Semester 1 Post Mortem

Well it happened; we all actually survived the first semester. Somehow we all knew we would, but I think we all had our doubts too. We learned a lot and we’re becoming more and more familiar with the industry. The semester has been high stress and extremely demanding but as much blame as we can put on the teachers we can put right back on ourselves. We are perfectionists. That is why we’re here and that’s why we’re joining the industry with other perfectionists.In an effort to outdo the previous cohorts we have done many things right, as well as many things wrong.

I felt that the majority of the rapid prototyped games superseded the previous cohort’s prototypes however that was mostly due to scope. Being the novices we were at the beginning of the semester our games were hugely over scoped and not well polished. Near the end of the semester you could see as the individual teams learned; the project scopes got smaller and the final projects became more polished as a result. We also listened and cultivated Ron Weaver’s suggestions at the end of the projects. Ron has a wealth of criticism and praise. He was always more than happy to bestow his wealth on you if you’re brave enough to ask before the assignment is due. If you’re not brave enough to ask he will bestow it regardless when the assignment was turned.

The same holds true to the individual assignments given by the track teachers. I cannot speak much for the production class or art class, but in the production for media class Rick Hall had a tantalizing way of teaching. The questions he asked and the format in which he asked them echoed the industry. On more than one occasion in the middle of class he stopped teaching and broke us up into teams with a team leader, and elements from each track. He would then ask us for a task that might be asked in the industry. He would give us a chance to go through the thoughts on our own and guide us away from dangerous and time consuming conversations that can usually be overlooked. This too helped mold us over the past semester. We’re better at culling the scope of projects, as well as focusing in on the topics of importance when prompted with a broad and ambiguous problem.

Although I have mentioned the competitive nature from cohort 4 to cohort 3 and that we always want to outdo the previous cohort, some teachers take it one step further. For the first half of the semester Tom (the programming track teacher) held programming competitions against the programmers for the assignments due. What the winner would win would change, but it was always worth the effort. In addition near the end of the semester we were forwarded the opportunity to work on a simple two-week game in C++. Tom gave us a very simple OpenGL framework and we were told to plan out a game. We all split up into 2 programmer teams and pitched our ideas to tom. Upon approval we began developing the game. Three of the teams took the network approach while the other three did not. In the end these games were ported to the (original) Xbox, and most of them added in a multiplayer element, although none of them utilized the Xbox Secure Network Library (SNL). Were forced to learn and work through the problems on our own, as we would in the industry. We learned a lot through the porting process.

Throughout the semester we have been graced with presentations by various industry leaders (organized through great effort of the FIEA staff).

Our last presentation was by Steve Derrick of Vicarious Visions (owned by Activision). Although he did not know much about the Activision-Blizzard merger he did offer a vital answer when asked “How much of an edge a Master’s program like FIEA offer when getting hired”. He stated that it helps immensely and that the type of people who get their master’s degrees and PhDs are a different kind of people. They are the kind of people who are hard workers and work well within the environment of the game studio. As such they are in more demand than a student fresh out of college with their Bachelors degree and no experience, especially because FIEA helps give a real world experience.

With that I will live you with the 12 days of FIEA

12 Daily meeting requests

11 Hours a month gaming

10 Different ways to say “Here”

9 Final pitches

8 Polished Games

7 Days a week working

6 RPP projects completed

5 Great classes attended

4 Cups of noodles soup

3 All nighters needed

2 Cohort projects selected

1 Wicked program

Merging, lighting and sorting

I added lighting to the fluid simulation.

Behold.

This version also includes vortex merging and depth sorting so I can crank up the opacity, which makes the smoke look thicker, lets you get away with fewer particles and lets you see the detail more clearly.

Derivative November

A lot has been going on. Lemme break it down.

I finished my first full game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed DS, which will be coming out alongside the parent product for consoles this coming spring. I'll be sure to spam you when I find out just when it's coming out. It's a great game and I think people are going to enjoy it.

I've already been assigned to a new product, and the lead designer and I had to scramble to get the game design document together this week. It was a rush but it's got some great ideas and I'm really looking forward to announcing it once I'm given the go-ahead.

n-Space also just released Call of Duty 4 DS: Modern Warfare alongside the parent company. I only had my hands on it for about a week but everyone else from FIEA that works at n-Space worked a great deal on it. I've picked it up myself and it's a great game. Support your working alumni and give it a shot.

November's been a great month for video games overall. Zul'Aman just came out in World of Warcraft and my guild (which has a decent number of people from my cohort) managed to down the first boss this past Thursday with relative ease. Still working our way through that. In my off time I've been playing Assassin's Creed, which is phenomenal regardless of what any reviewers say.

Finally, I still haven't seen any pictures myself, but a number of cohort associates and I dressed up as the Cobra Organization for a couple of Halloween parties this year, including the great one that Ben hosted. It was great to meet some new people and see old friends -- I hope something like that happens again soon.

Exciting times. I'll keep you posted.

Smoke and Mirrors

I found these results mesmerizing and I wondered about the etymology of that word so naturally I looked it up. The word comes from an 18th century French physician named Mesmer who concocted the notion of "animal magnetism" which (he conjectured) involved the flow of a mysterious magnetic fluid that supposedly flows through all beings.

Perhaps I'll name my fluid-like simulation "mesmeric fluid" because both his fluid and mine are fictional but captivating.

Some earlier results:

• body and flow mutually interacting
• wake behind a body
• multiple fluids interacting

Expect Expectations

I’m starting to see that all the warnings given prior to enrollment are proving true. I was warned by faculty, and alumni the following:

• Expect to live near campus
• Expect to have little time outside of school work
• Expect to have to make time for your friends, family, loved ones, and yourself
• Expect to learn a lot

The general message is that we should expect to sacrifice for the 16 months of FIEA. However, what we are getting in return is well worth it. When you observe the situation from that perspective FIEA is exactly what a quality education is supposed to be, an investment.

While we half-kid about FIEA being a boot camp for EA, it is true that most people looking into getting into the industry are expecting the wrong things and are ill prepared for the cold hard facts. While it is true that creating video games is incredibly fun and rewarding; like your education it is an investment. The more you invest the greater chance of success.

Order to Chaos

We’re all getting settled in here at FIEA. We’ve been here for a few months and things are becoming more routine; and by routine I mean most of the time we are going through the same motions but usually in different ways. The standard has become class, projects, and improv. However the professors have ways of throwing a wrench into the gears. On occasion they will call for status reports earlier than expected to see how well the group knows the project they have spent the past week or more working on. On other occasions they will mix things up completely and change the entire objective. These are things that WILL occur in the industry, and are vital tools to learn in a real-world environment.

Too many students are used to procrastination (myself included). At FIEA we’ve learned quickly that a day wasted directly reflects on the quality of the product. Whether the aforementioned product is the project you’re working on, your grade, or your reputation.

Fluid simulation, Atari 2600 programming

Fluid simulation update

I added more features to my fluid simulation. Follow the links to see movies:

• Fast approximate far-field interactions
  
• Semi-lagrangian simulation for comparison
  
• Brute-force O(N^2) vorton simulation for comparison
  
• Other visualization modes (still preliminary)
  
• Objects affect the fluid
  

I also submitted an abstract to GDC for 2008.

Atari 2600 Programming

I collect Atari games, consoles, controllers and other Atari-branded stuff from the 1970's and 1980's. I'm also beginning to program the 2600. Its CPU is a 6507 which has the same instruction set as the 6502 but has fewer address pins. Many computers from that era used the 6502 including other Atari consoles and computers (5200, 7800, 400, 800, etc.), Commodore computers and the original Nintendo (NES). It's the first CPU for which I learned assembly programming. The Atari retro development community is quite active and even now, around 30 years following its release, people continue to pioneer new ways to get more out of that console, e.g. higher image resolution. Each year at the Classic Gaming Expo people release several new games for the Atari 2600, and they usually sell out immediately.

I recently obtained a collection of EPROMs (which currently have Atari games burned onto them) and 2 modified Atari 2600 cartridges with ZIF sockets that fit these EPROMs. I put the chips into a conductive plastic container I got from Skycraft Surplus for $2. This gives the appearance I'm engaging in industrial espionage.

Programming is where it's at!

Wow, are we really starting our 7th week? It seems like we've just begun, yet we've already done so much. We've finished our first two rounds of prototypes, and I was very pleased with the work both of my teams did. Those were written in Flash and Actionscript, and several very interesting games came out of those two-week rounds. Now we are starting on our 3D prototypes using Panda and Pyton, and again we have just 2 weeks to create a game - this time focusing on story. Of course, that's not all we are doing. The programmers are working on some very involved C programs (after doing a few tough assembly programs - whew!), the artists are all designing/texturing/animating character models in Maya, and the producers are, well, producing. I can pick on the producers because I originally came into the program as a producer (a technical producer as you may hear them called). But after sitting in on the programming classes and realizing I didn't have a good answer for "What does a producer do?", I decided to switch tracks. And don't let "Sir Charles" (or Chuck as we like to call him) fool you. The job of a producer is not that sexy. The real sexy jobs are held by programmers. Don't believe me? Just take a gander at Dr. Gourlay's blog on "Fluid-like Simulation". Very Sexy!

But we already knew that. What I have learned is that you really have to prioritize here. In undergrad, prioritizing just meant figuring out what you could put off, and what you couldn't. But here, you are working with teams that depend on you. And frequently you are working on different teams at the same time. Should I work on my programming assignment right now? What about my prototype team that needs me to write code for our game? And how's my development plan team coming along? Of course, the other team members on each team are also juggling assignments and teams, so getting everyone to do what you need when you need it means we all have to do a little "producing" of our own.

Fluid-like simulation (preliminary)

Existing fluid simulations based on solving the Navier-Stokes equations or its derivatives are slow algorithms. For games, we need something faster, perhaps at the cost of quantitative realism.

I aim to invent a simulation algorithm to satisfy these requirements:

• Fast; must run in real-time
• Scalable; i.e. O(N) or better
• Qualitatively similar to real fluids
• Simple to implement and modify
• 3D
• Interacts with other entities
• Multiple immiscible fluids (e.g. water and air, including surface rendering)
• Combustion

I will use an ad-hoc simulation using something akin to point vortices that interact with their nearest neighbors .

You can get more info from my website: http://www.fiea.ucf.edu/~mgourlay/Fluid/

Earlier this week I managed to create some preliminary results of a fluid-like simulation of something like a vortex ring moving through something like a fluid, including these features:

• Nearest neighbor tracking
• Particle rendering
• Particle interaction

These simulations share in common with real fluids vortex self-advection due to nearest neighbors and vortex diffusion. Mathematically these properties differ from those of real fluids but qualitatively this simulation has those properties. As you can see from the simulations, the vortex ring does indeed propagate as you would expect from such a ring in a real fluid. The aggregate speed is probably wrong though.

These preliminary simulations lack a number of features present in actual fluid dynamics, including vortex stretching and tilting (important for cascading from laminar to turbulent flow), no-slip boundary conditions (necessary for generation of vorticity such as generating wakes and lift) and potential (i.e. irrotational) flow (necessary for bulk fluid motions such as occurs in shear flow far from the shear layer itself). The simulation code currently includes propagating long-range interactions. I intend to add the other features soon.

You can find some movies and more details here:

http://www.fiea.ucf.edu/~mgourlay/Fluid/2007sep17/

Games, Dames, and Lames: Producers Be Cool

The original blog that I wrote for this posting was just about the dames of video games. The fellas and I were talking about the lovely ladies involved with the video game world, so I decided to write about them. Then, I began to reflect on my experience at FIEA. So, my original blog went out the door. For an entry more meaningful for future designers.

FIEA's Rapid Prototyping curriculum is very aggressive and fast-paced. If you blink, then you would have missed a load of information. We actually gain knowledge about rapid prototyping through instruction, a plethora of resources, freedom to design anything, and a nonstop stream of prototyping opportunities. Feeling slight pressure to produce the best product, I learned sacrifice is a virtue worth developing and cultivating. My first sacrifice was sleep. I've never been to fond of sleep, so it was a simple decision to make. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

At 3:AM, I am up reading as much information as possible to strengthen my ability to obliterate production obstacles. As a producer, I need to be able to create an efficient system to design the best game possible within specified time parameters. Moreover, my first obligation is to make sure my team is completely satisfied and comfortable with the game idea. The only way to establish that comfort is to constantly ask for feedback about the idea and incorporate the ideas of the team into the game.

I've learned that open over-communication is necessary in making your team feel comfortable. I have to make sure that my programmer and artist are capable and able to deliver their pieces of the game design puzzle on time. I have to make sure that the artist understands the programmer's capabilities and the programmer understands the artist's capabilities. Then, I convince them to work in tandem on constructing the best game possible. Furthermore, I have to make sure neither the programmer nor the artist gets burned-out or broken in the game making process.

Many people think being a producer is a hack job. But, it is quite stressful when you realize that your team must be satisfied and comfortable. A producer must be concerned with the personal lives of his team because personal issues do spill into the workplace, and can adversely affect the team's morale. A producer has to create and maintain a stable working environment. In a nutshell, the producer's job overall is to make sure that the other team members do not worry about anything except their task at hand. Any distractions or disruptions can halt momentum and destroy morale. Once morale is lost, then the battle to complete a game is uphill.

On our last rapid prototyping assignment, I watched some teams lose momentum and their morale plummet into chaos and desperation. Many of us, noob producers, are stuck in our ideas and never get around to actually designing the game until it is too late. A producer needs to be ten steps ahead of her or his team in order to be victorious in their game design. The worst situations snowball when a team loses momentum due to a producers inability to solve a problem in a timely manner. All producers should learn how to foresee any and all possible problems. In reality, I know it is impossible to foresee all possible problems that rise up in rapid prototyping, but a producer should be prepared for any problem- personal or professional. This ability to problem manage is called "cool." I've seen producers lose their "cool" with their team. It isn't a pretty sight. The team usually loses respect for him or her, thus causing the game to suffer. Believe me, that loss of confidence and loss of trust shows in the final product.

Note to all producers: Producers maintain your cool. It is not the job of the programmers and artists to worry about the overall design. That worry falls on you. I watched as producers get so caught up in their own tasks that they did not answer their team members' problems. Programmers and artists do not appreciate a self-absorbed producer. Your programmers and artists' gaming issues always outweigh your own, unless your issues have a negative effect on their work. A producer needs to show his team how much he cares about them before he or she unleashes unreasonable demands on them. Your teams efforts must be appreciated and respected. Producers are the coach and the cheerleaders for their teams. If you subscribe to keeping high morale and maintaining your cool, you will produce a good product.

As I step off my soapbox and face the calm before the storm, I wish all aspiring producers the best of luck in their productions endeavors. Remember, don't get hung up on your production hardships, we all feel your pain. Be cool and overcome.

Lesson Learned

The past couple weeks have been pretty intense. Our two week rapid prototyping assignment was scheduled due last Sunday night. As such most of the teams were hard at work trying to complete our over-zealous game ideas.

It just so happens that the second week fell on the only time I had planned to miss from FIEA. To future students I would strongly recommend against taking any time off. By missing classes as well as time with your team you're sabotaging your own success.

Our first game almost made it to completion but didn't quite meet the 'fun' requirement. We spent a lot of time working on collision detection, the artwork, and layout but we did not have enough time to play test the game. Another recommendation is to "play test early and play test often". I feel somewhat responsible; because while I was away we were unable to incorporate changes. I returned on the day it was due (at midnight) and had to incorporate all the art and sound assets into the game. The combination of better organization, a present programmer, and more play testing definitely increases the chances of success.

Time to get started on our next rapid prototyping assignment and our programming assignment. Until next time!

Games, Dames, and Lames: week 1 - Introduction

Okay. I'm here with my week in review. I could bore you with some flubber about how cool it is to be learning to design video games. But, you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t already know that! For reals, I’m here to spill my heart about my adventures in video game stardom. Yeah, I know you think I'm just playing Madden '08. Beating dumb freshmen and taking their financial aid refund checks. I wouldn’t do anything like that?!?! Actually, I’m caught in an orgy of Rapid Prototyping the best damn Flash shooter game and making a sexy alien octopus while mind mapping a schizophrenic graffiti artist with an appetite for the ladies and government conspiracies. Yes, FIEA is the “pooh” like Winnie (I’m keeping it "E" for everyone and quite lame). It has only been two weeks, and we are in the thick of game design. Like any other code monkey operation, I’ve grown fond of my fellow FIEAns in all their uniqueness. Surviving in FIEA is like a sandbox video game. While not GTA, the profs are industry professionals that deliver some of the most difficult missions ever conceived. They are the Big Bosses that can crush your ego with one blow. So far, their industry antidotes are funny and insightful. I hope they keep the good stories flowing.

I can see FIEA producing monster video game developers to enter the real world. And, I can actually envision my cohort transforming into Mad Max meets Police Academy. I hope to experience a lot of both visions for your entertainment purposes. So, I have my game face on and ready to tackle all the obstacles in class and on computers and consoles. I will be shooting the “pooh” and reporting from the video game development frontlines like an opinionated schmuck with a blog. Oh, I am an opinionated schmuck. I won’t bore you with the lore of why my life is better than yours, so I’ll go back to playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption while you wallow in your lame existence. So, I talked about the games and the lames. What am I missing, hmmm…. Oh, the dames! Maybe, I’ll talk about the dames next week. Are you ready for the madness? Until next time, I wish you Love, Peace and Soul.....

Disclaimer: Fictional names are used to replace the real names, places and things of the crazy events revealed in front of your virgin eyes.

Full Swing

It is only the second week and FIEA is already in full swing. As a programmer we've already taken an assessment test to evaluate our level of understanding of some of the key programming concepts we will use here. Based off the results Tom (Carbone, our programming professor) custom-tailored the programming class for the programmers and technical producers.

In our production for media class we were split into groups of 7 and given a topic for presentation. Today we presented the project and we can now focus more on our Rapid Prototyping assignment.

For our Rapid Prototyping assignment we were split into groups of three or four with the purpose of making a "fun" game in Adobe Flash CS3. Being the only programmer on the team makes it tough to make a full mini-game from scratch in the two week time frame we were given. Things are getting tough and my free time is dwindling with each passing day but when I go to bed at night I know I love what I'm doing.

A new cohort arrives

Well, I was going to do a post where I talked all about Siggraph, but Jon beat me to the punch. After reading his post, I was glad he summarized the show for you and not me - mine would've been much shorter. Jon forgot to mention the girl at the booth next to us and the fact that he was always 5 minutes late in the morning, but I digress...

MasterPlan sure made great strides in a few weeks, when it went from tech demo to game. I have to hand it to the students - they really pulled a rabbit out of their hat. They waited until the end to do too much - a common thing for games being developed in the real world too. Games take a long time to get running when you don't start with a game engine, and then additional time after that to get fun - which means if you're not willing to go all out at the end, you end up shipping something that's not as fun as you might've planned. MasterPlan is by no means perfect, but I definitely had fun at Siggraph demoing it, which is always a good sign. I'm hoping that the students will take some time this semester to get the game running on a computer with less than 1.5GB of RAM for GDC, and maybe add a few more bells and whistles before calling it done.

Today was an exciting one at FIEA as we welcomed cohort 4 to their orientation. We're starting to get the hang of it, so we kind of knew exactly what to talk about, what kinds of questions to expect, and all that. It is also great to see excited new students ready to become the new "best cohort ever" at FIEA, and I am confident that this cohort will make us proud. The best thing we did this time around was to create a forum on our website for all the students to communicate with, which really helped them connect to find housing and other Orlando information from afar. These students just seemed more settled and acclimated than in the past, and that's what I attribute it to.

Siggraph 2007

I recently finished my third semester at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, a Master’s program in game design and development at the University of Central Florida. Fresh off the completion of Master Plan, our 34 person thesis project done over two semesters, I was invited by our faculty to attend Siggraph to work the booth and network with as many game companies as possible. In my fourth and final semester I’m expected to find an internship or job for credit, so Siggraph seemed liked the perfect opportunity to explore employment opportunities. The following is a daily account of my first time attending the largest computer graphics conference in the world.

The Day Before the Show - Monday 8/6:
Today I got a chance to see the Emerging Technology Exhibit. I’m absolutely fascinated by input devices so this was one of the aspects of Siggraph I had been anticipating the most. Unfortunately the real thing couldn’t live up to my lofty expectations. I had expected a scene from Minority Report, but what I got probably had more in common with a science fair (albeit a college level one). To be fair, many of the exhibits were very interesting. It’s just that a lot of them, with the exception of Microsoft Surface, weren’t very polished. Here’s a quick rundown of the most memorable:

Microsoft Surface: Like I said, this was probably the most polished of the exhibits, but it’s hard to take seriously after seeing the Sarcastic Gamer parody of it (“in the future, your computer will be a big assed table”). Still, I think it has interesting business applications, particularly in restaurants.

“Dual Blowing Screens”: I don’t remember the exact name of this, but it consisted of two screens set across from each other. When a person blows into a spot on one screen, a fan will blow air out of the corresponding spot on the other screen. They had a number of fans and pinwheels to play with, but it was unresponsive and dare I say, pointless.

CoGame: This was a cooperative game where you project images of a road (think of Lego road plates) onto a mat on the floor, to lead a robotic turtle to his goal. Maybe I’m just biased towards games, but even in its unpolished state, I thought this was one of the better exhibits. It was actually a fun game/toy and, given some polish and features, could be quite marketable.

Gravity Grabber: This was a force feedback device for your thumb and fore-finger to simulate holding onto objects. It used a strap that tightened or loosened to apply varying levels of pressure. My favorite example simulated a clear box full of small balls that actually felt like they were rolling around inside. I think the motion tracking was off somewhat, but this was quite promising.

“3D Hand Tracker”: This exhibit demonstrated technology where you could move your bare hand inside of a 3D space and have it quite accurately portrayed on screen. The example allowed the user to manipulate an open Jack-in-the-box with fairly realistic physics. All that was missing was force feedback.

String Walker: I was excited to see this in action. Imagine being able to walk throughout the environment of a game in real time or playing Madden by running around. In reality it resembled someone holding onto their kitchen counter while sliding/walking in place with slippery socks on.

The First Day - Tuesday 8/7:
Today was the first day of the show and I worked the booth in the morning. We arrived an hour before the show started to do any last minute work and to be available for the press who were already prowling the floor. I helped put out some pamphlets and arrange the wooden artist manikins that we give out to potential students (more on them later). Sadly, the only reporter who came to our booth was a German “Journalist for Digital Media” though he was very friendly and inquisitive. Who knows, maybe we’ll get some great future students from Germany as a result.

I spent the morning talking to potential students and people looking to hire recent grads when I wasn’t defending the wooden manikins from hordes of swag-obsessed show goers. For this Blog I’ll try to stick to the educational and scholarly experiences from the show, but the tenacity with which people stalked these manikins was unlike anything I’ve ever seen (outside of Christmas shopping). I could swear that some people were even sent in as a distraction so five or six of their friends could more easily snag one. At least it provided some entertainment and was a really interesting social experiment.

The greatest moments for me came from watching people’s enjoyment with our thesis project, Master Plan, which had been completed just days before the show. I was the lead designer on the project, and nothing is more rewarding than seeing someone sit down and have fun with the game, which a number of people did throughout the morning. The competitive side of me also enjoyed the reactions of people from other schools. I saw three people from a competing school stop and watch the game with a mix of shock and fright on their faces.

In the afternoon I explored the vast show floor. It was amazing to see some of the elaborate booths, such as Pixar and LucasFilm, in their finished state. Some of them were like a store, movie theatre and art gallery rolled into one. Vicon, a motion capture company, even had a small bar where they were serving beer. Some highlights included artists making models from scratch in ZBrush (which I think is a fascinating program) and trying on a motion tracking VR helmet. I also thought it was funny that the most attractive women at the show were casually walking around in ridiculous motion capture outfits, obviously on break between demonstrations. I went around to the five or six game companies who had booths on the floor, but they weren’t as receptive as I had hoped and none of them wanted my resume or a copy of Master Plan. Still, the woman at Disney Interactive was friendly and talked to me for a while about their company and their recent acquisition of Junction Point, Warren Spector’s new studio in Austin. EA entered me in a raffle and suggested I attend their “College Recruiting Seminar” that was taking place later. The seminar wasn’t really anything I hadn’t heard before, but I got a free copy of the new Harry Potter game for DS, and was able to speak in person with EA’s head of University Relations.

After the show we took a shuttle over to the San Diego Civic Center to see the Electronic Theater, a compiling of the best films in the Computer Animation Festival. It started out with a few honored guests playing Asteroids, Tempest and the original Star Wars arcade game emulated and projected with laser lights (like the planetarium). For the geek in me that loves retro video games (particularly space shooters) this was pure bliss. After that we were treated to nearly two hours of the best animated shorts, movie special effects, game trailers and technology demos the industry had produced in the past year. I felt a few big name companies got special treatment, but overall they were really fun and interesting. Some highlights included “No Time for Nuts” a short starring Scrat from the Ice Age films, “A Gentleman’s Duel” by Blur Studio, and “Lifted” by Pixar. They also showed the trailer for Valve’s upcoming Portal which started as a student project and looks like one of the most interesting (and nauseating) games to come around in a long time. I can only hope Master Plan will have a similar fate.

Day Two - Wednesday 8/8:
I was feeling a bit under the weather when I got up, so I traded for the afternoon shift and took the morning to sleep and regain some energy. I felt somewhat guilty for wasting part of the day, but there’s no way you can experience everything that Siggraph (or San Diego for that matter) has to offer so I figure you’re better off fully enjoying the few things you do get to see.

I had only been working the booth for a few minutes when two women came up to me. They started describing their new project based on futurist Ray Kurzweil’s book "The Singularity Is Near." Apparently they are producing a feature film or animation and are looking for students or recent grads to work on the film. They said they expected the movie to have the same impact that 2001: A Space Odyssey did when it was released in 1968. Those are pretty strong words, and I couldn’t help thinking that their ambitions seemed a little far fetched, but I do have a soft spot for really good science fiction so I gave them my resume. If I wasn’t so close to starting my dream career in game design I would probably pursue this interesting proposal further.

At the end of the night a few of us attended a party at The House of Blues hosted by Vicon (the company that served beer at their booth). We were invited because they are currently building the largest motion capture studio on the East coast right in our building. In fact, I’m jealous of the future cohorts that will be able to use the facility. Anyway, the party was quite awesome and it seemed no expense was spared. DJ Diamond performed while a number of scantily clad go-go dancers rotated shifts to provide constant eye candy for the high ratio of male partygoers. A number of men seemed to be completely mesmerized by these attractive members of the opposite sex, though I imagine they would have been paralyzed had the girls acknowledged them. To add a dorky flair to everything, there were projections of the company logo all over the walls and ceilings and videos of their work continually played on the many monitors throughout the building. It was a really good time and an interesting glimpse into the nightlife of Siggraph.

The Last Day - Thursday 8/9:
Manning the booth today was just like the other days, though I almost fended off some Virginia Tech faculty when initially they only seemed interested in the manikins. I also got word very early that three of our programmers were offered internships at Midway Chicago and one of our producers took a design position at Vicarious Visions. I was already planning on hitting up the job fair as soon as I was done for the day, but that news got me pretty excited (and feeling competitive).

The job fair consisted of about 30 companies, more than half of them game companies, set up in small booths with images and video of their recent projects behind them. I was quite discouraged when High Moon Studios and Radical Entertainment (two companies I admire) barely gave me the time of day due to my lack of experience for the former and lack of Canadian citizenship for the latter. However, as I made my rounds many of the companies seemed quite interested in me and my experience at FIEA. I ended up giving out five copies of Master Plan, about 8 or 9 resumes, and talked quite extensively with a guy from Red 5 entertainment. Even though I’m not a die hard Blizzard fan, as many people are, I decided to go and talk to them as well. It was made clear early on that I wasn’t a very good fit for their company. Contrary to the way they were portrayed in the South Park episode, they do all play a lot of World of Warcraft.

Immediately after the show closed at 3:00, a group of us headed to L.A. to see a Groundlings improv show. For those of you who don’t know, The Groundlings is an L.A. based comedy troupe that includes such alumni as Will Farrell, Paul Reubens, Jon Lovitz, and Phil Hartman. The lovely L.A. traffic made the 120 mile trek take about 3 and ½ hours but boy was it ever worth it. For one, I had assumed the cast would consist of a few up-and-coming comedians, and was delighted when Mindy Sterling, Tim Bagley, and Michael McDonald were introduced on stage. As with most improvisational comedy, you kind of had to be there to get it, but I already can’t wait to go back. As one last dose of California culture we got In-And-Out Burger and headed back to San Diego.

Conclusion:
When I checked my voicemail after arriving back in Orlando I had a message from a recruiter at one of the studios from the job fair. Apparently he and the rest of the team at Siggraph had been impressed by Master Plan and wanted to talk to me. I called him immediately and scheduled some time to talk to him on Monday.

Overall Siggraph was a great experience and I hope that whatever company I’m working for in a year will give me the opportunity to attend it once again.

http://www.masterplangame.com/
http://www.fiea.ucf.edu/

Technochocolate August

It's been a while! Sorry about that.

The summer has pretty much flown by. Milestone after milestone has rolled by for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and we're closing in on the end of production pretty soon. I'm not pulling crunch hours yet but I can see them fast approaching. I'm doing my best to enjoy my free time while I still have it. I went to the beach for the first time in years, and I've been making more and more regular visits to Universal Studios' CityWalk. My friends working on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare have been crunch far more than me -- it's nearing the end of beta. IGN got their hands on the game and they seemed to really like it. Here's hoping it does well.

I picked myself up a Xbox 360 Elite and The Darkness, which is tons of fun, but I'm actually spending even more time downloading and playing game demos from Xbox LIVE. The Bioshock demo is the best thing since popped corn, and the Dynasty Warriors Gundam demo gets me giddy in ways only a true giant robot fan would understand. So far I'm really pleased with the purchase. Gears of War and Dead Rising top the list of stuff I want to pick up next. Actually, now that I think about it, somewhere here at work has a copy of Gears to sell me ... today! Perfect!

I'll try to give y'all another update once things start to cool down. Busy busy!

Summer semester is rollin'

Ah, summertime - every student's favorite time of the year. Oh wait, at FIEA, our students are hard at work on what will surely be the greatest student game of all time, Master Plan IMHO.

Master Plan actually started out as an idea from the sometimes strange mind of Brandon Miller, a student in the programming track. Brandon was our first student to actually take classes from production and programming. And when I say take, I mean take – like assignments, tests, presentations. The faculty was waiting for him to cry wolf and he never did, so he got to pitch his idea to the students in December, and lo and behold, they liked it.

Fast forward to this semester, and we’ve got 34 eager students putting together Brandon’s dream, complete with stunning visuals, websites, game covers, and a game engine that will redefine what is possible in academia. No spoilers here, but be sure to check it out in August on the good ol’ FIEA website.

It’s kind of ironic that we spend so much time talking about console development, but then the students put out a massive product for the PC. Why? Well, first and foremost, we want the game running on an HR rep’s desk, alongside our student resume, so that developers understand that the employee they’re interviewing has participated in a game not unlike what they’re currently making at their studio. We figure if they need an XBOX devkit to run the darn thing, they may be less apt to check it out. Technology is also moving fast, and today’s PC hardware is more akin to what the students will see in the outside world – I like that Master Plan is full of custom shaders and pushes many more polys than possible on XBOX hardware. Do I wish we had PS3 or XBOX 360 devkits? Yes. Are we teaching the techniques our students will use when developing for those and other platforms? Of course.

Thundering March

17 days to graduation! Every time I remember that I'm graduating this semester, I get really excited, but I also get really weirded out. Even here at n-Space, I still feel like a student at FIEA. It's going to be really trippy once I'm officially "done" with the program.

n-Space is everything I could've hoped for in a career experience. I've been working on Star Wars : The Force Unleashed DS, and we're already in thick of production. That means I had to dive headfirst into the tools and get ramped up pretty quickly so I could contribute to milestones meaningfully. The best part is that this wasn't terribly surprising -- this is exactly what I've come to expect from my education at FIEA!

The atmosphere here is really friendly -- everyone seems to know everyone else's name, which is also pretty similar to the school experience. Everyone's also pretty talented and dedicated to making great games. I'm thrilled to have such a killer position in a good, local company so quickly.

Continuing news of Brendan's game-playing: my latest game picks up were Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops for the PSP -- fantastic game! ... and God of War II for the PS2 -- okay game. Pretty much more of the same. I'm quickly losing interest in most video games for one terrible, terrible reason -- I reinstalled World of Warcraft. I'm finally playing a Warlock, like I've always wanted, and it's just as terrifyingly excellent as I dreamed it would be.

Gotta get to work, but today's not all bad -- it's D&D night!

Game Developer's Conference

FIEA descended on GDC this week, so I thought I'd update you on how it went.

Ron Weaver, Michael Gourlay and I started the week attending the IGDA education sessions where we had fun mingling with other game programs and exchanging ideas. Admittedly, this session was a lot more help when we were creating our curriculum, but it's great to be able to give back now that we're hitting our stride. I talked to several people in the investigation stage of their programs about why having a program with artists, programmers AND producers was a really effective way of teaching the material. Michael spent about half his time in the physics workshop on Tuesday, which he really enjoyed, and Ron said the interactive storytelling workshop was great.

Wednesday's highlight had to be seeing all the new virtual world stuff from Sony. It's clear they've gone from trying to copy XBOX live to innovating in that space, and the fierce competition leaves us gamers as the clear winners. It will be interesting to see if the "Home" really takes off and becomes a place to actually meet people. In Pete Isensee's talk on Wednesday, it was enlightening to see the new C++ features being adopted by people coming out of the Technical Report 1 (TR1). Definitely some useful stuff there for game programmers, including some new built-in syntax for hash tables and arrays.

The awards show Wednesday night was exciting, and even though Opera Slinger didn't win the award, it was great to be included in the student showcase. Since so many of the student games were great, just getting there takes a lot of work. But for those students out there hoping to get into the 2008 student showcase, here's a warning: the competition is getting better and better.

Miyamoto's talk on Thursday was inspiring for up-and-coming game designers (or so I heard). It was neat to hear him talk about the student games in such a positive light design-wise, especially since I think Opera Slinger had one of the more innovate designs in the group. I also enjoyed the Saint's Row talk on multiprocessing architecture; it allowed me to compare what they did with what we did on Madden. It's clear that the second generation of games on the 360 had the time to take concurrency more seriously, and his talk gave me some ideas on how to get more efficient when dealing with multiple processors, in a very generic way.

All in all, it was a great conference and it was nice catching up with all my longtime friends in the industry, as well as making a bunch of new ones. I'm looking forward to GDC 2008 already!

Outstanding March

I got a job!

I'm gainfully employed as an Entry Designer at n-Space, a company here in town. I'm working on handheld material right now, but I expect to be working on console material sometime soon.

It's only my third day and I'm already having a spectacular time. The atmosphere of the studio is really almost exactly the same as the atmosphere at FIEA. Everyone's friendly and more than willing to help out a new person on the team. And I haven't really had any shortage of things to do, either -- with production underway, there's always a task sitting around that the new guy can get stuck with!

Besides, any place with its own Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter arcade machine is sure to win my heart over.

Actually getting a job in the industry really vindicates the effort that I've put out for the past year. It really makes me feel like I've achieved something worthwhile, and that alone is really worth its weight in gold.

I'd tell you all about what I'm working on, but I'm not allowed to, so you'll never know! Hahaha! ... actually, I'll just blog about it once I can talk freely about it. The suspense!

... that actually makes me feel guilty about leaving you hanging. I'll leave you with this: The week before I started work, I played all four of the Monkey Island games, courtesy of Matt Laurence (currently pimping himself out at the Game Developers' Conference -- good luck Treblemakers on the Student Showcase!) Fantastic games! Everyone should at least play the first two: Secret of Monkey Island, and Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge. Highly recommended. Go grab 'em.

Seriously. Study up, because I'm gonna quiz you about them next time.

Busy February

How about them Colts, eh?

Things have been ramping up here far more than I ever would've given the fourth semester credit for. I'm working on several research projects this semester and keeping my eye open for employment opportunities. Some of the larger projects I'm working on have been keeping me very busy.

The project communications plan that I've been working on still has me entertained (and productive!) but I've added a couple more tasks to my workload. I've been looking in as a consultant along with Matt Laurence for the Master Plan game that part of Cohort 3 is developing. It's a position I'm honored to be in, as I'm keenly interested in seeing the project succeed. The whole team seems to be on the ball and eager to get things done. I'm pretty anxious to see the results of their first milestone goals, which should be coming up shortly.

Some more games are actually getting made, too. I've assembled a team to take on the mtvU 'Change the Course of HIV Challenge'. We're building a Flash game that not only teaches the player about the effects of AIDS on a community, but should also be a lot of fun to play. I'm pretty happy with the whole team, and they seem similarly happy with the game's design. We should have something online and playable shortly.

Finally, I've started experimenting with creating my own solo Torque game -- it's going slowly, but I'm still excited with the results so far. Maybe I'll have a screenshot for you next time.

Until then, watch your back!

Back to work

The Fall semester ended with a bang, and a selection of two games the students will be working on for the next two semesters. After all the buzz around Opera Slinger, they jumped right in, and many of them worked on research for their games over the Christmas break. Now, we're seeing lots of prototyping, storyboards, concept art and design ideas being thrown around, which is always an exciting time as the games take shape.

I've been spending a lot of time over the last month or two working with programming students on their interview skills, mainly by giving mock interviews and sample programming tests. It's always exciting to see how much better they get at interviewing after just a couple sessions of being asked technical questions. Once they get some confidence, their whole demeanor changes and they interview much more successfully.

I'm almost done with the classwork for my PhD program, which I'm doing here at UCF in Modeling and Simulation. This semester, I'm taking a class called Advanced Computer Graphics, which is actually turning out to be a very interesting, rewarding class. We're talking a lot about raytracing, something the professor insists is moving toward realtime applications like games. Last semester, I took a class in neural networks, where I wrote my own neural network for a game and had the game difficulty adjust as the game was played. It was a fun project, and taught me a lot about what's possible when you have a lot of CPU power to dedicate to AI.

I'm looking forward to going across the street to the Magic game tonight - they're hosting the Bucks. They started out hot this year, but have fallen into a bad stretch lately - hopefully my presence there tonight can help then get a much needed win.

Dangerous January

Happy new year, true believers!

I've spent most of the time since last we spoke back at my parents' place in Key West. I haven't been down to visit them since May, so it was great to spend such a festive time of the year with loved ones that I hadn't seen in so long.

If you'll recall, I was concerned with having something to show for my break: Turns out there was plenty to do in Key West. Chores needed doing around the house that required a special Brendan touch. There were people interested in FIEA who deserved an update on progress -- especially people that had helped me get here. On top of that, it turns out I was supposed to shop for presents to give to people for Christmas. How long has this been going on? Was anyone planning on filling me in? I'd appreciate a memo next time an arbitrary tradition gets institutionalized when I'm not looking.

Visiting with my family was pretty big on the to-do list, and I had a delightful time hanging out with my little brother Oliver, which I haven't really done a whole lot of. I've been away at school for the past five years, so I've missed out on a lot of what Oliver's been doing. It was a real treat to be able to hang out with him, even for a brief time.

The best game I played over the break? An obscure SEGA arcade game called Jambo! Safari. The machine is set up like a racing game, with a seat, a steering wheel, a throttle, and a gas and break pedal, but the game is devoted towards chasing down animals in Africa's Serenghetti and capturing them with an intricate device which throws both lassos and nets, which you control with the throttle. It was an absurd amount of fun.

The rest of my time was largely devoted towards planning for and worrying about my interview. I tried brainstorming a lot of the potential questions that'd get thrown at me, and did my best to cultivate a sense of confidence and self-assurance. I thought I was pretty well prepared. Then I had my practice interview.

The first part of my practice interview was a nightmare on a scale that I haven't previously experienced. The admissions director, James Brewer, and Rick Hall, the production director, were both on the other end of the line, playing the parts of EA Tiburon interviewers (an easy spot to fill, since they've both actually done that.) I picked up the phone and they introduced themselves and Rick said, "So, tell us a little bit about yourself."

My mind went blank. My stomach started doing backflips. I had nothing to say and I was astonished. I was perfectly calm not two seconds ago and now I felt nauseous. While half my brain was trying to reconnect its circuits, the other half was devoting all of its energy trying to figure out why the heck I was so nervous. This was Rick asking to tell him about myself! I don't freeze up like this! I'm Brendan McLeod! I should have this in the bag! Thirty seconds later and they were still waiting for a response. I briefly considered the possibility of faking my own kidnapping. But if this was a real interview, then I wasn't going to be able to ask for a do-over. There's no reason I could expect any different of the practice interview.

So I struggled on and managed to catch some kind of stride and exit half-gracefully, even managing to make fun of my earlier awkwardness. The interview was a lifesaver and gave me a lot of stuff to think about through the next day leading up to the real thing.

The real deal was still pretty intimidating, but I think I did alright with it -- especially compared to the fiasco with James and Rick. Tiburon said they'll make their decision sometime next week, so hopefully soon I'll be able to report in with regards to that.

Until then, make good choices.