So far my quest for a job is going well, today I woke up with a nice email from Ninja Theory in my mail box inviting me for an interview. Yesterday I was called by Codemasters telling me they wanted to do a phone interview on Friday. Hope I get an interview at the company out of that.
And then there is the full fat offer off course from which I still haven't heard a word when the interview is.
Well wish me luck, now it's back to my virtual paint brush again.
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Monday 28 July 2008
Looking back at a (almost a)year(now) of almost full time coding
Tonight I had an epiphany, and so how much I have developed over the last year as a programmer.
I was looking at some screen shots I made in the beginning of the year as I was starting my first game project. I started this project with no idea how a game engine worked besides of the knowledge of a rasterizer in a game engine.
Some Screen shots of the early development of my space simulator game
This knowledge however gave me a little advantage though as I knew how the graphics pipeline worked. It did not however prepare me for the task of gameplay programming, which is basically the hart of everything. It connects the players input to all the other stuff that is going on like rendering of the scene and physics, to the event system that triggers doors and particle systems.
Some screen shots of the end results of my space simulator game
After this project came three others in the same time span that we had gotten for the first one. This was our very first decent taste of what life as a real game programmer would be like, and I can tell you it's though. Game programming is one of these professions which in the first year or two are not for the faint of harted.
In this second semester we had a Physcis/Network engine to write, do a team project (of which the actual specs came from a real studio, Blackrock Studios) and a shader and AI assignment.
Screenshots of the shader asignment
These four assignments let me learn a lot in managing my own time, doing multiple different tasks at the same time. And increased my coding knowledge and potential a lot.
So yeah after a year I am actually glad I decided to leave my own country and safety net and did this MSc. What I learned was that the game industry is a place where people have to work very hard, but it's also a very rewarding place to work. Imagine you squeezing just that last frame out of your code so your game will run at a constant 30fps, or getting the physics interaction of colliding objects just right so the game looks realistic. These are all techinical achievements which are good in reinforcing your own self esteem.
Then ofcourse there is the showing of to other people this is probably the most rewarding aspect of the whole job. Thats also the reason why I sneak in these pictures of my work. If you want to see more pictures and more details about the actual projects I have done or just want to see if the executables work on your machine go here, or follow the link to my portfolio site.
I was looking at some screen shots I made in the beginning of the year as I was starting my first game project. I started this project with no idea how a game engine worked besides of the knowledge of a rasterizer in a game engine.
Some Screen shots of the early development of my space simulator game
This knowledge however gave me a little advantage though as I knew how the graphics pipeline worked. It did not however prepare me for the task of gameplay programming, which is basically the hart of everything. It connects the players input to all the other stuff that is going on like rendering of the scene and physics, to the event system that triggers doors and particle systems.
Some screen shots of the end results of my space simulator game
After this project came three others in the same time span that we had gotten for the first one. This was our very first decent taste of what life as a real game programmer would be like, and I can tell you it's though. Game programming is one of these professions which in the first year or two are not for the faint of harted.
In this second semester we had a Physcis/Network engine to write, do a team project (of which the actual specs came from a real studio, Blackrock Studios) and a shader and AI assignment.
Screenshots of the shader asignment
These four assignments let me learn a lot in managing my own time, doing multiple different tasks at the same time. And increased my coding knowledge and potential a lot.
So yeah after a year I am actually glad I decided to leave my own country and safety net and did this MSc. What I learned was that the game industry is a place where people have to work very hard, but it's also a very rewarding place to work. Imagine you squeezing just that last frame out of your code so your game will run at a constant 30fps, or getting the physics interaction of colliding objects just right so the game looks realistic. These are all techinical achievements which are good in reinforcing your own self esteem.
Then ofcourse there is the showing of to other people this is probably the most rewarding aspect of the whole job. Thats also the reason why I sneak in these pictures of my work. If you want to see more pictures and more details about the actual projects I have done or just want to see if the executables work on your machine go here, or follow the link to my portfolio site.
Friday 25 July 2008
Applications continued
As of now I have heard back from two companies to which I send my CV two weeks ago. One is Rebellion and they sent me a test which I messed up and so got no employment opportunity. The other one is Pivotal Games saying we aren't looking for people anymore. So far no luck so today I decided to send out another wave of applications.
They went to:
So lets hope I´ll get a job now so I can stay here in England and do what I like most make Games/Software related to games.
They went to:
- Full Fat
- Strangelite
- Cohort Studios
- Ninja Theory
- SUMO
- Juice Games
- Gusto Games
- Code Masters
- Double Six
- Frontier
So lets hope I´ll get a job now so I can stay here in England and do what I like most make Games/Software related to games.
Tuesday 22 July 2008
Painting on a 3D model
Well today i got the disseration in such a state that I can start thinking about painting on a 3D model with a soft brush.
Here is a screenshot of the hard brush i am using currently for painting on a 3D model, and the generated rendertarget:
The rendering is done by moving a brush over a 3D model and drawing a circle at the texture coordinates under that point in a shader.
It's not yet anything advanced but the next one is going to either use joint springs or particle systems to achieve a brush like effect.
Here is a screenshot of the hard brush i am using currently for painting on a 3D model, and the generated rendertarget:
The rendering is done by moving a brush over a 3D model and drawing a circle at the texture coordinates under that point in a shader.
It's not yet anything advanced but the next one is going to either use joint springs or particle systems to achieve a brush like effect.
Wednesday 16 July 2008
Dissertation Shaders
Ok I found out what went wrong yesterday.
First of all the circle radius is so big that it encompasses the complete model so we won't see a nice circle, that has no been fixed.
Second was that the origin most likely was passed wrong which is now fixed as well. To do here is to get the actual collision point to be circle origin but that isn't a big problem.
The actual thing now looks something like this:
It's input is still all slider based but at least the shader works as I had expected it to work. And the color passing is a bit off but that is an error in bit shifting I think I made.
First of all the circle radius is so big that it encompasses the complete model so we won't see a nice circle, that has no been fixed.
Second was that the origin most likely was passed wrong which is now fixed as well. To do here is to get the actual collision point to be circle origin but that isn't a big problem.
The actual thing now looks something like this:
It's input is still all slider based but at least the shader works as I had expected it to work. And the color passing is a bit off but that is an error in bit shifting I think I made.
Tuesday 15 July 2008
Effect rendering
Today i fixed the effect and shader rendering part of my dissertation it now should look like this:
The fx file adds a circle arround a certain point in the texture passed on parameters like:
So my next step is too see what the hell is going wrong in the shader that isn't going wrong in RenderMonkey. :(
The fx file adds a circle arround a certain point in the texture passed on parameters like:
- Circle origen in texture coordinates
- Circle Radius
- Circle Color
So my next step is too see what the hell is going wrong in the shader that isn't going wrong in RenderMonkey. :(
Friday 11 July 2008
Dissertation
As far as the dissertation is going I am now trying to implement shaders through DX effect files. I am doing this as the paint brush is much easier to create inside a shader. After talking to my supervisor we both agreed that the pipeline approach which I was using before wasn't a good idea.
It isn't a good idea mostly because it's slow to develop, when using shaders you can use packages like rendermonkey and fx composer.
Besides the goal was to create the virtual brush using shaders anyway in the end.
It isn't a good idea mostly because it's slow to develop, when using shaders you can use packages like rendermonkey and fx composer.
Besides the goal was to create the virtual brush using shaders anyway in the end.
Send your application day
Today i decided it was time for another round of applications, I hope this time round I will get some more positive responses. This time I send my CV and stuff to Rebellion (Alien vs Predator), Rockstar North (GTA of course), Curve Studios (PSP games now stepping over to X360 and PS3), Stainless Games(Xbox Live arcade games) and Pivotal Games (conflict series). Tomorrow I will be sending some more applications to companies like Sumo(Virtua Tennis) and Ninja theory(Heavenly Sword).
So wish me luck in my quest for a job.
So wish me luck in my quest for a job.
Saturday 5 July 2008
Welcome to suburbia
Yesterday I moved from 79 Cranbrook Avenue to 500 Inglemire lane to live for the next 3 months.
The packing of my old room actaully went swift in 3 hours I had everything boxed up and out of the place. It always boggles me that when you think you don't have that much stuff in a room how much it actually is. And this is just basic stuff and the stuff I collected here over a year.
I moved in now for a day and it's a bit adjusting because the walks to uni are a bit longer but also to the pubs. I now need to walk for about 15 minutes to get a pint instead of 5. So I kinda am getting a bit more of movement then I had before. The other thing is the house I am living in now is a lot smaller so that's gonna be a big adjustment as well.
The the nice thing though is that this neighborhood will be a bit more secure than the last one I lived in. This house is smack in the middle of a suburb.
The packing of my old room actaully went swift in 3 hours I had everything boxed up and out of the place. It always boggles me that when you think you don't have that much stuff in a room how much it actually is. And this is just basic stuff and the stuff I collected here over a year.
I moved in now for a day and it's a bit adjusting because the walks to uni are a bit longer but also to the pubs. I now need to walk for about 15 minutes to get a pint instead of 5. So I kinda am getting a bit more of movement then I had before. The other thing is the house I am living in now is a lot smaller so that's gonna be a big adjustment as well.
The the nice thing though is that this neighborhood will be a bit more secure than the last one I lived in. This house is smack in the middle of a suburb.
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