shows 100 and not 99
  
• Lights are now hangging down and higher when not placed using smart mode
  
• Objects place onto the floor, even if the camera looks straight ahead
  
• Fixed grid system so no Y adjustment during control
  
• Stabilized the Y position when placing objects in an EMPTY scene
  
• Fixed remaining quat rotation issues (copy paste rotate)
  

[h3]Importer[/h3]

• Another fix for the file selector opening in different location to that of the imported models
  
• Added a checkbox to toggle whether surface texture is chosen directly or generated by taking data from RGBA channels of source textures
  
• Fix for surface texture description text formatting being incorrect
  
• Fix for texture path disappearing after selecting file in importer
  
• Fix for non-dbo animation files not loading
  
• Fix for some objects importing stretched
  

[h3]Level Editor[/h3]

• Objects are no longer highlighted when moving the mouse over the scene
  
• Lock and Unlock buttons now show properly in the right panel
  
• Fixed a bug with Reset Visuals
  
• Fixed an issue where the filter effect could not be set to NONE in demo games
  
• Fixed the re-populate grass button not respecting user settings
  
• Fix for the Character Creator, it could crash when changing character types
  
• Fixed an issue where objects dragged from the scene to the objects list were not being deleted
  

[h3]Save Stand Alone[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where a Standalone Character Created Enemies had black trousers instead of Camo Trousers
  

[h3]Behaviors, Visual Logic & LUA[/h3]

• Visual Logic connection line now updates even if mouse not over an object
  
• Fixed issue of DLUA float variables not working
  
• Any logic that used to use IFUSED field can now read the visual logic connections for the same result
  
• SetPlayerFOV LUA command no longer drains FPS if FOV value the same
  

[h3]Grid System[/h3]

• Further improvements to the grid snapping system, more robust for old levels
  
• In snapping mode, the object will no longer move until the mouse is moved
  
• Grid system now accessible even when no object is selected
  
• Added new offset XZ to the size grid XZ for advanced users
  
• Further improvements to the grid positioning system for advanced users
  
• New grid options - floating point accuracy and buttons to align the grid's offset and by the size of the selected object
  

[h3]Groups[/h3]

• You can now use CONTROL+Left click to select multiple objects without needing to use the rubber band control
  

[h3]Tree & Vegetation[/h3]

• Added "Lock Tree Visibility" button to prevent terrain quality changes from affecting tree visibility
  

[h3]Save StandAlone[/h3]

• The game's standalone icon will now be correct
  
• Fixed a problem with a standalone game's opening menu swapping the equipped weapon
  

[h3]Finally......[/h3]
If you're looking for game-ready assets for GameGuru MAX take another look at the Booster Pack which has also been updated with three new levels added!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1928630/GameGuru_MAX_Booster_Pack/

[h3]Today we've released an updated version of GameGuru MAX with a host of new fixes AND some new features AND a new Demo Game!
[/h3]

[h2]Let's look at the pesky bugs we've squashed so far:[/h2]

[h3]Importer[/h3]

• Fixed some reported files in DBO format that used to import without textures
  
• Added a warning for users when importing models with more meshes than the maximum number of materials allowed
  
• Fix for a crash caused by importing a model with more meshes than the maximum number of mesh materials allowed
  
• Fix for having to redirect the file explorer when selecting channels for a surface texture
  

[h3]Storyboard & Terrain Generator[/h3]

• Storyboard Editor now lets you change the button appearance for the graphic settings buttons
  
• Changed thread locking to prevent potential freeze during terrain generation
  

[h3]Level Editor[/h3]

• Fixed loaded groups, they now work again
  
• If you double click on an object you no longer zoom past it
  

[h3]Objects[/h3]

• Fix for shadow settings not being applied to objects with multiple meshes in test game
  
• Fix for double-sided setting not being applied to objects with multiple meshes
  

[h3]Grouped Objects[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that could happen when Grouping objects and going into the user folder
  

[h3]Character Creator[/h3]

• When saving a new character MAX will no longer randomly crash
  

[h3]Flattern Area issues[/h3]

• Added an extra parameter of size to updating flat areas
  
• Fixed the scaling issue for flat areas
  
• Fixed Auto flatten terrain for rotations
  
• Fixed a bug where circle flatten areas would not remove previous area when moved
  

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where picking up health items exceeded the players max health value
  

[h3]Standalone Games[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where Character created enemies had black trousers instead of camo trousers

[h3]Object Placement[/h3]

• Objects no longer drop under table when terrain changed
  
• Fixed an issue with smart object placement offsetting placed object on XZ axis
  
• Fixed an issue causing objects to judder between several locations on occasions
  
• Fixed a possible crash event caused by uninitialised variables during a ray cast operation
  
• Fixed an issue of vertical mode moving the Y position slightly, now we have perfect adjustment
  
• Small tweak to hide smart placement buttons when developer widget mode active
  
• Ensured snap system aligns XZ and Y separately so they match up
  
• Widget Scale and Rotation now centered back on object for proper operation (though both need work with improved implementations)
  
• Fixed scale values to match FPE originals and new scale multiplier
  
• Fixed lock issue when dragging zone node over static object
  

[h2]AND now to the NEW features...... [/h2]

[h3]Tree, Grass and Transparency Rendering[/h3]

• The grass rendering performance has been improved
  
• Grass now uses a simpler PBR shader in lower graphics modes for faster performance
  
• Grass now fades in rather than growing with distance
  
• Grass can now be painted in flattened areas
  
• Changed tree LOD transition to be higher resolution so they fade between them smoother
  
• Changed depth downsample to fix cloud halo around trees and objects
  
• Transparent objects can now render properly underwater - no more hair loss! :-)
  

[h2]Post Processing[/h2]

• Added an option to enable screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) in the editor
  
• Added Ambient Occlusion power slider
  
• AO now always uses MSAO for best quality
  
• Added a tick box to enable "VSync" option in the post processing section
  

[h2]Object Placement[/h2]

• The system now uses primarily quat rotation for the widget, rotation keys, rubber banding, undo/redo, copying and groups.
  
• Added a flag to in the Developer Settings to control whether the user can move an object when the camera is inside it
  
• Added Y object snapping for when in vertical mode (better snapping based creation)

[h2]AND last but not least our new Demo Game BOUNTY by 'Defy'[/h2]

In this great Demo Game you need to fight your way out to the beach to complete the level. It has a nice design, is an easy one to load up and start editing and adapting yourself, and only took 18 hours to create! 

This new build of GameGuru MAX Early Access brings many speed optimisations and issue fixes. You can read about all the changes here;
NEW CANYON GAME DEMO!!! Level Editor

• The widget can now be toggled on and off with the F1 key, and the F2,F3 and F4 keys control both the widget and smart positioning mode
  
• The undo/redo will now work when moving objects with the widget
  
• Fixed the widget from toggling on/off multiple times with one key press
  
• Particles - selecting particles will not longer resets their scale
  
• The shooter relationship dialog box is now correctly positioned
  
• Possible fix for getting "No behavior for static objects" message after adding a character to the level
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen when using the importer to the thumbnail screen
  
• Fixed an issue that happened when you clicked and dragged from the left panel and it would pick up objects in the scene window
  

Test Level

• Lower FPS no longer causes slow walking of the player
  
• Bullet holes no longer have a white artefact around them
  
• Added CTRL+H to toggle the HUDs on/off during test level (makes it easier to take screenshots)
  

Standalone

• AI characters will now speak
  
• Animated objects should now animate
  
• Revolver ammo can now be collected
  
• Changing the graphics setting option now affects quality across more items
  

The Hub

• When clicking on a game thumbnail it will now respond immediately and show the right preview image
  
• A few users were not seeing weapons appearing when they pressed Play Game from the Hub. This should be fixed
  
• The number of demo games now corelates to number of demos in tutorialbank/games
  
• Updated the Discord link in the Hub
  

Assets

• Stopped a shack building from losing it's walls from appearing
  

Optimisations

• The shadow system now avoids over shadowing further away from the player which speeds up the process
  
• Objects that are occluded by other objects are no longer drawn
  
• Objects that are small and far away from the player are no longer drawn
  
• Ensured the CPU and GPU stats both show on the left tab screen and are not off screen
  
• Split up the draw call count into opaque, shadow, and transparent calls in the profiler
  
• Added the number of triangles being drawn to the profiler
  
• Made sure fpe "WEMaterial" setting is used over old cullmode
  
• Optimized by ensuring wicked particles and water ripple are now used
  
• Technical optimization: Added a flag to remove Temporal AA
  
• Technical optimization: Added a flag to remove ray traced shadows
  
• Temporary removed tessellation becuase it does not currently work well
  
• Technical optimization: DrawDebugWorld limit and do not always BindCommonResources only if needed a little more speed
  
• Reduced font atlas size to 4096x4096, removed the unused font glyphs
  
• Reduced memory usage in Jungle fever level
  

Added demo project 'The Mystery of Z Island' to the hub.
Further improved performance by adding distant object occlusion.