August 11, 2008
I had an email yesterday from a guy with some questions about working in game testing. He had some very... optimistic impressions about what working in the field could be like. After straightening out some of his misconceptions, I asked him where he'd picked up the idea that he'd be able to make a …
August 06, 2008
Where was I? Oh, yes. BTW Jack has posted his writeup as well so if my rambling stream-of-consciousness intartube blathering is not appealing to you he has a low-sodium alternative for you.
I totally forgot to tell you guys about the keynote speech!
Well, ok, not much to tell. David Gosen, VP of Stra…
I totally forgot to tell you guys about the keynote speech!
Well, ok, not much to tell. David Gosen, VP of Stra…
August 06, 2008
Well, as you can see, my attempt to liveblog the conference didn't really happen. I was all set until I realized that if I kept my phone on all day I would have run out of phone battery and been unable to find my way home.
So, I took lots of paper notes instead. Many thanks to jollyjeffers and Phant…
So, I took lots of paper notes instead. Many thanks to jollyjeffers and Phant…
July 18, 2008
OK, so I've been using the iPhone for a couple of days now. It's such a big step up from my previous phone that I can't help but be pleased with it. The interface is intuitive and generally responsive; there are some nice touches, like the ability to browse in both landscape and portrait modes simp…
July 15, 2008
Work continues apace. Yesterday I sent the doc out to all of the site moderators for their opinions on things, and this afternoon I'll be sending it out to a select few users who I want to consult about particular aspects of the site.
You'll all get the chance to play with it before long, trust me […
You'll all get the chance to play with it before long, trust me […
July 08, 2008
OK, post icons - on threads - are safe for now. I've left them off individual posts, though they might go back on; I can see them sometimes being useful to communicate the overall tone of a post (I often used to use the roll-eyes smiley when being sarcastic). We'll see. Certainly where icons are ke…
July 05, 2008
4E6 is nearly done now. I have some prizes here that will hopefully make up for the extreme delay.
Work continues apace on the design document: 38 pages and counting. It's a bit long, really, but it includes my analysis of the user base, the V4-V5 migration plan, and the development schedule, as wel…
Work continues apace on the design document: 38 pages and counting. It's a bit long, really, but it includes my analysis of the user base, the V4-V5 migration plan, and the development schedule, as wel…
June 17, 2008
So, the main thing I'm working on at the moment is the design document for the next version of the site. It's not a small document - it outlines everything I plan to bring to the site, in terms of functionality, across the entire V5 line - and will probably guide development for at least a year. So…
June 08, 2008
Another three down, only one to go now.
The Intelligent Systems papers didn't go well. That's two papers, both sat in a single 3-hour period (so you can spend 1hr on one paper and 2hrs on the other, etc). The first paper wasn't too bad - A* search, configuration space and potential field path planni…
The Intelligent Systems papers didn't go well. That's two papers, both sat in a single 3-hour period (so you can spend 1hr on one paper and 2hrs on the other, etc). The first paper wasn't too bad - A* search, configuration space and potential field path planni…
June 03, 2008
Two exams down, four to go. The next two are a double-session, one single 3-hour block, all about "Intelligent Systems" - pathfinding, Bayesian networks, Markov processes, a little neural networks, decision trees, inference - stuff like that.
The exam I sat today was Machine Learning, and went very …
The exam I sat today was Machine Learning, and went very …
May 17, 2008
My project is very nearly finished - a good thing too, because I've only really got one more day to work on it.
Preview PDF. It's missing the final section - where I discuss an actual implementation of some of the object model stuff - I've still got to implement some bits of that before I write abou…
Preview PDF. It's missing the final section - where I discuss an actual implementation of some of the object model stuff - I've still got to implement some bits of that before I write abou…
March 26, 2008
I upgraded the ad software we use today. Seems pretty snappy now.
March 21, 2008
After being absent for many years, the "Reveal URLs in posts" option has finally been re-implemented. Instead of happening server-side, which was such a drain on our resources that we had to kill the feature (apparently VBScript regexps are not friendly), the new implementation happens in your own …
February 22, 2008
Well, I've just gotten back from the MS party. Generally great.. spent most of it hanging out with The ZMan, along with a couple of guys I've not met before - Matthew from Exhale Games and Shane from I don't quite remember where. I hope Shane gets to his hotel OK... I was waiting for him outside, b…
February 21, 2008
Today's been a bit of a writeoff. After going to the Games Tech Mixer last night (where I met up with some ex-colleagues from NaturalMotion, and was introduced to some guys from Emergent - great party, folks, wish I could have stayed longer) I came back to the hotel at 9pm for a GDNet meeting. That…
February 20, 2008
Just got back from the MS keynote. A summary, by time segment:
- Introductions and self-congratulatory fluff. We're so awesome, you're so awesome, the industry is so awesome that it's now making more money than the music industry. (Gee, I wonder why that is...)
- Funny video with James Silva, creator of …
February 20, 2008
Yesterday I went to the Normal Mapping Industry Survey. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting... I've come away wanting a copy of ZBrush, and with a recommendation that you all check out CrazyBump. It's not just a very slick app, it's also funny.
Today things are really getting going, with the h…
Today things are really getting going, with the h…
February 18, 2008
Well, I think that's the last of the site prep for GDC - only a day behind schedule [smile]
Let me know if you spot particular problems with the site theme or with the coverage - as you might expect my response times will be a bit slow this week but I'll fix what I can.
This morning I went to the gam…
Let me know if you spot particular problems with the site theme or with the coverage - as you might expect my response times will be a bit slow this week but I'll fix what I can.
This morning I went to the gam…
February 15, 2008
I have arrived in San Fransisco. Going to spend the next couple of days working on GDC prep, and hooking up with a friend or two to do whatever it is that people do during their downtime here.
February 11, 2008
One of the things I've been working on - for quite a while now - is a rewrite of the Journal software. The main reason for this is that the way journals are currently structured - one huge thread per journal - is pretty poor from a performance point of view. Viewing a journal entails scanning the e…
January 26, 2008
Let's see...
- Yesterday's server crash was an internal problem with one of the components we use. It actually fixed itself while I was asleep. (Either that or I sleep-fixed it and went back to bed and don't remember).
- I've spent much of the day playing Assassin's Creed, generously lent to me by a frie…
January 12, 2008
I've been playing with the content pipeline stuff, particularly with regards to processing and loading my own custom objects. To make it easy I'm using XM.
One of the things that was bugging me was that one of my objects contained a dictionary of subobjects, and the XML for it wasn't very pretty:
One of the things that was bugging me was that one of my objects contained a dictionary of subobjects, and the XML for it wasn't very pretty:
…
January 11, 2008
Well, that was a fun 24 hours.
About two hours before the site went down, people started reporting that they were seeing an ActiveX popup on every page of the site. It was in response to this that the site was brought down. (I would have done it earlier, but I was out when it was reported and didn't…
About two hours before the site went down, people started reporting that they were seeing an ActiveX popup on every page of the site. It was in response to this that the site was brought down. (I would have done it earlier, but I was out when it was reported and didn't…
January 06, 2008
I've finally updated the image component to support avatars in formats other than .GIF, so hopefully most quality issues should be gone.
In fact, unless your avatar is under 50x50, I'd probably actively recommend avoiding .GIF because it's a limited-color format and the algorithm the component uses …
In fact, unless your avatar is under 50x50, I'd probably actively recommend avoiding .GIF because it's a limited-color format and the algorithm the component uses …
January 02, 2008
So, something I've been working on a fair amount recently is a new syntax hilighter for GDNet. The existing hilighter supports something like four languages, runs in VBScript, and is basically just a small number of regexp passes over the code.
What I'm looking at doing is replacing it with a compon…
What I'm looking at doing is replacing it with a compon…
December 04, 2007
Before I start: Anyone out there interested in translating your game into Russian? A friend of mine is a Russian living in the UK and she's interested in doing some translation work. She's not currently looking for money from it, just experience and some references she can put on her CV. She can do…
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