Forum members asked the following follow-up questions. Will the migration version of FPS Creator have:
1. Support for empty-state animations?
LEE: No plans to support empty-state animations.
2. Support for EAX 2.0 or higher?
LEE: No plans to support environmental audio (unless a popular card manufacturer would like to partner with us)
3. A full intergration of airmod?
LEE: Close studies of the MODs have not been made, so I cannot promise that any of them will make it in but I will take a look
4. A z-index/buffer for HUDs?
LEE: No plans to change the HUD system, and it will come from the X10 variant of the software
5. Weapon grouping (ie. press 1 for pistols...)?
LEE: No plans to add weapon grouping
6. Groin shots?
LEE: No plans to add groin shots
7. The ability to edit player jump heights and crouch heights?
LEE: This is something we have already added partially and can be extended as suggested
8. Multi-GPU support (ie. Nvidia SLI, ATI CrossFire)?
LEE: FPS Creator will rely on the native automated support for SLI and CrossFire within the drivers (not application controlled)
9. Do you think you could implementing some of the Airmod features (like recoil for example) ?
LEE: Close studies of the MODs have not been made, so I cannot promise that any of them will make it in but I will take a look
10. When do you plan to release the V1.13 or V1.14 source code?
LEE: There are no schedules for this, however it makes sense for me to look at it between finishing the X10 work and starting the migration work so you have something to tinker with while the new engine gets overhauled
11. Will this be Vista AND XP compatible?
LEE: Yes, the migration version is designed to run on Windows XP and Windows Vista fully, in both DirectX9 or DirectX 10
12. Will the Migration be supported by using a x9 system, like a dual Direct x9/x10 feature?
LEE: The migration will have two modes set from within the interface. You can optionally test game and build as a DirectX 10 game if you have the hardware, or use the DirectX9 fall-back. The final game will not be dual DX9/DX10, it will be either a DX9 executable or a DX10 executable as they contain different rendering engines.
13. Does this mean v1.14 will be the last update to be worked on for fpsc x9?
LEE: Unlikely as the X10 update and migration will take some time and I am sure you will want to see bug fixes continued during this time. The frequency of those updates however may drop as we focus on finishing the new development work
14. So there will only be one FPSC called the Migration version which will be for X9 and X10? Am I right?
LEE: Yes the new migration version replaces X9 and X10, superceding each and better than both
15. Does that mean we have to upgrade to X10 compatibility?
LEE: Not at all. If your system runs X9 now, it should be able to handle the migration version.
16. Can someone brief me on what this whole "migration" thing is about?
LEE: Imagine the best bits of X9 and X10 being blended together to make a new product called the migration version.
17. Maybe you should call the migration version: FPSCreator Ultimate?
LEE: No names have been decided. We will call it migration until we can open up the floor for suggestions later
18. Will motion blur be in the migration? will particle definatly be included?
LEE: No plans to add motion blur or particles into the migration version, although particles will work for DirectX 10 users
19. Does this mean a version of Lemur will be implemented to improve multiplayer?
LEE: Close studies of the MODs have not been made, so I cannot promise that any of them will make it in but it makes sense for me to try and the code additions are all very compatible with the FPSC source code so it looks good
20. I know that current owners of FPSC will get these for free (at least from what I have heard), but users who first used the Free version and the bought the buildgame upgrade, will they get this for free to?
LEE: Anyone who buys the BUILDGAME upgrade become official users of FPS Creator and will also benefit from the free upgrade. Bear in mind that these users do not have as much media as the boxed version users, and there may be other limitations that are not yet apparent
21. From what I know, isn't GPU instancing when you render a model with a shader, and get your shader all set up so you have to change very few parameters in between renders? Or am I thinking of something else?
LEE: Close. DirectX 10 GPU Instancing is a way to provide the GPU with one model and a list of positions, and the GPU renders that single model to all those positions entirely on the GPU with no CPU getting in the way. Upshot is a very fast render
22. Is there any estimates of when it will be out? (ps: what exactly does airmod do?)
LEE: No plans for the release schedule exist, however we are motivated to begin the work once the X10 community are satisfied with their update and that the FPS Creator X9 community are satisfied with their version (currently V114). AIRMOD is a user created modification to FPS Creator to expose extra features not in the original version of X9
23. Some more use of phyiscs, since we will probably have ragdoll, why not make it possible to have other physicsrelated stuff?
LEE: Actually, FPS Creator already has rigid body simulation for dynamic objects. Also X10 has water boyancy which should come through into the migration version for DirectX 9 users too.
Hopefully this gives you more information on the mysterious migration version.
And lo, after much toil, he placed his keyboard on the ground and lo, he saw that it was good. Then his PC crashed, and lo, he saw that is wasn't good enough!
