Article: 28,May,2008

FPS Creator

FPS Creator is a commercial computer software program from The Game Creators for the PC that allows video game developers (or anyone else), to create first-person shooter video games without the need to use code. Users can create many levels and then build their game as an .EXE file with an assets folder; the only limitation being that the user can only use up to 50 levels in one .EXE.

FPS Creator works on the basis of a click and drag engine, in which users can select segments such as walls, floors, ceilings, doors and windows to create a level. This can then be populated by entities ranging from furniture, desk objects, lights, enemies, weapons and pick-ups (health packs, ammo etc). The user can also light their level using light-markers from which the colour and range of the light can be defined. Lighting in FPSC was recently upgraded with the implementation of DarkLights, light-maps developed for one of The Game Creators' other products, DarkBASIC Professional. Finally, sound zones, hurt zones and win zones can be used to make the users level more complete.

FPI Script

FPS Creator uses a simple trigger-based artificial intelligence language known as FPI Script, which was created exclusively for FPS Creator. Entities use Finite state machines - that is, they use a predetermined set of actions reacting to a predetermined set of states. The language consists of a simple if/then syntax, and a pre-defined list of conditional statements and commands.

Stability Issues

Since its release FPS Creator has been plagued by bugs and stability issues, mostly caused by hardware compatibility and DirectX 9.0c not wrapping properly with FPSC. Several patches have fixed many issues with the program, but many bugs still persist, with some updates introducing more bugs, which have not been addressed, causing frustration for many FPS Creator users.

Changes In Nationality

In Germany the blood color in FPS Creator was changed to green to allow them to have classification to release it to Germany. The reference of "Nazi" and the swastika had to be removed to comply with Anti-nazi and Insignia laws governing the country.^{[citation needed]}.

Criticisms

FPS Creator has been the subject of a volume of criticism ever since its release; most point out FPS Creator's underpowered engine, the very limited FPI scripting, below average AI, low frame rates and lack of stability. The creators have since issued many patches, but many of the bugs still exist in FPS Creator's code structure. Users of FPS Creator have also found that many features have been broken by these updates, including FPS Creators pixel shader support.

The most current update 1.08 addresses many of the problems above.

Updates

FPS Creator has produced regular updates to try and combat any bugs and on the 17th January 2008 Fpsc announced the next three updates, The Updates will include things many fpsc users wanted including features that was only included in FPSC X10 and long awaited hitboxes. 1.08 is currently the latest update and fixes many of the problems with FPSC.

There is currently a free update for FPSC known as efxMod, created by members of the German community. It includes water (with reflective/refractive properties), bloom, timer-based fps, relief mapping, parallax mapping, normal mapping (no gloss), in-game GUI, depth of field (1.5+) and HSL shading (1.5+; Hue-Sat-Light change).

FPS Creator X10

A new version of FPS Creator, entitled X10 was released in late 2007. This version introduced a number of features including realistic water with refractive and reflective effects, as well as improved AI and physics. This version is only compatible with Windows Vista and a limited number of DirectX 10 graphics cards (generally from NVidia). A GeForce 8800 series card is the recommended requirement. official website.

A spin off creator, that has also been produced in the X10 series, called TPS Creator, or Third Person Shooter Creator, has been created so as to allow users to play their created games from the third person perspective. It has been met with great success, and has increased FPS's revenue by 12.5% in the last year.

Model Packs

After the release of FPS Creator, The Game Creators have since released eighteen model packs for FPS Creator. These packs vary in new entities, characters, sprites, segments and weapons. It is not known if these packs can be used in the upcoming FPS Creator X10, however The Game Creators are working on it, and model pack 16 has x10 support.

See also

External links

• FPS Creator Official site
• FPS Creator X10 Official FPSCx10 site
• FPI Script Reference on Wikibooks
• FPS Creator Official German site
• fpsFREE.com Free FPS Creator Content, Information and Resources

Helpful Tools

• Add-ons for FPS Creator A bunch of user made add-ons for FPS Creator, Some free, some paid

More Content At:

• FPS-Files.com

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FPS_Creator"