Archives For 2006

Live Alive

November 19th, 2006 — Leave a comment

This week, on the eve of the launch of both Sony and Nintendo’s new consoles, an interesting phenomenon has occurred whereby a large quotient of the alsoran’s remaining colleagues that had yet to join the next-generation of consoles, (yes, even developers are shrewd about shelling out their hard-earned money for expensive consoles unless utterly sold on a platform), finally did make the leap. But this was not the expected group purchase of the new kids on the block, instead a mass take-up of the XBOX360, due to two major factors.

1. The GENIUS idea of Microsoft to flood retail outlets with 360′s, to be sold at discount price, on the one weekend that both Sony and Nintendo have enticed a large amount of potential customers out to Best Buy, Future Shop, Toys R Us and Wal Mart only to be met with dashed hopes due to the short supply of Wii and PS3.

2. Gears of War.

Coverfire is the new black

Over and above being the best looking game ever bar none, beyond having one of the most fun mechanics to ever be employed in a shooting game with their cover-fire system, and past utilising some of the tightest multiplayer level design outside of counter-strike, our friends at Epic, (for the alsoran has been working with them for the past 2 years using the Unreal3 Engine), have delivered what the alsoran hoped for in Gears – the one game to universally bring everyone together on XBOX Live.

Being a developer for a large videogame studio, the alsoran’s friends list has always been hovering around the 20 mark, but rarely do the diverse tastes of so many creatives ever converge onto more than one of those games enjoyed by the alsoran. Now 8-man matches are a nightly event, and above this, the friends list is now nearing 40. This marks the real birth of the next-generation. As the alsoran has often espoused to colleagues awaiting the Wii, (there is yet to be one soul holding out for a PS3), the next generation isn’t about graphics, or bigger and better, it’s about online.

Pupation

November 15th, 2006 — Leave a comment

Updates are scarce right now due to the site being in the process of transferring over to WordPress. Aside from allowing RSS feeds whenever a new Bad Walk Cycle is posted (along with a possible ratings poll), the main reason for this is so that it doesn’t take about 1 hour to make even the slightest addition to the site.

Puppetshop

October 24th, 2006 — Leave a comment

An important update today in the form of sharing news that Puppetshop, the 3D Studio Max plugin created during the course of the alsoran’s current project to supplement Autodesk’s own animation tools, is now available for download from the alsoran’s former colleague’s site.

Puppetshop

Perhaps the most important aspect of this plugin is that it has already had 2 years shakedown in a real production environment, catering for not just rigging and animation, but also incredibly fast and versatile manipulation of motion-capture via layers. Files are set up with multiple timelines, allowing for a number of animations to be grouped in a logical manner as well as reference each other for easier maintenance.

This sounds like an advert, and perhaps it is, but how often do you have access to professional game-development tools created by game-developers, for game-developers, for free – (the educational demo at least).

Honest Box

October 6th, 2006 — Leave a comment

While unfortunately highlighting that gaming habits are tracked in the same manner as supermarket awards cards, the alsoran recently registered to 360voice, the automatic blog kept by the XBOX360.

360 Voice

While repetition has already reared it’s head in the generated posts after only a week or so, and an unused XBOX seems to default to a manner akin to a whiny girlfriend, what is interesting is the frank honesty of the last post. Often the alsoran has advised over-eager gamers on discovering his profession to play less and get out more, especially the kids.

Of note , the blog does not track marketplace downloads, as the alsoran has been spending most of the post-X06 week watching some amazing videos, DVDs, and playing Lego Star Wars II (bad) and yet another Raw vs Smackdown (worse).

Lying To The Press

October 3rd, 2006 — Leave a comment

Some months ago, the UK edition of Microsoft’s PR Rag, The Official XBOX Magazine, visited the alsoran’s studio for a tour of the current project’s work in progress. Due to always having the most interesting, moving work to show, the press stopped off at the animation team area where they were given a demonstration of some of the unnanounced non-mocap creatures that will populate the game.

As is always the case, the alsoran and colleagues have a running competition to see who can get the most imaginative quotes into the press blurb, with additional points for coining new industry phrases that turn up beyond the confines of the article or interview.

Press

Besides alluding to masturbation in a widely syndicated family magazine, there will in fact be no minigames in the current project. The alsoran believes he won the competition – fans should never believe anything they read in magazines.

Maintaining Secrecy

September 21st, 2006 — Leave a comment

Today the industry awoke to the leaked REVELATIONS that Ubisoft plans to release sequels to all its popular brands!. While none of this may be terribly interesting, it does once again highlight the difficultiy in keeping secrets within our industry – brought on in part due to the large quotient of industry insiders coming from backgrounds of unpopularity, and being charged with withholding information that would make them kings among geeks.

The alsoran knows of one instance where an independent developer’s relationship with EA was greatly harmed when an employee boasted online about his involvement with the Goldeneye sequel long before any public announcement was made. Despite the immediate firing of said employee, the project was taken over by EA’s LA outfit, with all future projects affected. The developer has since closed shop.

Recently, one of the alsoran’s own colleagues was found to be posting workflow secrets online, again with the result being immediate dismissal. What was more frightening was the discovery of actual 3D files from several other high-profile PS3 and 360 games still in development on the offender’s hard-drive, pointing towards a network of sharing sensetive information between other developer friends.

Projects assume a code-name in the pre-announcement stages of development so that design discussions can take place outside of work – the reason being that ideas should not be constrained by the physical limitations of secrecy, (ie. the four walls of the studio). It shouldn’t be so hard for ideas to permeate within the industry without disclosing sensetive information. Perhaps a technical forum, with posts sanctioned and approved by each poster’s employer, is the answer.

On Humility

September 18th, 2006 — Leave a comment

In his time, the alsoran has worked with some of the most talented, experienced and inspirational individuals in the industry today, yet many of them remain humble about their achievements. It is important to always bear in mind that despite your own accolade, however great it may appear, there will always be others equally if not more talented than yourself who have the sublime ability to not act like a prick.

The French Touch

September 17th, 2006 — Leave a comment

After reading an article in EDGE magazine regarding the influence of the French gaming industry, the alsoran has discovered this little gem of a game, the flash-based online RPG – Dofus. Of biggest note, the beautifully-rendered art style appears to be created by first building the assets in 3D, then drawing over them in a standardised perspective.

Dofus

Unfortunately however, the alsoran has too much self-respect to play an MMO, so this beautiful little game will have to remained regarded, but not touched.

Foul-mouthed Fox

September 1st, 2006 — Leave a comment

Upon breaking his micro following too many drops, the alsoran finally bowed to peer pressure last month and picked up a DS Lite during his trip to LA, and regrets not having done so before. His growing collection includes Metroid Prime Hunters, New Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Kart and the most recent addition, Starfox Command. Much like the Wii before it, it initially appeared the touch screen was a gimmick at best, with both 1st-party Mario games requiring no input from the bottom screen at all despite being fantastic games in their own right. However, Metroid and Starfox use the stylus to perfectly simulate mouse-look, and once again (like the Wii) provides a new face to old technology.

Tourettes

The single most impressive feature of this console though, and the one the makes the alsoran confident he has invested in a winner, is the importance placed on multiplayer gaming. Up to 6-Player matches of Starfox are possible via only one cart, which not only allows for great fun to be had with the multitude of colleagues that are DS owners and may not have the latest releases, but also provides an opportunity for the non-owners to try a limited version of the game in a seductive situation (exciting multiplayer) that almost unfailingly convinces them to make the full purchase.

At the time of writing, the Japanese top 10 is dominated by DS releases, and though he is lothe to agree with the eastern market, they sure know when gaming is fun again and not about flashy graphics.

Final Mocap Shoot

August 6th, 2006 — Leave a comment

This week the alsoran returned from the final LA mocap shoot for his current project. Mocap direction is becoming easier with each new visit, with tips and tricks learned every session. This one required multiple actions to be recorded in a short time due to the only female actor having a stricter deadline, and the solution lay in creating a completely fabricated situation for the actors in order to get them to play multiple parts with unrelated actions in succession, which was a success.