redwyre

So, if you blindly stab your headphone plug at the front of the computer, and ends up going into the usb slot, it can cause your computer to spontaneously reboot.  True Story.

Today is the end of my third week at Krome. I’m starting to really enjoy it. It certainly helped that I know around 20 people across the company already, with a good number of those being ex-Pandemic colleagues, and a few more joining soon. It’s been a bit hard adjusting from holiday sleep patern to a work one, but I think I’ve finally managed to get used to it enough so I shouldn’t be falling asleep at work as much.

Krome is a bit different to what I became used to at Pandemic. Working in a large engine time is certainly a new experience. Also, working with a shared engine is a different too.

Now that I’m starting to get my head around things, I have to figure out what I want to work on. I’ve seen some things that I’m going to put my hand up to work on, hopefully that’ll work out. It’d probably be a good idea to do something useful before my probation ends

Moderor (working title) is the flash game I have been working on.  I’ve started off not knowing anything about Flash or Flex development and have since learned alot. Flex is very easy to use and I’ve been impressed with it’s capabilities.

The version that I have uploaded at the time of writing this is fairly primative, but the main systems are working.  It consists of a tile renderer (which can be scrolled using the arrow keys), a simple building system where placed buildings can do stuff (which is currently just generating resources), and a system to place buildings (currently it doesn’t check for a suitable area, but part of the work is already done). Obviously there’s alot more to do, but it is functional.

I decided that since I was using Flex - Flash’s application based development enviroment - that I should take advantage of the Flex framework, so the tile render is derived from a Flex UIComponent and I’ve used normal Flex UI controls for the interface. This is great because I don’t have to worry about writing my own GUI system, and I can use the Design view to place and arrange it all. Later on all I need to do is make a new skin and use the built in skinning capabilities to get it to look like I want without chaning anything else. It’s allowed me to work on the game itself rather than fiddling around with UI.

Check out the latest version of Moderor here

I’ve decided to start working on a flash game, and since I’ve used Flex Builder before I’m using it as my IDE. There are instruction here on how to get it to work, but for normal Flex projects you just need to follow a few steps.

The first step is to download Adobe Flex Builder 3. Then to use Flash 10 you need to download the latest nightly SDK, I’m using 3.2.0.3958 (Wed Oct 29 2008).

To install the SDK:

• Create a folder called “3.2.0.3958″ (or the version you downloaded), in “%Program Files%\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\sdks”. Extract the contents of the SDK zip file into there.
• Now go to Flex Builder, go to “Windows”->”Preferences…” (I’ve had problems where some controls dissapear within preferences, if this happens a restart of Flex Builder is required to get them back).
• Navigate to “Flex”->”Installed Flex SDKs”.
• Click “Add…”, enter in the path you extracted the files to and for the name use “Flex 3.2.0.3958″ (or the version you downloaded), and click “OK”.
• Make sure the SDK you added is checked and click “Apply”.

Now two modifications are needed to the project to get it to target the version 10 player.

• Open the project properties, go to “ActionScript Build Path”.
• Expand “Flex 3″, select “playerglobal.swc” and click “Remove”.
• Click “Add SWC” and navigate to the new SDK path, and then deeper into “frameworks/libs/player/10″, select playerglobal.swc.
• Expand “playerglobal.swc”, double-click “Link Type” and change it to “External”.
• Now go to “ActionScript Compiler”
• In “Require Flash Player version” type in 10.0.0.

On Friday morning, it was announced to team Bravo that Pandemic was going to be focusing on the other team’s game and our team was cut. A number of people moved across onto the other team, however a number were let go.

I am one of the ones let go. 

For some people that was a bit shocking; I’ve been at Pandemic for over 5 years, and in that time shipped two games, and worked on two games that got cancelled.  But I can’t fault the decisions made about who stayed and who got let go.  The thing is, the people that stayed and the people that were let go are all excellent game developers. It wasn’t because anyone wasn’t performing well, and it wasn’t because the team had had a previous project cancelled. It was a cost cutting measure that had to be done. Now you might be thinking that EA is some evil corporation for buying us and then letting people go.  But really, if EA had not bought Pandemic they would probably be much worse off.  But I feel that a lot was done to make room for a few people even thought they weren’t completely needed, so it could have been a lot worse.

I have no hard feelings against Pandemic, or EA.  We make games, and it’s a business. Sometimes that means crap like this has to happen. I have had an awesome time at Pandemic, and it’s been an honour to work with so many talented people over the years. And I really mean that, I have learnt alot and I wouldn’t be the same without it. To others that were let go, I wish you well in your search for new employment, and it’s been awesome. To the rest of Pandemic, it’s been awesome and I wish you well, and perhaps we will work together again some time. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

PS. Just to stop any bad rumours, the Bravo team was not cut because of bad performance or anything like that. Contrary to rumours before, the previous project was not cut due to anything to do with the team, it was an external decision.  The current project was cancelled due to the other project being more important.

Last week I migrated rantspace to a new server… which subsequently went down because of a few problems at the datacenter.  That’s what I get for being the guinea pig pioneer of the new server. But everything is back up now and the problems have been fixed so hopefully it’s smooth sailing from here.  I’ve been given direct access to the control panel (which may or may not have been a good idea…), so I’ve had to figure out a number of things for myself, but it’s been fun.

The reason for the move was so I could get the latest versions of php and mysql, so I could start on a facebook app idea I have.  While I did start it on the same server, I moved it to a Joyent host when the server went down and I think I’ll leave it there for now. The app is still a while away from being complete, but I have made significant progress on learning the facebook API and getting the base of the app done.  I bought myself a whiteboard and have been using it to keep track of tasks, which has been a great boost to productivity.  I’m trying to use it for my tasks around the house as well, hopefully it will help out with my productivity in that area too.  If this app goes well I already have a few ideas for more, hopefully I can make some useful things and make a few bucks off them too

Another week, another blank Saturday, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing. I remember, before I had my job, I would spend the majority of my time coding my game engine. The engine that would get me a job. Each day was an opportunity to do something worthwhile, such as refactoring the entire particle system. But what I had back then - that I lack now, I think - is a clear goal. “Get a job” is one of those major life goals that I spent a lot of effort on, along with “get an education”, “move out”, etc. But I’m unsure what my goals are. Just doing my job isn’t enough. I’m beginning to realise that I have certain intellectual desires that are being unfulfilled, and for my sanity they need to be.

At one point during the development of Destroy All Humans!, I almost quit my job to go to university - however I got too bogged down in work to really organise anything and just forgot about it. Perhaps that ended up being a good thing, but who knows that could have turned out. I was a game programmer on both DAH games that Pandemic made, but without realising it was to my own detriment… I wasn’t getting the intellectual stimulation to keep me happy in that job and it got me into a rut. Fortunately after that (the current project I am on) I moved over to engine programmer where I am much happier, yet I am not fully satisfied. I need more. Perhaps this line of work isn’t for me and I just want it too much to realise it. I think I could be building robots or other kinds of software and be happy, but I’m not willing to give up my job for it. So, what can I do? Well, I think that all I really need is to organise my hobby activities to actually make some progress on them, and thus satisfy myself. My first task, I guess, is to define what I want to do; what my goals are.

So, I haven’t blogged for a while. I know, I’m sorry.  I was going to say alot has happened, but that would probably be a lie.  But a few things have.First thing: my wisdom teeth are no more. My bottom two wisdom teeth were impacting, and the top two were starting to point outwards since they had no teeth to keep them in check.  I had all four wisdom teeth removed under general anesthetic, which was an interesting experience. They clipped a heart beat monitor on a finger on my left hand, and inserted a needle in the top of my right hand, and put a blood pressure thing around my right arm.  I could hear my heart beat in the form of beaps, which I could hear increase as I started to get nervous.  Then they started the anesthetic, which felt like a cold steel rod being pushed up my arm.  I was staring up at the ceiling, feeling the anesthetic run up my arm and as I felt it coming towards my shoulder, and wondering when it would kick in… and of course at that moment my vision went grabled and I was instantly out.The next thing I know I’m waking up in another room with an icepack in a sling around my face and feeling very groggy.  Apparently around two hours had passed.  It wasn’t very painful from what I remember (the dentist had given me some local anesthetic to help), and the bleeding had already stopped.  This was great compared to when I had teeth pulled and had to put gauze in my mouth to stop the bleeding myself, which was rather uncomfortable and annoying.  Then my mum helped me walk out which must have been a sight to see.  I couldn’t walk straight, it was like trying to walk drunk in GTA4.  It seems it can take a while for the anesthetic to completely leave your system, I felt groggy for days after.  I had them out on Thursday, and took Friday and Monday off work, though I probably would have taken another day off if it wasn’t for the milestone.  My mum helped me out alot by looking after me and making me soups to eat.  I’m glad I’ve done it and it’s behind me now.During my time off for the wisdom teeth, I had my new oven installed.  This took the plumber and his assistant a few hours of making alot of noise, but now I have a new shiny oven with grill and cook top.  Since then we’ve started getting alot of oven cooked foods, such as chips, hash browns, potato pieces, sausage rolls, meat pies, and crumbed fish.  It suits the cold weather quite well, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re dead simple to cook.  Also, I’ve cooked two cakes.  One was an upside-down pudding thing which was delicious, and a chocolate cake.  I think we’ll start doing that at least once a week.That’s enough for now, I’ll write about work later.

 The properties of the memristor were firstpredicted in 1971, and now have been proven to exist.  This discovery is huge, because it allows a new type of memory that is smaller (HP have already prototyped memory with over 6x the density) and doesn’t need constant power to keep it’s contents. Basically it replaces RAM and HDDs.  Also, the memristor has analog memory properties similar to synapses, so we will probably see some advances in neural nets as well.Some more links:

• http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080430a.html
• http://www.dailytech.com/HP+Invents+Fabled+Memristor+New+Class+of+Electrical+Components/article11652.htm
• http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13812-engineers-find-missing-link-of-electronics.html