*FPS Creator* from The Game Creators - Create your own FPS from scratch! Thread

This is a great and simple new FPS creator that anyone can learn to use. It's also pretty amazing looking if you check out some of the videos shown. Here's the section of the TGC newsletter I recieved about a month ago (yes, decided right now to paste it on here). It's not out yet, but you should keep your eyes glued to their site ( www.fpscreator.com ) for more information.

FPS Creator Insider

We're back! and have we got some treats in store for you this month or what?! First of all, the cover of this months newsletter is a render of some of the WW2 theme objects and characters that were built for FPS Creator by one of our 3D gurus, Michael Palm. As we've announced before, FPS Creator will ship with two themes available - sci-fi and WW2 and as we've featured a number of the sci-fi shots before we felt it was about time you got to see the WW2 side of things. Michael has been hard at work for months creating bunkers, artilery guns, weapons, ammo, scenery and lots more to give your game an authentic WW2 feel to it. Heck, you could even combine the WW2 buildings with the high-tech sci-fi weapons and baddies! It's entirely up to you.

FPS Creator Videos
Second to actually giving you a demo, the next best thing is to show you exactly what FPS Creator can do by way of a video. This is a far better method of showing what is happening, that demonstrates far more than static screen shots ever could. So we compiled together this 7 minute presentation for you that literally goes through the steps of building and testing a game with FPS Creator. You'll get to see the editor in action (albeit an older version of it) and more importantly a basic game too. Hopefully this will give you some idea just how easy to use FPS Creator is, whilst not giving anything up in the power department either.

The second video is an interview with Lee Bamber, the head developer on FPS Creator, who answers some common questions about the product. The videos are in Windows Media format (WMV files) and will play using Microsoft Media Player. Grab them by clicking the pictures:

7mins Walk-through:

Size: 15.7MB

Developer Interview:

Size: 18.3MB

The FPS Creator Editor Up-Close
The editor for FPS Creator is moving along in leaps and bounds. It was always going to be a native Windows based editor and over the past few days lots of new features and extended properties have been dropped into it, meaning you can now easily start setting the attributes for all game elements. Here for the first time we'll bring you an exclusive screen shot of the editor in full swing. Click on the thumbnail for a full-res version:

Let's talk briefly about what you are seeing here. First of all, the largest area of the screen is taken up with the 3D view of your game world. This is typically viewed from above, with the icons controlling the level at which you are editting (for example to build a 4-storey building you would edit the first level, click the "move up a level" icon, edit the second level, etc). However in the screen shot you can see that we have activated the "Drop to floor" function so you can see the map from a first person perspective. Although you'll rarely edit in this view, it is useful to check you have tables, boxes, buttons, etc aligned correctly. On the left side of the editor is the object selection pane. We have discussed the different types of object before (Prefabs, Segments, Entities and Markers) but to give you a quick refresher they break down like this: Prefabs are collections of Segments. That is you could have a Prefab of an entire room / building which you just drop into the scene. They are the quickest form of building blocks available. Segments are the lower-level blocks. A segment could be a patch of grass, or a corridor segment, or a curved wall. They allow for the finer details in your levels. Entities are pretty much all of the in-game objects including weapons, ammo, enemies and general objects (chairs, barrels, tables). Finally we have Markers. They control elements such as dynamic lights, player spawn locations, trigger and emission zones.

So now that's explained you can see that we have a few entities stacked up in the left panel. This is just displaying those entities we're actually using in our current game. On the right of the editor is the new Properties panel. In the screen shot the mean looking guy in the middle in a character we affectionately call "Colonel X". On the right you can see his Properties such as the AI scripts bound to his various attributes (field of view, initialisation, etc.) You can also control textures, effects and general statistics. It is just about possible to make-out that he is going to be using the "Patrol" AI script, meaning he'll wander around the current zone, looking out for you the player, and then attacking (and fleeing!) if you happen to stumble into him.

AI scripts are at the heart of FPS Creator. Virtually every single element in the game can have scripts attached to them. We have been very careful not to "hard-code" attributes into entities. For example even things as basic as defining the title page of your game is controlled by a script. scripts are used just about everywhere, from handling door opens/locks, to hunting enemies to environmental changes. We will be bringing you some script examples next issue.

FPS Creator Forum
We have created an FPS Creator dedicated board to our forum. You can post FPSC related questions there and we'll try our best to answer them for you. Visit the forum here: Forum.thegamecreators.com

FPS Creator Announcement List
There are thousands of readers to this newsletter, lots of you having come from DarkBASIC or DarkBASIC Professional and with the early adopter release of FPS Creator so close we are going to split things up a little bit. To this end we have created a new announcement mailing list specifically for FPS Creator. We will use it for letting you know when FPS Creator is available to purchase, as well as other FPS Creator related news. You will only receive email from us and only related to FPS Creator. Your email address will never be disclosed or sold to any 3rd party. So, want to get onboard? Sign-up here: Fpscreator.com

This could very well be a favorite among mod-making people, since if you don't like the models in the game, you can create your own and place them into the game, and you basically have a whole game running using a easy-to-learn user interface. It looks to be a great new program, and you should definitely stay tuned for it!

Edited by: Karuto

This had better be better than that 3D GCS crap I had

and reality factory.....

Just watched the video

IS THAT DUKE3D'S SHOTGUN I HEAR

Looks pretty good - although the coding of the AI seems a bit off, but I'm sure that can be improved on.

Might have to keep an eye on this one

Yes, it's most definitely pretty impressive. The AI doesn't seem that bad, though, since they do know when to move to avoid gunshots. Not to mention, some of the effects are pretty cool, and it's really easy to use

And you never know about that Duke3D shotgun dealio. A lot of shotguns sort of sound alike

*UPDATE* FPS Creator has finally been released. Enjoy! Fpscreator.com

i just dont like the idea that after buying the program and making the game, once someone quites the game, it has a screen saying how it was made and advertising. and will moddb accept this as standalone games or no?

update: moddb allows it. mabey ill get it....

Edited by (in order): Chunky, Chunky

Cheapalert wrote: Just watched the video

IS THAT DUKE3D'S SHOTGUN I HEAR

bahahaha

I guess it would be fun for pissing around n stuff

for $56? im still going to check out how customizable it is first. like textures....will we at least be able to have our own textures?

I think you can import your own pictures. Check out the videos and the FPSCreator website for more information about that stuff.

It's really easy to use, too. You don't need to be a coder or mapper or anything like that to make a nice, complex level design

Is there a demo? I'd like to try it out first.

And is this actually good enough to create good games, not "Walk through hallway and blow people up" ?

Not to mention you're paying 56 bucks for the thing, but you can't publish games with it for awhile, if ever.

Edited by: UnknownTarget

Well, I think there are games that were made using the engine that people can try for free. Try checking here.

But about your second sentence, I'd say you should watch the videos and determine that out for yourself, really.

Forum.thegamecreators.com

i will try this first, but i still might buy the FPS Creator anyway...

But what about the size? This demo is almost 40 megabytes and its only 1 level. Thats kind of big.

@ David - He must have packed a lot into one level. I know plenty of demos that take up a lot more space while offering only one level. Might as well try it and then delete it afterwards.

Great, a new and innovative way for noobs to churn out crap...

i just played the demo, and i dont think im going to buy it. the level was very small and the file was very big. the gun models, gameplay, etc. are kind of crappy too. mabey the next release will be better. back to mods i go...

Edited by: Chunky

gunrunner : half life 2?

i'm going to stick with reality factory over this

You could have a coke can sitting on a table that explodes if the player goes too close to it while holding a banana.

lol

You can build "outdoor" environments.. i.e. we have a map with 6 buildings and you can run from one to the other (outdoors) across the grass and ice. But you are still "enclosed".. there is no EverQuest style free-roaming and certainly no hills, etc.

that doesnt really make sense but oh well

two things that would make this FPS Creator a must-have, would be that you could import maps from Cartography Shop (one of their other programs) or just the fact that you could make your own buildings without inserting pre-made ones.

the second thing would be the gameplay. the overall feeling of the pistol when you are holding it and shooting it is lame. not only can you not see your hand, but it just doesnt look realistic when you fire. mabey you can change that with a model program, i dont know...

Ya know, I think Half Life 2 is basically FPS Creator, only better.

Cheapalert wrote: Just watched the video

IS THAT DUKE3D'S SHOTGUN I HEAR

OMG It is too!

Well, David, FPS Creator wasn't meant to be the be all, end all game creator tool. It's mostly meant for those that just want to fiddle with an engine, so it's basically aimed at the newcomers. Sure, it's a little misleading, but hey, it looks at least halfway decent.

No, that would be an RPG Maker 3 with today's visuals and full-roaming environments and the ability to import files from your computer. Now that would be awesome

Torque engine with RTS Starter Kit

too advanced for me, but incredible tools indeed....

lol sorry for the huge bump, but this had to be done:

Fpscreator.com

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!

Also check out the new site: Fpscreators.com

Edited by: Chunky