Inspiration of a Frans Thamura, the Indonesian flatener : Weblog
Well said, madman, well said!
I have no idea what this guy is talking about, but it links Android to some sort of religious propaganda which is always a hard thing to do.
Kevin Glass has a great write-up on his first Android experience. Great to see how quickly he got some of Slick ported to the platform. Perhaps a jME port is in the future?
Slashdot | Tabula Rasa Launch Impressions
Zonk gives his review of Tabula Rasa. It is a positive review and generally positive comments below (amazing for a Slashdot article).
First (Leaked) Details on Marvel Universe Online news from 1UP.com Looks like the rumors about Cryptic’s troubled MMO are solidifying as true. The influx of cash from the purchase of City of Heroes/Villains IP will most likely keep them afloat for the next project.
Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Quicksilver Plug-ins
Quicksilver has got to be my favorite OS X utility. I’ve been training myself to use it for a few months now, and have found it to allow me do somewhat complicated tasks fairly quickly. I’m very proud of my latest accomplishment. Selecting a group of files, zipping them and e-mailing them to a coworker without giving it much thought. The process was:
1. Select the files (mouse drag)
2. Invoke Quicksilver (Option+Space)
3. use Selected files (Command+G)
4. Zip them (z)
5. e-mail result (em)
6. to coworker (ri)
The only mouse usage was the initial selection of the files (this could also be done in QuickSilver, but I’ve yet to master Finder navigation in QS). And in 5 steps a zipped version was sent to a contact, whose name begins with an R and I. This process was done in under 10 seconds and was pretty second nature.
Admittedly, up to the point that QS becomes second nature, it seems slower, it’s not the normal way you think of working with a computer.
CoH Community Site posted an article by Sean Fish showing his excitement at the recent acquisition of City of * by NCsoft. Looks like he’ll be given a chance to return to the world he helped create and still provide his creative genius to our little world.
F13.net - Usefully Cynical Commentary » AGDC07: An Evening with Dave and Scott
A chance to ease drop on a couple MMO designers. A good read. And, yes, the phrase “Hey, tell me where what I’m writing is full of crack.” is used far too often.
I’ve been using Leopard for a few days now, and believe this captures Spaces pretty well. I don’t believe it’s broken, and I still find it quite useful, but it could certainly be better, and he explains why.
Now, that it has been almost 6 months since my last post, I think that solidifies the fact that the blog needs a format change. I don’t have the patience to actually write long, well thought out blog posts. So, I’m going to turn this into a “news” type blog, pointing to things that are happening related to my field and possibly post a few comments about it. We’ll see if that kick starts my interest in the blog. If not, perhaps that is a sign.
Colm Smyth’s jME review gave us a positive spin. While not comprehensive in the review, it does show a good level of interest. The only erroneous comment is the inspiration:
It was inspired by Apress’ Advanced Java Game Programming by David Wallace Croft.
While, it may be a great book, I’ve never read of it, nor have I heard of it. jME’s inspiration actually comes from 3D Game Engine Design by David Eberly.
It’s been almost a year, I suppose another release is in order. See announcement below.
jMonkeyEngine announced today that has released version 0.11 of its successful open-source Java gaming engine, adding many new and exciting features as well as improving performance and reliability.
Major new features and systems in this release include:
Bug fixes and enhancements in this release:
Find out more about the jMonkeyEngine by visiting www.jMonkeyEngine.com
So, we are now entering the phase of ramping up staffing for our little “project” here at NCsoft. We’ve started the hiring process for non-engineer positions, and are starting to look into engineer positions now. It should be noted that this is not an official job announcement, but more a request for resumes. However, this announcement has been approved by our HR department. The job will require relocation to beautiful Austin, Texas.
NCsoft, the leader in Massively Online Gaming, is now hiring Software Engineers to work on a next generation Java-based MMO.
Applicants must be proficient in Java and previous game development experience is a huge plus. Candidates will be part of a small creative team. Ability to communicate well with other programmers, artists and creative directors is essential.
We are filling multiple positions, but a strong knowledge of 3D Graphics, Server design and general game design is desired.
Requirements:
* Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience
* Software engineering approach incorporating requirements gathering, design, implementation, and testing phases
* Comfortable working within a structured engineering process that includes technical design documentation, coding standards, checklists, and code reviews
* 5+ years programming experience using Java
* Knowledgeable in refactoring, optimization, and when they are appropriate
* Production-oriented mindset: high-quality, schedule-driven, focus on shipping the game
* Desire/ability to work in a team environment
* Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate with teammates is essential
* Self-motivated, and able to work with minimal direct supervisionDesired:
* Previous game industry experience, with a minimum of two shipped titles or equivalent experience
* Solid grasp of server architecture and TCP/IP networking fundamentals
* 3+ years experience with client/server programming
* OpenGL experience
* jME (jMonkey Engine) experience
* Previous MMO development experience
* Avid MMO gamerFor consideration, submit resume and salary requirements to myself (mpowell@ncsoft.com), Joshua Slack (jslack@ncsoft.com) or Steven Wartofsky (swartofsky@ncsoft.com).
Jadestone has really come forth recently with great PR for jME. First, the released the Hockey Challenge video and now they have released media for an MMO demo called Spirits. They show a strong art staff as well as an ability to really push jME to its limits and show what it can do. The screenshots page is looking more and more impressive.
Edit: The movie has been uploaded to youtube, so I can embed it now.
City of Heroes : Videos for City of Heroes for PC at MMORPG.COM
And to keep up the theme, go watch this video. And continue purchasing NCsoft products so I can continue getting paid.
Tabula Rasa : Videos for Tabula Rasa for PC at MMORPG.COM
This is the latest trailor for Tabula Rasa. It’s really starting to shape up this last year and should be a hit.
BTW: Destination Games is NCAustin for all intents and purposes. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.
Jadestone has finally made public some footage of their next Hockey Challenge game that makes use of jME.
It’s been quite a year. Februrary 20th I celebrated my one year anniversary with NCsoft and look forward to many more. It’s a community that I cherish and respect immensly, and feel privledged to work with. We had our major make or break demo, the demo that would decide if we go forward or re-evaluate. Fortunately, it went extremely well, and we will be going forward with our project, soon it will evolve from the small prototype to a full-on game. What a great first project to be a part of.
A great part of small teams is that there is so much work to go around (also a bad thing about small teams, mind), and you get a great diversity in what you get to do on any given day. For instance, I have finished implementing our game’s collision system. This includes triangle accurate collision with sliding responses. A management system for creating/destroying collision trees as needed and managing collision mesh objects. Collision is a fun, scary project, as soon as you turn on true collision in your game, you quickly start finding areas that need “tweaking” to prevent getting stuck.
The last week, I’ve been working on improving the Animation System a great deal. First, there is now a pluggable system of effects that can be added to animations to allow certain keyframes to trigger events (sounds, particles, other animations, etc). I’ve also implemented weighted blending for smoothly transitioning between animation sets. I tell you, initially, we thought we wouldn’t need blending, but now that it is in place it makes a world of difference.
Unfortunately, these systems will probably not be donated for awhile (although much of the low level collision system has already been donated), as they could be seen as a competitive advantage. However, I do plan on talking about the techniques in future posts in more detail.
GameDev.net has an interview with 3Rings regarding Bang! Howdy and it’s recent nomination for a few awards, including Technical Excellence. Congratulations to them, and I’m glad jME could help you reach the level of quality that you’ve reached.
Ouch! It’s never good when someone with as much influence as Steve Jobs makes such statements, no matter how misguided.
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