Continuing the theme of delivering the big features and improvements you want, we are happy to release an upgrade to the A.I system and as a bonus, the ability to create a Third-Person game from any character. One of the long-standing requests from the community has been to improve the way enemy characters behave by default, and we've not only done that but extended the system to allow many more behaviors to be crafted.
Above are some of the characters you can expect to control as protagonist and player, but for now let's look at what you are getting in this months update.
New A.I System
- A.I decoupled from internal system and control handed to LUA
- New LUA command for motion captured animation perfect foot planting
- New camera override LUA commands for advanced scripters
- New footfall sound effects for characters that specify foot frames
- New enemy behaviors for aggravation, sound awareness and melee strikes
- Exposed cover zone marker data to the LUA system for combat scripting
- New Floor Zone marker to create nav mesh regions to contain AI movement
Visual Improvements
- Lightmapper now handles smoothing groups from models
- New Lens Flare and Sun Surface intensity sliders
- New tree shaders for order independent alpha masking
- Improved shadows with additional configuration settings
- Several new cube mapping shaders for per entity reflections
- Improved ability to load multi-material X files with normals & specular
- Supporting gloss maps for characters that have a gloss map texture
Building Editor and General
- New 'Docs\Building Editor Guide.pdf' created by the community
- New roof pieces and door pieces for the Building Editor in Fixtures folder
- New surface snap mode when placing entities for better vertical placement
- Support for any characters to be a Third Person Controlled player
In addition, you will find the latest changelog that lists all the smaller tweaks and additions made to this update that total over 150 items, which ensure GameGuru continues to improve with each update. As the A.I in games can be highly subjective, we will be planning a follow-on update to respond to any small tweaks and behavior adjustments to ensure the default logic for stock characters provides a great out of the box experience. We are also planning some video time to really explain all the nitty gritty of the A.I system to show you how to get the best of the new decoupled system. Also, we'll be planning our next big update, which for the time being will be our little secret but we think you will enjoy.
In other news, we are almost ready to refresh the voting board with your ideas from 2016 as well as refine the items already present to reflect the latest version of the software. It will also signify the pressing of the Big Red Button to wipe all votes to zero, allowing those who are still actively involved in the GameGuru community and creating games the maximum chance to get your favorite feature voted to the top.
We hope you enjoy the new more aggressive A.I, the new level of control when you script and the freedom to play any character as your third person player, and we will keep you informed in the forum on the progress towards our next update. Happy game making!