Game Breakdown: Uncharted 2 Among Thieves

Posted on November 5, 2009 by jhuculak

uncharted-2-490

Two weekends ago I had the great fortune of completing one of the best games I have played to date on PS3. The original Drake’s Fortune was one of my favorite PS3 games and this sequel has done the original justice. In correct sequel fashion it has surpassed the original in many ways.

I cannot comment on this game without spoilers, however most of my commentary will be on design features and choices and the impact they had on me as a player.

Design
How would I sum up the design? Mobility, Guns, Fist fights all delivered with fluid storytelling. The main thing that grabs me about this game is the movie level caliber of how the game is presented. What keeps me playing is that the mechanics are mixed up enough and paced out correctly so that you are drawn through the story. By making me explore an area before having to fight my way out of they really make you invested in the spaces and reuse does not feel as forced as it does in other games. Rather than a cost savings mechanism it plays out much more as a story telling mechanism about getting invested in the space. It surprised me that these were some of my favorite sections of the game.
One of the things that is odd for me is that as I sit down to breakdown what is Uncharted 2 I am really stretched to find much of a difference in the core single player game and this may be Uncharted 2’s largest asset. They got the first game so right that adding in MP and refining the game with a new story with epic set pieces is more than enough to deliver a great game. When you have a great dish, just add more awesome and it works out! I used to describe that COD4 was a bunch of shooting punctuated with a few memorable moments (Nuke crawl, Air gunship, Sniper) that were the only things you really remember when reflecting on it (oh…and the post credit airplane hijack). Uncharted 2 makes me remember so much more that is actually part of the experience rather than major gameplay variety (Building Jump, Train sequence, Ice caves, Village, Shambala, Shambala collapse). These sequences were all very memorable and unique enough to stick with me after playing.

After that surface level evaluation I would like to dive into a few details.

  • Animation/Gameplay on moving objects – The only moving objects I remember in the first game were vines and the scripted jeep sequence. In Uncharted 2 many of the exploration and fighting environments have moving pieces. This adds to the drama as you climb on moving breaking parts of a train or when you have to do mobility on large gear objects. This subtle extension was used to great effect without being a slap in the face. I am sure this system is what enabled them to knock a building down with you in it 🙂
  • Character progression – You go through something like 5 variants of your outfit during the game as well as changes from the people around you. This really grounded each scene and environment and sold the different environments very well.
  • Environmental variety – Drakes Fortune nailed the wet jungle theme. Uncharted 2 is equally as good but its highlight is snow and ice and then it returns to jungle. Some of ice scenes looked like matte paintings! The world modeling team deserves as standing ovation for their work in this game. They must have a solid shader group as well as the lighting plays on the ice and snow beautifully
  • Lighting – Generally the lighting is awesome but they do suffer from SSAO halos around the characters at times. Overall I think the impact is worth it.

Scope
Of all things I was amazed with the scope and quality of this game are way ahead of any other product I have played.

  • 1:31 minutes of rendered cinemas
  • 10.5 hours to finish the regular campaign on Normal
  • Major unique moments with entire sets animated
  • Polished play experience through the entire game
  • MP
  • Video making support
  • Unlockable features

Review
If I was giving this game a review it would be a 9/10 and a highly recommended. Comparing it to Batman AA I would have to say that it is better by a fair amount but less innovative in its combat system. If you want a solid story experience and awe inspiring game moments put your money on Uncharted 2. If you are interested in experiencing new gameplay, Batman would be your better bet. In terms of production value I would guess that Batman was about 1/3rd the cost of Uncharted 2. Oh…and I haven’t even tried the MP in it.

Final Comments
To me Uncharted 2 is a great example of where AAA games are going. You will not be getting any dramatic new gameplay features, but what you do get is a VERY polished game that excels at what it does. From a guy who loves burgers and summer action movies I couldn’t ask for much more for my $60 investment. I thought I would have more to say about their design, but in the end I think it is a fairly standard formula executed at a level that I don’t think any other studio could achieve (they will in the future).

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District 9 – Image Engine Siggraph Presentation

Posted on October 1, 2009 by jhuculak
I had a double filling of District 9 yesterday. I attended a special siggraph event that had some of the studio leadership from Image Engine on site to describe some of the process and
challenges of making District 9. When I arrived at home I also had the latest Cinefex magazine that also had an article on District 9. This healthy dose of special FX made me descide to post on my learnings from the show and how it applies to games.
District 9
The event was a fairly casual atmosphere where Image Engine presented some of the challenges taking things all the way from concept to completion. They handled roughly 350 shots out of
500 for the show. I was surprised and happy that a lot of the commentary was very technical about how they achieved each scene and I found that their focus was very heavily on compositi
ng and lighting rather than the original character modeling (could have been the staff represented rather than the production needs). The other thing that was of great interest to me wa
s the concept of their film pipelines. This is very much like game industry work where they would establish best practices early that would actually let them achieve more in the long ru
n. From a practical getting features in the game perspective there are many parallells between games and film. They didn’t use the terminology but they were essentially implementing a deferred renderer in Nuke which is much more powerful than what we can do in games.
Out of the chat there were a few technologies that I wanted to follow up on that Image Engine either authors or uses. 3Delight is a renderman compliant renderer that looks like it is free to use if you aren’t using it for commercial purposes. In addition to that Image Engine releases a collection of helper tools to the open source community called [TODO] that I think I will browse through to compare to game production.
The only other detail that was interested was a rough breakdown of the cost of making films. I don’t remember the exact quote but a typical non-effect heavy movie would have 2-3% of the budget in FX. That would scale up to 30% for a major FX movie. How did Image Engine make such great FX for a $30 million dollar budget? No high cost talent fees, one third the film crew and tax credits. I am paraphrasing their answers but this was essentially it. If you don’t have major big name producers and stars you save a bundle. If you film with a skeleton staff you save money. If you can get government perks (BC has film tax benefits) you can do it cheaper. The long answer is that they didn’t compromise the FX budget!
I was really excited to attend this event and read about it in Cinefex as this movie really had the story first and the FX second even as an effect heavy game. I think that is something that modern games could learn from.
What could games learn from District 9?
The quote from Neil Blomkamp at the end of the Cinefex article is awesome [TODO]. I think that many people making games are actually still lost in the mechanics of making a game rather than crafting an experience. The controls need to eventually dissapear from your conscious mind and you have to enjoy the experience without thinking about your actions. I think lots of modern games have done this well when they craft and experience rather than telling a plot. This is a huge distinction that expert story tellers know. I think this what makes games like Portal, COD4 and BioShock stand apart from other games out their – It is a crafted experience rather than a set of game mechanics or a plot.
What did I learn from District 9?
I learned that film process looks very similar to games and my programming skills may be very transferable. I might post some off topic tests with similar art pipelines if I ever get around to it to compare the funcitonality between games and film. Renderman looks fun 🙂
In addition I found the pace of work and the quality to be amazing. It sounded like about a year and half of work for 350 shots. That works out to just under one shot a day. The render farm they mentioned was amazingly huge. Sounds like some fun technical challenges!I had a double filling of District 9 yesterday. I attended a special siggraph event that had some of the studio leadership from Image Engine on site to describe some of the process and
challenges of making District 9. When I arrived at home I also had the latest Cinefex magazine that also had an article on District 9. This healthy dose of special FX made me descide to post on my learnings from the show and how it applies to games.
District 9
The event was a fairly casual atmosphere where Image Engine presented some of the challenges taking things all the way from concept to completion. They handled roughly 350 shots out of
500 for the show. I was surprised and happy that a lot of the commentary was very technical about how they achieved each scene and I found that their focus was very heavily on compositi
ng and lighting rather than the original character modeling (could have been the staff represented rather than the production needs). The other thing that was of great interest to me wa
s the concept of their film pipelines. This is very much like game industry work where they would establish best practices early that would actually let them achieve more in the long ru
n. From a practical getting features in the game perspective there are many parallells between games and film. They didn’t use the terminology but they were essentially implementing a deferred renderer in Nuke which is much more powerful than what we can do in games.
Out of the chat there were a few technologies that I wanted to follow up on that Image Engine either authors or uses. 3Delight is a renderman compliant renderer that looks like it is free to use if you aren’t using it for commercial purposes. In addition to that Image Engine releases a collection of helper tools to the open source community called [TODO] that I think I will browse through to compare to game production.
The only other detail that was interested was a rough breakdown of the cost of making films. I don’t remember the exact quote but a typical non-effect heavy movie would have 2-3% of the budget in FX. That would scale up to 30% for a major FX movie. How did Image Engine make such great FX for a $30 million dollar budget? No high cost talent fees, one third the film crew and tax credits. I am paraphrasing their answers but this was essentially it. If you don’t have major big name producers and stars you save a bundle. If you film with a skeleton staff you save money. If you can get government perks (BC has film tax benefits) you can do it cheaper. The long answer is that they didn’t compromise the FX budget!
I was really excited to attend this event and read about it in Cinefex as this movie really had the story first and the FX second even as an effect heavy game. I think that is something that modern games could learn from.
What could games learn from District 9?
The quote from Neil Blomkamp at the end of the Cinefex article is awesome [TODO]. I think that many people making games are actually still lost in the mechanics of making a game rather than crafting an experience. The controls need to eventually dissapear from your conscious mind and you have to enjoy the experience without thinking about your actions. I think lots of modern games have done this well when they craft and experience rather than telling a plot. This is a huge distinction that expert story tellers know. I think this what makes games like Portal, COD4 and BioShock stand apart from other games out their – It is a crafted experience rather than a set of game mechanics or a plot.
What did I learn from District 9?
I learned that film process looks very similar to games and my programming skills may be very transferable. I might post some off topic tests with similar art pipelines if I ever get around to it to compare the funcitonality between games and film. Renderman looks fun 🙂
In addition I found the pace of work and the quality to be amazing. It sounded like about a year and half of work for 350 shots. That works out to just under one shot a day. The render farm they mentioned was amazingly huge. Sounds like some fun technical challenges!
alien
I had a double filling of District 9 yesterday. I attended a special Siggraph event in Vancouver that had some of the studio leadership from Image Engine onsite to describe the process and challenges of making District 9. Then as soon as I arrived at home I also had the latest Cinefex magazine that also had an article on District 9. This healthy dose of digital FX made me decide to post on my learnings from the show and how it applies to games.
District 9
The event was a fairly casual atmosphere where Image Engine presented some of the challenges taking things all the way from concept to completion. They handled roughly 350 shots out of 500 for the show. I was surprised and happy that a lot of the commentary was very technical about how they achieved each scene and I found that their focus was very heavily on compositing and lighting rather than the original character modeling (could have been the staff represented rather than the production needs). The other thing that was of great interest to me was the concept of their film pipelines. This is very much like game industry work where they would establish best practices early that would actually let them achieve more in the long run. From a practical getting features in the game perspective there are many parallels between games and film. They didn’t use the terminology but they were essentially implementing deferred rendering in Nuke which is much more powerful than what we can do in games (full color precision, 100’s of layers, significant image processing on each layer, etc).
Out of the chat there were a few technologies that I wanted to follow up on that Image Engine either authors or uses. 3Delight is a renderman compliant renderer that looks like it is free to use if you aren’t using it for commercial purposes. In addition to that Image Engine releases a collection of helper tools to the open source community called cortex that I think I will browse through to compare to game production.
The only other detail that was interested was a rough breakdown of the cost of making films. I don’t remember the exact quote but a typical non-effect heavy movie would have 2-3% of the budget in FX. That would scale up to 30% for a major FX movie. How did Image Engine make such great FX for a $30 million dollar budget? No high cost talent fees, one third the film crew and tax credits. I am paraphrasing their answers but this was essentially it. If you don’t have major big name producers and stars you save a bundle. If you film with a skeleton staff you save money. If you can get government perks (BC has film tax benefits) you can do it cheaper. The long answer is that they didn’t compromise the FX budget!
I was really excited to attend this event and read about it in Cinefex as this movie really had the story first and the FX second even as an effect heavy game. I think that is something that modern games could learn from.
What could games learn from District 9?
The quote from Neill Blomkamp at the end of the Cinefex article is awesome.
There is a generation of filmmakers emerging now that is tired of seeing the kinds of visual effects we were exposed to in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, CG just got out of control. It wasn’t being created for the right reasons. It was bullshit spectacle. I think we’re going to see filmmakers reverting back to using effects in ways that can amplify the texture of the film, not diminish it. – Neill Blomkamp
I think that many people making games are actually still lost in the mechanics of making a game rather than crafting an experience. The controls need to eventually disappear from your conscious mind and you have to enjoy the experience without thinking about your actions. I think lots of modern games have done this well when they craft and experience rather than telling a plot. This is a huge distinction that expert story tellers know. I think this what makes games like Portal, COD4 and BioShock stand apart from other games out their – It is a crafted experience rather than a set of game mechanics or a plot.
What did I learn from District 9?
I learned that film process looks very similar to games and my programming skills may be very transferable. I might post some off topic tests with similar art pipelines if I ever get around to it to compare the functionality between games and film. Renderman looks fun 🙂
In addition I found the pace of work and the quality to be amazing. It sounded like about a year and half of work for 350 shots. That works out to just under one shot a day. The render farm they mentioned was amazingly huge. Sounds like some fun technical challenges!
Posted in Industry Commentary | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Game Breakdown: Batman Arkham Asylum

Posted on September 15, 2009 by jhuculak
——————————————————————————–
Batman Arkham Asylum Breakdown
——————————————————————————–
I just had the pleasure of finishing the story mode on Batman Arkham Asylum and it was a great game. I played the PS3 version and it performed beautifully. It is no surprise that this game appears to be on its way to over a million sales in its first week. What makes it so good?
Love your source material
——————————
Rocksteady’s attention to detail is amazing. Having not followed Batman comic books myself, I cannot imagine how exciting this game must be for real fans as I was absolutely stunned by the number of small details that the game had to honor the original source material. These guys loved the material and it showed. From the main enemies of the game all the way to the hidden collectibles this game oozed quality.
For the brawlers
——————————
The fighting mechanics are brilliantly executed. You can dive in and fight upwards of 15+ henchman and kick some serious criminal butt. The controls are relatively simple. You could almost get by with one button and the left control stick. Being able to create an engaging experience with one simple mechanic is key to making the game accessible and fun right from the start. On top of that excellent base Rocksteady adds in a few special enemies that force you to use a few more of your moves. There are counter punches, evade maneuvers as well as a stun hit that is key for knife wielding enemies. The perfectly timed progression to revealing these additional classes and then having you mix them all in massive numbers near the end of the game always left me excited to get in a fight. And I haven’t even mentioned combos! On top of all of the aforementioned greatness, there are also special combo moves. When you really get into the butt kicking the game almost feels like a pinball game where you can send batman careening into as many opponents as you would expect such a super hero to.
For the stealth players
——————————
In addition to the brawl mechanic Batman has a silent predator kind of mode where you get to analyze the situation and strategically decimate your enemies. The detective mode is brilliant for this and allows the designers to show the state of the AI but at the same time it requires that the AI behaves appropriately even when they are not in eye site. You have plenty of options for dispatching your foes – Silent take downs from behind, inverted take downs from above, glide kicks off high objects, airborne batarangs, placed explosive charges, sonic discs to attract enemies and probably a few others. Having this strategic element raises the experience from being a simple brawler game and really requires you to think and strategize. The reward of figuring out how to clear out a room of 6-8 machine gun wielding enemies is awesome.
For the explorers/completionists
——————————
Unguided exploration is not my forte. Luckily the designers at Rocksteady added in a few maps that you can find that show you the location of the secrets. Knowing where they are only helps you as some are still difficult to achieve or impossible at the time you come across them. The game is designed to revisit locations and let you explore even more as you advance in the game. There are hundreds of collectibles and huge amount of variety in locations so exploring never gets boring and requires some acrobatic skill to find each location. More games should provide a mechanism that shows where you have to go to get secrets. Most games I don’t really care as I would have to look up the location of all the secrets online or just come across some. Knowing exactly where they were made me want to find them all! This was a very similar experience to Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow where the badges you would earn had clear exit criteria and made me interested in trying the various challenges.
For the story seeker
——————————
I don’t think I have heard a game as well voice acted as this one. Although the plot is VERY comic booky and I didn’t find that Batman was much of a character, this game delivered on the goods by pacing out and building each encounter in the game. From beginning to end I felt like the Joker was toying with me and that each super villain thrown in front of me had a serious beef with my character. This kept me engaged enough to always want to come back for more. I particularly liked the scare crow moments that were reminiscent of the dream sequences in Max Payne but done as side scroller awesomeness. Having variety in how you play really kept the 8-10 hour experience engaging for me.
For the boss fight addict
——————————
A good game can keep you entertained with regular troops and maybe one or two major boss encounters. Batman hammers you with no less than four major bosses and about the same number of minor bosses throughout the game. Almost any situation with “variety” involves a boss fight. Each of these encounters is surrounded by a key cinematic that really ties the boss fight into the progression of the story.
Lessons taken from this game
——————————
A Single player only game still works when done this well (The Bioshock example has not warn off)
Providing a list of achievements to the player increases the likelihood of the player completing the challenges
Keep a very simple base combat system and add strategic spices to the mix to broaden the core experience and build on it
Summary
——————————
Rocksteady did an amazing job with this title and not only put a great game out but also put their studio out as a major player. Judging by the credits, a small team put out a great game with depth and polish. If they can repeat this experience in a subsequent title they will prove their pedigree! As an example of an accomplishable design with a small number of features that build on each other I think Batman AA is comparable to Gears of War. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

I just had the pleasure of finishing the story mode on Batman Arkham Asylum and it was a great game. I played the PS3 version and it performed beautifully. It is no surprise that this game appears to be on its way to over a million sales in its first week. What makes it so good?

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Love your source material

Rocksteady’s attention to detail is amazing. Having not followed Batman comic books myself, I cannot imagine how exciting this game must be for real fans as I was absolutely stunned by the number of small details that the game had to honor the original source material. These guys loved the material and it showed. From the main enemies of the game all the way to the hidden collectibles this game oozed quality.

For the brawlers

The fighting mechanics are brilliantly executed. You can dive in and fight upwards of 15+ henchman and kick some serious criminal butt. The controls are relatively simple. You could almost get by with one button and the left control stick. Being able to create an engaging experience with one simple mechanic is key to making the game accessible and fun right from the start. On top of that excellent base Rocksteady adds in a few special enemies that force you to use a few more of your moves. There are counter punches, evade maneuvers as well as a stun hit that is key for knife wielding enemies. The perfectly timed progression to revealing these additional classes and then having you mix them all in massive numbers near the end of the game always left me excited to get in a fight. And I haven’t even mentioned combos! On top of all of the aforementioned greatness, there are also special combo moves. When you really get into the butt kicking the game almost feels like a pinball game where you can send batman careening into as many opponents as you would expect such a super hero to.

For the stealth players

In addition to the brawl mechanic Batman has a silent predator kind of mode where you get to analyze the situation and strategically decimate your enemies. The detective mode is brilliant for this and allows the designers to show the state of the AI but at the same time it requires that the AI behaves appropriately even when they are not in eye site. You have plenty of options for dispatching your foes – Silent take downs from behind, inverted take downs from above, glide kicks off high objects, airborne batarangs, placed explosive charges, sonic discs to attract enemies and probably a few others. Having this strategic element raises the experience from being a simple brawler game and really requires you to think and strategize. The reward of figuring out how to clear out a room of 6-8 machine gun wielding enemies is awesome.

For the explorers/completionists

Unguided exploration is not my forte. Luckily the designers at Rocksteady added in a few maps that you can find that show you the location of the secrets. Knowing where they are only helps you as some are still difficult to achieve or impossible at the time you come across them. The game is designed to revisit locations and let you explore even more as you advance in the game. There are hundreds of collectibles and huge amount of variety in locations so exploring never gets boring and requires some acrobatic skill to find each location. More games should provide a mechanism that shows where you have to go to get secrets. Most games I don’t really care as I would have to look up the location of all the secrets online or just come across some. Knowing exactly where they were made me want to find them all! This was a very similar experience to Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow where the badges you would earn had clear exit criteria and made me interested in trying the various challenges.

For the story seeker

I don’t think I have heard a game as well voice acted as this one. Although the plot is VERY comic booky and I didn’t find that Batman was much of a character, this game delivered on the goods by pacing out and building each encounter in the game. From beginning to end I felt like the Joker was toying with me and that each super villain thrown in front of me had a serious beef with my character. This kept me engaged enough to always want to come back for more. I particularly liked the scare crow moments that were reminiscent of the dream sequences in Max Payne but done as side scroller awesomeness. Having variety in how you play really kept the 8-10 hour experience engaging for me.

For the boss fight addict

A good game can keep you entertained with regular troops and maybe one or two major boss encounters. Batman hammers you with no less than four major bosses and about the same number of minor bosses throughout the game. Almost any situation with “variety” involves a boss fight. Each of these encounters is surrounded by a key cinematic that really ties the boss fight into the progression of the story.

Lessons taken from this game

  1. A Single player only game still works when done this well (The Bioshock example has not warn off)
  2. Providing a list of achievements to the player increases the likelihood of the player completing the challenges
  3. Keep a very simple base combat system and add strategic spices to the mix to broaden the core experience and build on it

Summary

Rocksteady did an amazing job with this title and not only put a great game out but also put their studio out as a major player. Judging by the credits, a small team put out a great game with depth and polish. If they can repeat this experience in a subsequent title they will prove their pedigree! As an example of an accomplishable design with a small number of features that build on each other I think Batman AA is comparable to Gears of War. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Posted in Game Breakdowns | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

My new MacBook Pro 13″ – A love it, hate it roller coster

Posted on August 17, 2009 by jhuculak

It has been a very long journey deciding to leave windows behind and try out Mac OSX. At the end of the day the 13″ MacBook Pro offered the best balance of performance for the price.

Mac Stores are Awesome – Love it.

I really have to say that Mac Stores make the buying experience easy and exciting. They have every model available and you can see everything you are interested in buying. This made my debate between the 15″ and the 13″ easier to handle. I have to give them a 10/10 for the store experience.

OSX Initial Impressions – Hate it.

First I hated it. The keyboard layout (control key is in the wrong place!), application control (odd folders, not really like start menu). Clicking on the keypad (needs physical click, right click took me a bit to figure out).

Configured a few things that helped like tap touching the keypad. Then I made the mistake of trying to get Wine running next.

Everything worked great to get Steam installed but literally NOTHING ran for me out of Wine without major issues (even Wolf3D!). After trying this for a few hours over a few days I gave up on it for now and decided to install the SSD instead.

MacBook Pro 13″ + OCZ Vertex SSD = Initial Configuration NIGHTMARE. Hated it.

I had read a couple of places that there might be issues installing SSD’s on the macbook both because of the SSD firmware version and because of the Mac books throttled SATA interface. I was to excited to prep for any of this and just ripped my case open to slap the new drive in. Sadly I didn’t have the T6 screw driver that I needed so this was delayed a couple of weeks. After that I popped the drive in, slapped the OSX install disk in and I was super excited. Then the install failed.
And it failed again the second time.
Read some forums…try minimal install.
Failed again. And now it doesn’t even recognize the drive as a valid partition…great.
Hmmm…read deeper into some technical forums and found three possibilities:

  1. Update the drive firmware.
  2. Update the mac driver for SATA
  3. Hold some magical key combination to clear out some kind of cached memory at boot up [Check this link out and search for “Resetting PRAM and NVRAM” for the key combination]

My scientific background wanted to try these one at a time. So I found a way to burn the driver update, ran the program and it told me I was already on the latest flash. Ok…why bother re-installing then? Might as well flash the mac. Slap in the old HD, run the update…it says I don’t need to. Ok…why bother re-installing? Put the SSD back in, hold down three magical keys and try the install again. Works fine and super fast. Great! I have no idea if step 1 or 2 actually flashed it and I have no idea why the third step worked but I now have a crash free Mac with a fast SSD.

Fast Boot and Wake up times – LOVE IT!

Launching applications, copying files and doing anything HD intensive is a dream on the new drive and it is silent! I’m loving what the hardware can do and how little time is spent waiting for anything except network traffic!

Post Install Thoughts – Warming up to loving Mac

After having issues installing the operating system and getting everything running I was a little worried I would regret the purchase. After using OSX for awhile and mostly using the machine for the usual web browsing and photo editing I am really enjoying it. I am even considering not installing windows because I don’t think that I will game on the laptop very much given that I will be moving into a bigger place and will be taking my desktop out of storage. One of the advantages of not having games on the laptop is that I may be more likely to make some of my own! That leads to some comments about continuing this blog.

Long Time, No Posts – Hate that!

The last few weeks have been hectic for me selling my place and buying a new one. I move in a few weeks and then I should have a longer commute that will let me work on my projects more (I hope!). This laptop purchase may be a bit of a hit in terms of my development because the popcap framework doesn’t run under OSX. In addition to that I think I may have caught the iPhone/iPod Touch development bug and may explore what I can do on that device. Hopefully I will be posting again more regularly in the near future.

Posted in Hardware | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Hardware addiction and potential Mac conversion

Posted on July 10, 2009 by jhuculak

I’ve heard that the first step is admitting that you have a problem. In recent months I have been keeping my gadget addiction to a minimum through smaller purchases like new keyboards, mice and mouse pads.

Did my new apple keyboard satisfy my cravings?
No.

Did my new Razer Solmosa mouse satisfy my gadget needs?
No.

Did my new Steelseries glass mouse pad slow down my need to purchase gadgets?
No.

Did my BRAND NEW OCZ Vertex SSD drive satisfy my gadget needs?
YES! For now..

120GB OCZ Vertex SSD

I have a brand new OCZ Vertex SSD drive with no computer to put it in and it is the most exciting purchase that I have made in years. I’m not actually sure if I am more excited about the drive than a new laptop. This doesn’t make rational sense as having your boot times going from 1:30 to 0:30 wouldn’t be worth it to most people for the $349 Canadian that I spent on the drive…however for some reason it is the perfect gadget as SSD is probably the most significant advance in computer technology in years. I’m not deterred by the fact that it looks like a magazine bundled insert, that it weighs next to nothing and looks simple. This is a true gadget. Now I just need to find a place to put it.

What laptop will I buy?

I currently run on an aging Sony Vaio T140p that I bought a a job changing present for myself about four and half years ago. The little beast cost me about $2500 back then and I have loved having it for the last four years. I am hoping that my next laptop will last about 4-5 years as well and I am willing to spend about the same. Having friends making iPhone/iPod Touch games and playing them really makes me think that a MacBook Pro might just be the ticket.
I was initially going to go with the 13″ MacBook Pro but the reports that the screen has 6-bit processing has turned me off of it. I think the 17″ is to big and way overpriced so I will most likely end up with one of the 15″ models if I go the MacBook Pro route. If I do take the plunge it will be next weekend.

Laptop options

  1. MacBook Pro 15″
  2. Dell XPS 16″
  3. Sony FW

Stay tuned

Sadly this game making hardware obsession will take a dent out of any of the ongoing game projects. I will take a technical bend in profiling and setting up the machine in the next few weeks worth of posting. Oh…and I sold my house in the last couple weeks and will be moving so my posts will be a bit more erratic in the next little while…

If you have any advice for laptops or suggestions please fire them my way.

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Finally finished the Graphics Black Book

Posted on June 18, 2009 by jhuculak

I finally finished reading Micheal Abrash’s Graphics Black Book from cover to cover. I found it funny that Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror fame posted about it about the same time that I started reading it. Almost a year later I finally made it through.  I had read the Zen of Graphics Programming but not the entire collection before.

In my opinion there is only one real reason that Micheal’s writing and articles are exceptional: He LOVES what he does and it shows. I got my start in games programming in the pre-internet days and articles from people like Micheal or even books like Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus were like candy to me as a kid. It seems that since the 80’s, books on programming have generally become more stuffy or process focused and move away from the love of coding. It was good to read this book as a reminder that anyone that has the lucky job of creating things, in this specific case code, has a dream job that is contantly changing and challenging! Some people might be confused why someone would derive so much entertainment out of squeezing performance out of code. I think that the days of fast hardware are making the efficiency battles less important and less fun.

I consider this the “Great Cultural Divide” that is developing within the game programming community. There are people that want to code to the metal and understand everything that makes a program tick. Then the other group wants to make the computer do something specific and the details of that are not the strict focus. Some people split these up as programmers vs. scripters. The divide to me is actually between people that like working with well defined problems and people that don’t mind creative iteration and subjectivity.

Low level programmers love direct challenges and fixed hardware environments. This allows you to craft out the best possible solution to a problem and “know” that you are close to optimal. You can measure your progress by the time taken to execute.

High level programming is mostly about making sure you are hitting the requirements of the application within reasonable performance/memory targets and getting a product that is interesting.

Even through these personality types can co-exist in the same programmer, I still find that one takes a healthy precedence. I also think that the low level programmer is changing from being assembly programmers to being C++ programmers. It is a scary thought, but the move towards having fully fledged support libraries like .NET, XNA, DirectX etc. are making it so that you don’t need as low level expertise. This means we are making more programmers into the high level programmers and I find that less are doing it for a love of code, but rather for a love of results. This changes the dynamic and feel of the workplace from loving code and learning to frustrations about what hardware can do and how annoying the coding part is to get results. Meanwhile, the low level luddites hang onto languages that take twice as long to write the code and may not end up getting things done. This is going to lead to an interesting language transition in the near future where some other language will completely dominate C++, even in embedded systems.  I am interested in seeing how this evolves and what being a low level programmer will mean 5 years from now.

I also apologize for my lack of posts in the last little while. I’m packing my place up to try and sell and have been out of the house more than I have been in it!

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Down with the Sickness again…

Posted on June 8, 2009 by jhuculak

I had another crazy sick weekend. If I get the chance I will post more tomorrow but for now I’m just trying to sleep and hydrate.

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Star Destroyer Part II – Geometry Block In

Posted on June 2, 2009 by jhuculak

It has been a couple weeks since I looked at my Star Destroyer model. Last time I had come to the conclusion that I should start over because the geometry was messed up in the back of the ship. Rather than start from scratch I decided to delete the geometry be doing a boolean subtraction of a cube from that half of the model.

FixByCuttingInHalf

In order to subtract half the model I went through every vertex that should be aligned and moved them to 0.0 on the X-axis. Then when I subtracted the cube from that half I had a perfectly divided Star Destroyer and my bad geometry was gone forever.

Next step was adding some detail to the engines. I did this using some capped cylinders and extruding them back into themselves to make the engine shape. I still haven’t finished with the bottom of the ship but I might skip to details and UV mapping next week to maximize my learnings.

By no means do I consider this a “good block-in”. This is about building by skills, not fine art!

StarDestroyerDay2Shot1StarDestroyerDay2Shot2

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Down with the sickness

Posted on May 25, 2009 by jhuculak

I’m a little under the weather today so my usual weekly post might be a bit delayed this week. I’m hoping to hit part II of the star destroyer modeling soon. Until then I will be sleeping and hydrating as much as possible.

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Where are games going after 2009?

Posted on May 19, 2009 by jhuculak

I have had a series of unconnected events in the last week that all made me think about the progress games have made and where they will go in the future. I had the pleasure of listening to BioWare’s doctor head honchos at GDC Canada on emotionally engaging games and where they are going. They followed this up with a great description of how the events outside of the game in the real world also engage the player. While packing up my old book collection I came across some Game Developer Magazines from the late 90’s and the covers showed me how far we have really come. Finally I had a chat with a friend who is starting his own video game company targeting the console market. All of these events lead me to the conclusion that the current PS3/360 generation of games is transitioning from technology based success to quality/polish based success and that games in 10 to 20 years might not be all that different but will be incredibly polished.

Dr. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka had an awesome keynote at GDC where they described how they connect with their audience on an emotional level. Half of the presentation was comparing the evolution in their games by playing videos of similar interactions in their products over the years. I missed a little bit of the point of their presentation because I couldn’t help but think that all their games conversation systems acted essentially the same. Ultimately you are picking from a branching choose your own adventure. Is Dragon Age going to be much more engaging than Baldur’s Gate II was? Having more advanced story telling mechanisms may make games more like movies than novels and that may lead to more sales but I do not think it makes the games themselves more engaging. However story telling mechanisms make the games message more clear and accessible which can lead to having more people getting engaged. I was looking at the core of the product when I should have been looking at the audience. Audiences seem to want movies not novels. Always think of the customers.

BioWare has always been a leader in supporting their community. I have always admired BioWare’s dedication to their audience. They were one of the first game companies that really listened to fans by having message boards, dedicated community managers and encouraging user created content. Ray and Greg took a bit of time to describe how all of this activity really builds fan base and a story around the game. When I was playing Baldur’s Gate II simultaneously with my room mates we all had different parties and were amazed by how all of our stories were different in a significant way. I still feel guilty that I let Aerie die! Creating enough emotion to have conversations about how you felt in the game with friends is building a community and I do think BioWare is the best in the business at this.

If the strategy that BioWare is taking is the future of gaming I would think that more movie like story telling devices and polish will be combined with massively involved community. When I dug up my game developers I saw a cover for Shattered Steel (a BioWare game) which looked great at the time but sure is dated. It makes me think that games of the past were really the equiavalent of early experimental films where the novelty of the game was what sold the product. That is what I call technology based success. This is still happening today with things like the Wii. There is room for growth in this market, but in order to sustain success games need to contine to get even more polished and accessible.

Chatting with a friend starting a new studio made me think what I would do if I was starting a studio myself. Some of my friends think it is crazy to jump into the AAA console market. If you are jumping in, I think you have to realize that you have to target a very broad range of skillsets first and foremost and then find ways to engage them in your game before launch. Many companies can barely get the product done and as a result as successful game does not become a successful product. This is one of the things that I think is much different between the movie and game industry. In the movie industry you can have a sleeper hit on DVD because the cost of investment in this is relatively low. Gamers follow studios and you need to nurture a fan base. That means investing in your product for years after launch.

In the future games will be separated not by their technology innovations. Instead games will be set apart by the emotional journey they take you on by involving you in a way that no movie can. Innovations that add to this immersion will be successful. When this kind of thing happens I think there should be a separation between “games” and “games as an emotional experience”. Take chess as an example, it doesn’t explicitly tell a story and is not Art in my opinion. The future will hold many more games that introduce audiences to new experiences but if it doesn’t connection emotionally it isn’t art to me. The classic debates will continue but companies like BioWare will make more people believe in games as art in the future. Can’t wait to see it happen!

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