Friday 20 December 2013

Friday Ho Ho Ho

The Last Day - Officially

According to the spreadsheet I laughably call my Holiday Calender, this is the last TGC work day.  Being CEO and Founder, you might think I would not bother with such a regimented system for recovery and rest, but it's all part of the magical machine. 

I say officially because I don't imagine, in my wildest dreams, that I am actually going to clock off this evening and then return to work on the 2nd January 2014.  I am pretty sure my time between here and there will be occupied between playing some FPS games and adding to our FPS creator :)

In testing the latest beta, due later today, I found myself in 'play mode' and came up with this shot:


I started to imagine all sorts of cool things such as shop keepers I could trade items with, civilians walking about minding their own business, ladders so I could get to the roof tops, closed and locked doors and windows I could bash or pick open, the sounds of the night and the daily buzz of a small village, some creepy zombies hiding in the shadows, dynamic lighting effects for camp fires, lanterns, shop interiors and glowing eyed vampires, dust and tumble weeds kicking about in small wind swirls, maybe some light rain causing the cobbles to slowly reflect the buildings above, cloth physics hangings draped from open doorways and windows.  All this was swimming in my head as I wondered around my completely empty village, and it was exciting to know that most of the hard work is either behind me or in my immediate sights. I knew 2014 would be the year when all my imaginary features would slowly transform the reality of the engine, and found myself tempted to start all of them at once.


Of course the reality is that I am but one person, and I chose a very small team to help me get there.  For this I apologize, and beg your patience as I build this edifice one brick at a time.  I want this castle to stand the test of time. Other coders thought I was daft to build a castle here, but I built it anyway. It sank into the swamp. So I built another one,  that sank into the swamp. I built a third one...that burned down, fell over then sank into the swamp. But the forth one stayed up, and that's what you're going to get from me, the strongest castle in these isles.

BETA TIME

I am presently putting final touches and testing to the 1.004 BETA version, set for release later tonight, which I think you will approve as a good version to play with over Christmas.  As I hinted, I will be continuing the development over the festive season, focusing a little more on some critical yet fun stuff like more sounds, basic logic that's missing and any critical horrors that are found with 1.004 in December.

I have not decided whether this minor Christmas patch will be for GOLD pledgers only, as it falls outside the scheduled releases, so if you're not a GOLD pledger I strongly advise you to pledge now while the discount is in effect so you can get your hands on this 'potential' fun update ;)

Signing Off

Still plenty hours in my day so will carry on testing and tweaking. It's 6:44PM here in the UK and I aim to start uploading the final installer for 1.004 around 10PM so wherever you are in the world, do the time-zone math and get ready for a new update!

18 comments:

  1. (Friday Ho Ho Ho) I will be waiting,Nice one Lee & team.Happy christmas to one and all.

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  2. excellent news wot.. have a fun and happy xmas time lee, rick and to you also new unknown coder :D. may this rest recharge the batteries for the new years work ahead ;). hope to enjoy the beta4 when its done thanks a lot and stay safe..

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  3. I like what you did there Lee with the Holy Grail reference! Happy Christmas everyone, enjoy V1.004. The New Year will bring many new builds and we'll see Reloaded grow up into a trapping young, fit man eventually!

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  4. Played this at Play expo in Manchester it was brilliant!

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  5. Can't wait to play with the new editor looking good so far. I am working on new models as we speak. I'll be showing my work here in a little while! Thanks for all the hard work to you and your team! aka: A3DArtist.com

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  6. Nice screenshot - the atmosphere! I like your vision of a town's normal activity in the background.

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    1. The idea reminds of of Fair Haven, the Irish holodeck town from Voyager.

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  7. Yay! I love your imaginary features Lee - and a happy holiday to you :)

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  8. BETA 1.004 just released. Rick will make a more formal announcement Saturday, but for regular blog visitors, you can find it now :) Have fun!! Expect another small update over the holidays too, with maybe a few nice things in there while no-one is looking!

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    1. Hello Lee, i tried v1.004 with your game level, imposters are great! i gain some more fps! impressive, great work! have great holydays Lee!

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  9. Of all the things you imagined cloth physics would be most appreciated. Especially high quality ones. It seems this generation of games has fantastic cloth and if Reloaded decides not to be an exception I'll be very happy (who doesn't like some good cloth physics!).

    I am not going to praise your screenshot because I think it shows the current graphical flaws of the engine rather than showing anything interesting or new.

    What I will praise is your desire to work through Christmas. Hopefully you take at least some time to relax and enjoy the festive season, but it just goes to show your determination for this engine. It really makes me smile that TGC seem to have big plans for FPSC Reloaded and it's not just a piece of software to make a quick pound.

    While Reloaded is still a bet of a mess right now, something I dare-say resembles, and using your metaphor, a duck-taped castle, I'm really glad to see that some reinforcements are being lain, so to speak. Hopefully by mid-2014 we might see some of that cardboard and tape replaced with stone and glue.

    Lastly, I'd like to commend Rick and Lee for listening to us and taking our opinions to heart each and every time. I feel like this is a community project and the benefits of such will undoubtedly show in the end.

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  10. Love the new update,no more popping and a much needed H.U.D! Thanks for the early xmas present Lee.As for your imaginings,I'll have them all thanks.From the land downunder have a good break and a prosperous new year.

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  11. Congratulations on the latest update Lee. For the first time I'm seeing an actual increase in performance on my low-mid machine. Excellent.

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  12. Merry Christmas and A Very Happy New Year to ALL of the TGC Folks and FPSC-R Supporters!!! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas with 004!

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  13. Happy Christmas Lee, and Crew, got an extra 10fps on my low end Stand Alone Windows 8 PC. Looking forward to more features in the New Year.

    Like what I see so far...

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  14. That's great news! Merry Christmas to you, yours and everyone. Time for more coding, pizza, Bioshock Infinity and Farscape ;)

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    1. Perfect choice of gaming and viewing you have there, Lee! Both come highly recommended!

      +1 to your taste in pastimes :D

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