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Geek Culture / July Newsletter # 78 is out!

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RickV
TGC Development Director
24
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Joined: 27th Apr 2000
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 02:13 Edited at: 1st Jul 2009 02:14
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Hi,

Read it here (it's a big one!);

Newsletter 78

Rick

Financial Director
TGC Team
[Check out Jed McKenna - http://www.wisefoolpress.com/]
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JLMoondog
Moderator
15
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Joined: 18th Jan 2009
Location: Paradox
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 02:34
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Wow! I was featured twice! *faints*


http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=151107&b=8&p=0
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Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
22
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Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 02:45
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Wow that was a monster issue!

The Q&A was interesting, although it did basically sum-up as "we're not working on anything we can tell you about"


http://www.photonstorm.com
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Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 03:26
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Good read so far. I've noticed there's a sentence that goes nowhere in the Dark Physics QA section:

Quote: "4. When will you make "




North Korea 2007 Tour Pictures
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MikeS
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Posted: 1st Jul 2009 04:51
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Great issue Steve and TGC!



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
(Formerly Yellow)
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Gunn3r
17
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Joined: 12th Jun 2006
Location: Portland, OR
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 05:17
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Great issue! Some good news for the FPSC community, and the Q and A was really well done. I always enjoy reading these.

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flashing snall
18
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Joined: 8th Oct 2005
Location: Boston
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 06:12
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I like!

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Green Gandalf
VIP Member
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Joined: 3rd Jan 2005
Playing: Malevolence:Sword of Ahkranox, Skyrim, Civ6.
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 11:59
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Looks very good (still studying it).

Particularly liked the following statement:

Quote: "Open the FPE in NOTEPAD (still the best text editor in the whole wide world)"


I probably use that editor more than anything else. It's solid and reliable, it doesn't eat your code, it inserts the end of line characters that other editors need, it only saves when you tell it to, it's a safe and easy way to enter initial code before you need to do anything clever like compiling.

Better get back to the Newsletter now ...
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Kohaku
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Location: The not very United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 13:32
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I wish it could handle large files without the slowdown though!



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dark coder
21
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Location: Japan
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 13:33
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Notepad is a slow pile of poo that barely works with large files and has 'issues' with very long files and lines that are very long. Notepad++ is where it's at, it's better in every aspect when compared to notepad(unless you include being crap, then notepad wins on that count).

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Kohaku
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Location: The not very United Kingdom
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 13:45
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Yeah I use Notepad++ too. That and Programmers Notepad 2.

Good newsletter btw.



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David Gervais
Retired Moderator
18
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 15:09 Edited at: 1st Jul 2009 15:10
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Bad newsletter, filled with misinformation.. I'm a sad sad sad person..

I saw the sidebar article about "Top Tip - Importing Your Own Models into FPSC". The article goes on to say it's a simple matter of downloading a free model and then copying the folder and renaming it, also copy in your model and editing/rename the .FPE file...

Grrrrr. I downloaded 5 free models and none of them have FPE files just that dang .DDS file and I have no idea how to convert my textures into a Direct Draw Surface file.

For some reason when I ask about getting any of my models into FPSC it gets translated into 'this is how you get an 'entity' into FPSC'. From what I can tell, a static model and an 'entity' are two completely different things.

Grrrr... Somebody put me on the right track please.

Cheers!

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Van B
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Posted: 1st Jul 2009 15:53
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You can get a DDS converter for Photoshop and PaintShopPro, from the nVidia website so do a Google on it, like 'nVidia Photoshop DDS plugin'. Then you should be able to load and save DDS files. Remember though that DBPro can save DDS files for you as well, not as well compressed but that's how we end up with DDS files from FPSC anyway.

Each model needs an FPE telling it what textures and stuff to use, and if memory serves, the textures are in different places to the models themselves!. Anyhoo, I suggest taking a copy of a similar object to the one your importing and just edit the FPE to suit, find where the texture is hidden.


Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
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David Gervais
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 18:19
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Thanks for this info Van B, I'm doing tests now and will post my progress in the FPSC models forum thread.

Cheers!

P.S. the first item I was trying was the army (medical supply box) when I downloaded the free model it had the .x .dds .bmp licence.html and an 'army_backup.zip' I just looked in the zip and it extracts to an 'entity' folder and indeed has the FPE file.

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flashing snall
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Location: Boston
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 23:13
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Quote: "6. Would you ever consider hiring outside groups to make commercial games with your products, to gain more publicity?

Rick: Probably not because it can be very costly and risky. We are developing a whole new backend to the main web site which will allow any user to sell what they make through the main TGC web site. Work on this has been going on for six months now and should be coming to completion in a couple of months time."

.. o.O
Can we get some more info please?

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Diggsey
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Location: On this web page.
Posted: 1st Jul 2009 23:46
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Hehe, noob slapped and mentioned in the newsletter simultaneously, nice


New DBPro IDE + integrated debugger!
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trogdor
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Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
Posted: 2nd Jul 2009 04:35
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I'm happy about the cloud plugin, I'd like to try a demo
but I hoped they mentioned a darkPhysics update or a fix for ray casting
Quote: ""we're not working on anything we can tell you about""

So true...
I'd like to see the particle API or any advance particle engine for DBP.

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.
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Thraxas
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Location: The Avenging Axe, Turai
Posted: 2nd Jul 2009 07:45 Edited at: 2nd Jul 2009 07:49
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Quote: "For some reason when I ask about getting any of my models into FPSC it gets translated into 'this is how you get an 'entity' into FPSC'. From what I can tell, a static model and an 'entity' are two completely different things.
"


That's probably because FPSC calls all the models entities... All the crates, guns, characters etc. are placed into FPSC from the entity bank.

While you can load in models manually I, and many others, find it easier to use a program to load models into FPS Creator. It creates the .fpe and .bmp so you just have to worry about your model and the texture (some of them even convert straight to .dds for you)... A good free entity creator is "Entity Workshop" and I use "FPSC ToolBox" which isn't free, but works brilliantly. They don't do anything you couldn't do manually but having the option to scale your models and check your textures before loading up FPSC and testing them makes things much faster and easier.

This thread has lots of useful links to programs to make using FPSC easier.

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MIDN90
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Location: Colville, Washington
Posted: 2nd Jul 2009 20:29
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I think I"m going to buy iDork.... Who would've ever thought I'd be buying a game from TheGameCreators.
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flashing snall
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Location: Boston
Posted: 2nd Jul 2009 20:43
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honestly, iDork looks sorta lame to me. But w/e, I dont even have an Iphone
That hedge hog one looks slick and sick though

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Valle
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Location: in your girlfriends bed
Posted: 2nd Jul 2009 23:04
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so many model packs for fpsc...
who buys all that stuff


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AndrewT
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Location: MI, USA
Posted: 2nd Jul 2009 23:42 Edited at: 2nd Jul 2009 23:43
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Quote: "so many model packs for fpsc...
who buys all that stuff "


Actually the FPSC model packs are incredibly useful, even for people like myself that don't use FPSC. There are very few places where you can buy such high-quality models for such low prices. And the weapons come fully animated and include sounds, so they're very useful if you're working on an FPS engine.

i like orange
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Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 14:08
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Hehe, you know I was looking through the very first DarkMatter the other day, and I think TGC could do a lot worse than reworking those for FPSC and DBPro - like make higher poly versions, make normal maps for them. The main thing is the sheer volume of media you get - there's practically enough there to furnish 1 or 2 games completely. Having another model pack even, with that amount of media would be great.

I prefer to have something and not need it, than to need something and then have to model, uv, animate, mollycoddle, export, convert etc etc. Maybe the TGC store makes that kinda redundant, but I'd certainly look at buying a model pack with lots of media, that matches in style and scale.


Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
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Darkowen
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Posted: 24th Jul 2009 03:22
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Sweet 2 Models of mine was featured in this newsletter. Quite proud of that!


Download the Roshi kart beta at http://www.evilpigeon.co.uk
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