I'm on my way...

I've decided to leave GarageGames and my time in Eugene is at an end. In the short term I'm going to travel a bit. Long term... ? [*shrug*] something will happen.

I've been quiet on the forums for the past few months. Looks like the last real thing I posted was when I did the release of TGEA 1.0.3. Since then I've done a variety of things here at GarageGames which I hope this community will continue to benefit from in the long run as they make their way into more products.

When I first got here, my first task was to help Matt Fairfax patch up some Constructor problems to get it out the door. I then managed the releases of TGE 1.5.1, TGE 1.5.2, TGEA 1.0.2, and TGEA 1.0.3. Working back-and-forth with Ken Holst - who was the QA department at the time - was a pleasure. After that I was kidnapped by the new InstantAction side of the company to work on the core of the project...

On that front I worked closely with TIm Gift on the base architecture and tech to get the system up and running. This involved working with the Windows COM APIs to write the first version of the plugin [this was quite an 'experience' for a Mac/UNIX guy - not one I'd recommend], and designing and implementing the initial game-to-plugin API. Our first working demo was a rotating cube with a colour selector on the web page - click the colour on the web page and it would change the colour of the spinning cube. Basic, but you gotta start somewhere! Once we had the base going, we worked closely with Sean Sullivan [web] and John Quigley [MBU] to get Marble Blast running in the browser. It was really cool to see MBU work for the first time.

At about the time of our conference - IGC - I moved over to the game studio to work with Clark Fagot and Brian Richardson on future Torque technology and to contribute a little on our games - Rokkitball, Marble Blast Online, Think Tanks, and Fallen Empire: Legions. Working on future tech over the past eight or nine months, I think I touched almost every sub-system of Torque. Not only touched in many cases, but... replaced.

Some highlights:

- a metric tonne [I am Canadian after all] of general clean up - culling unused code, code formatting, better class layout, const corectness, proper data hiding, reorganizing the directory structure, etc.
- replacing the StringTable with a new easy-to-use String class
- putting some Torque Networking Library concepts into the networking layer - client puzzles, encrypted communication, etc.
- replacing the resource manager behemoth with a proper virtual file system and a smaller, easier to use ResourceManager
- adding a Path class to clean up file/path handling
- adding a new octree-based PolySoup implementation
- adding COLLADA and OBJ importing to the new PolySoup class
- automatically creating multiple LODs based on mesh decimation of the new PolySoup objects

The core of some of these systems came from Tim Gift's and Clark Fagot's research engines. I was really glad they'd spent the time to research some of these areas and come up with some decent solutions - I think it saved us a lot of time and we have a much cleaner codebase for it. If there is any interest, in a future .plan I can go over how I approach integration problems like this.

My professional background covers several areas - hard-core software engineering tools for banking and insurance software, derivatives trading software, and forensic software for crime scene analysis. One thing that was reinforced after working at GG is that software's just software no matter what domain you're working in or language you're working with. Certainly there are always going to be problems that are unique to a domain, but at the core it's just software and best practices should apply regardless of the domain or language.

So the time has come for me to move on, and after taking a few weeks off to wander you may see me around these here parts again!

Oh, images! here's a book I recommend to everyone:



The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman is a book I first read as a textbook for my graduate course in usability and user interface design. I've read it a couple of times since and have found it a valuable tool for communicating the concept of design to people.

Now, get back to work on your game!