heterosapiens

Week 17

2006-09-27T08:52:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 17

Date : 25th September – 30th September 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

September 25: Adding the map object into the games. Player can collect it to win the game. Added gold money also, just to add the variety of items in the game.

September 26: Create random routing function, so that the NPC will change their direction of the route according to certain weightage. Implementing collision with player. To make sure the NPC will not run through the player.

September 27: Completing the project. Debugging.

September 28: Creating installer. And do some report.

September 29: Finalizing my work at MDeC. Organizing the folders and files and compiling the work and burn it into a DVD.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 16

2006-09-19T09:43:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 16

Date : 18th August – 22nd September 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

September 18: Working off the office today. I was given task to help out at MDeC's booth in Mandarin Oriental, Kuala Lumpur. I went with a senior staff, Ms. Ezat, Mr. Hafez and Mr. Faizal. We are supposed to take care of the booth in the morning session. Nothing much to do, as the event was only a small one with a lot of VIPs from all around the globe. After that, we went back to Cyberjaya and drop by to an event held under FCM and some singaporean companies. The event was to promote to Malaysian student to work at Singapore after their graduation. We gather some info and after that I went back home to try Warriors of Melaka game done by content solutions.

September 19: Enhancing NPC's movement, I find straight movement is just too boring it looks predictable, thus I implement a better movement system that it will calculate the increment or decrement ratio of in x-axis and z-axis.

September 20: Later, I've implement a routing logic for the NPC, so that it will move through around 5 way points. This create the feels of the NPC is wandering around the level.

September 21: Today, Mdm Wong Lai Kuan is visiting. I did a presentation in front of her and also Mr. Azmir. The presentation was about the company background, the task that I have done, the difficulties that I have faced, and also what I have learned while I'm doing this training.

September 22: MDeC is having an event, MoA with University Islam Antarabangsa (UIA), I've been given task to help at the registration counter. After that event, later in the afternoon FCM is holding a showcase of their graduated students work, I went there a some other MDeC staff.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 15

2006-09-19T09:42:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 15

Date : 11th September – 15th September 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

September 11: Trying to implement particle system inside the game. Irrlicht have it's premade particle system, so, I take my time to understand how particle actually works. It is interesting how mathematical functions can be used to make a simple sprite to an interesting visual effect.

September 12: I did not manage to implement the particle system sucessfully, I have problem with the size of the particle and how it should looks like. I choose to KIV it and concentrate to other part first.

September 13: Enhancing collision, improve the bounding box by using a radius to change the collision effect towards the bounding box. After the office hour, most of us went to Century Square and play futsal there. I get to know more of MDeC's staff there. Have a chat with Hasnul (Head of Creative Multimedia Department of MDeC) there about Games Development scene in Malaysia.

September 14: Today, I asked Mr. Syafiq to come and help to touch up their work for the project. Him and I discussed of how to make the terrain looks better and we agree on several solution such as creating fog surrounding the level itself and to modify the terrain mesh so that it will look like endless terrain.

September 15: Around the end of the office hour, Mr. Azmir suddenly said "The games looks good" to me and Mr. Azim. Maybe he get a sneak peak while I was doing it today. The compliment really boost our spirit although we are the only 2 person left doing this project.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 14

2006-09-19T09:38:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 14

Date : 4th September – 8th September 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

September 4: Enhancing the GUI, created the game logic of rock scissor paper game. Implemented an improved version random function, which takes minimum and maximum value and return a random number between it.

September 5: Implemented the GUI for the mini game (rock scissor paper). Player can click his/her choices and the result of the game will be display instantly.

September 6: Creating function for Non Playable Character (NPC) movement. Using the logic of routing point. Implemented straight movement along x-axis and z-axis.

September 7: This was probably the last VRC presentation session that we need to do, while waiting for the visitor to arrive, all of us have a chat with Ms. Ida. She asked about our progress of the project. She gave a lot of advices and she mentioned about our work will be compared to previous group of trainee/interns. Then, among us we have a discussion of how to improve our project.

September 8: Mr. Azim and I had a chat with Mr. Azmir at the cafe. I asked him of what is MDeC's expectation to the project. He mentioned that, he doesn't need a full scale games, just a simple and small one will do, but he stress on making the quality to make it look good. He also mentioned that he wished that he had more time to monitor this project but he has been too busy nowadays.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 13

2006-08-28T11:52:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 13

Date : 28th August – 1st September 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

August 28: Implementing gameplay.

August 29: Change the object loader function to be able to load .X file. This will be useful as Non-Playable-Character can be plot using external file dynamically.

August 30: Mr. Shahrizal ask me of the progress. I've showed him the how the level looks and he give some comment and pointers about it.

August 31: Holiday

September 1: Creating button GUI that is displayed when a collision happens, the button will disappear if pressed. Load image on top of the button to be able to use own GUI design.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 12

2006-08-22T11:37:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 12

Date : 21st August – 25th August 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

August 21: Today, I've included another animated character which supposed to be a Non-Playable Character (NPC). With that, I have tested bounding box collision bet the player character and the NPC. It works fine.

August 22: Manipulated the camera class to allow animation changes as a response to input. I've manipulated the external camera class to rotate the character the way we want it to be.

August 23: Today, I've implemented simple GUI to test the reaction with collision. I do find out that Irrlicht GUI classes are not optimized such as that, it doesn't keep the changes to the GUI element, thus it can cause a program crash if a null pointer is accessed.

August 24: Improving the tool for Mr. Faizal to use it. I've included ratio based plotting, so he can just plot it according to the map we have drawed. I've teach him to use the tool.

August 25: Progress meeting with Mr. Shahrizal, this time we didn't manage to accomplish the task as 2 of the team members are in holidays. We promised to deliver the complete level on Wednesday next week.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 11

2006-08-22T11:11:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 11

Date : 14th August – 18th August 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

August 14: I optimize the camera to reduce flipping of axis due to sensitivity of mouse movement. I only allow 45 degree of z-axis rotation for the camera, this will definitely reduce the control of the camera by mouse.

August 15: We have a meeting today, Mr. Hafez and Mr. Faizal could not join us because they need to handle the presentation at VRC, the attendess was only Mr. Shahrizal, Mr. Azim, Mr. Syafiq and me. We discussed about what to be done in the last 2 weeks for the artist and upcoming plan for the game. Among the topics are programming, gameplay, modeling, and GUI.

August 16: Following to previous meeting, all the trainees held a meeting to finalize the plan of what to be done in next few weeks. All task are distributed and assigned to each one of us. We draw the plan for the level we are doing and we brainstorming about gameplay and detailed it out onto paper.

August 17: I'm still not satisfied to some minor problems between the camera and mouse input. Thus, I've decided to remove the mouse control over camera. With this I've made the camera to be staticly control by keypress of the keyboard.

August 18: Today, I've included animated character into the game, and bind it to the camera. Thus making it looks like a 3rd person camera mode. Anyway, I still enable First Person camera mode.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 10

2006-08-08T18:18:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 10

Date : 7th August – 11th August 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

August 7: My ex-lecturer, Mr. Hilmy, who is currently the coordinator of International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Malaysia Chapter drop by to our office. Him, Mr. Shahrizal, Mr. Azim and me have a break and chit chat about malaysian games development scene.

August 8: Redoing the skybox, since the top part of it, are not alligned with the side part. This time I've rendered it to 1024x768 to increase the details and quality when it is loaded in the Irrlicht engine.

August 9: Finally, I've started to code for the game. I used the same structure from Walkthrough Viewer. A little bit of modification to the codes to make it suitable for game instead of walkthrough application.

August 10: First thing to start of with the game is to create a 3rd person camera mode since our game is from Role Playing Game (RPG) genre that uses that kind of camera configuration. To do this I refer to the previous work by the UTM student on how they do it. They uses an external class done by another user of Irrlicht engine. The camera class is quite flexible although it does automatically implement controls but it is still a very good one. I take my time to learn and understand how the class work.

August 11: Continue learning the camera class and try to modify some of the parameters and implementation in it. The camera is a little bit sensitive with mouse movement.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 9

2006-07-31T14:01:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 9

Date : 31st July – 4th August 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

July 31: Debugging and do minor changes to the Walkthrough Viewer.

August 1: We were doing presentation to a visit from Orang Asli from Pahang. It was different since we have to do the presentation in Bahasa Malaysia and reduce the technical information that might be too advance for them. We are glad they enjoyed our presentation.

August 2: Helping Mr. Syafiq to find the reason of the flickering problem that occurs to the 3D models, after few hours we discover that it was caused by redundant multilayered plane or faces on the 3D models. The solution was Mr. Syafiq need to remove each redundant faces manually to ensure the texture mapping are not spoiled.

August 3: Learn how to use Terragen, a terrain generator that can also be used to create skybox. To create a skybox, we need to write a script of how it will render the image, i.e. defining the camera angle and position.

August 4: Today we presented our progress to Mr. Shahrizal. He was satisfied with it and remind us to keep up the good work. But there is some minor adjustment and improvement that he requested us to do.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 8

2006-07-26T09:34:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 8

Date : 24th July – 28th July 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

July 24: Today,MDeC is holding an event called MSC Animation Pitch 2006. This event was held at Cyberview lodge, we are required to help in the event. Arrived there sharp at 7.55a.m. waiting for the senior staff to give tasks. Ms. Izan ask me to help preparing the registration table and then the prepare the give outs to attendees. Half of the day was there helping around and learn about how they do idea pitching.

July 25: Today should be a meeting for our project. After lunch time, I fell sick, though I tried to hold on because of the meeting. At last I give up and requested to Mr. Shahrizal to postpone the meeting tomorrow. Gladly, he allows it and I go back 2 hour earlier.

July 26: As promised, we have a meeting early in the morning. All the trainees do our presentation of what we have done in the last 1 month. I've presented mine which are mostly about the tools that I've created and also the Walkthrough Application that Mr. Shahrizal requested. We get our new task which is to develop a game that have only one level, which is the market area. Further after that, we discussed about the gameplay and what kind of element we want to put in the game.

July 27: To create the understand and better design of the market in Malacca in 15th century, we all choose to watch Puteri Gunung Ledang the movie. We take note on several important aspect of the market's details.

July 28: Polishing the Walkthrough Viewer. Helping solving the texturing problem that Mr. Faizal and Mr. Hafez faced. In Mr. Faizal's case, Irrlicht game engine doesn't support colour material format from 3D Studio Max, thus we need to use image file such as bitmap (BMP). For Mr. Hafez, the uvw map of the model exceed the amount that the engine can load, thus standard mapping should be applied.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 7

2006-07-19T09:50:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 7

Date : 17th July – 21th July 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

July 17: Write the Technical Report for the first month.

July 18: Improve the Walkthrough viewer with the implementation of billboard object which will rotate and always face the camera. Using this technique, we can fake a tree object by just using a bitmap image. This will highly reduce the triangle count and speed up the rendering process. It uses the same loading logic and same text files, just that the parameter are changed from .3DS to .bmp name.

July 19: Helped Ms. Ida to test the glasses for Virtual Reality Centre since the CEO of MDeC is coming.

July 20: Submit the technical report to Mr. Shahrizal. He asked for several amendment and add-on information to it. Such are, the figure of structure of the game and future improvement.

July 21: Discussed with the other trainee on the next task.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 6

2006-07-12T16:02:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 6

Date : 10th July – 14th July 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

July 10: Continue from last week's task, implementing STL in the engine. Firstly, I did some search on the internet to recall back on how to use STL. Then I've tried to implement it, but there is error when it is compiled, so, I check whether the header file is in the include folder of Microsoft Visual C++ IDE, I found out that there is no header file for the STL libraries there. Then, I decided to use Irrlicht Engine implementation of vector, it works the same.

July 11: My teammate ask me to improve the Walkthrough viewer program that I did before. They asked for wireframe mode and also and escape button to exit the program. I've successfully implemented both features and remove some bugs from the program.

July 12: Today, we going to handle the presentation in the Virtual Reality Centre to the secondary students from the schools around Selangor. To begin with, we practice of what we need to do there. To help us is Ms. Ida, a staff here. We discuss who will do what task, there is 3 main task which is, presentation, piloting the joystick and controling the control panel. There is 5 of us, so we will switch task next time. I've taken the task to do the presentation on second slot.

July 13: As said earlier, today I'll will control the control panel. We have 3 session for today, and two was from schools and the last one was from Qatar.

July 14: Writing up my progress report and submit it to Mr. Shahrizal, then he ask me to write a technical report of what I've done for the first month.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 5

2006-07-06T16:29:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 5

Date : 3rd July – 7th July 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

July 3: Still doing the walkthrough application, implemented file reading according to the format that is required, the delimeter and variables are implemented successfully.

July 4: The team discussed about the implementation that is wanted by Mr. Shahrizal and Mr. Azmir. We agree that we should create the platform both in the programming and modeling side for Mr. Shahrizal to implement his optimization techniques. Mr. Azmir stressed that quality is more important than quality. We do agree with that. As a result of the discussion, I've decided to create some tools for the artist to use, one is Texture Mapping Viewer and another one is Terrain Rendering Viewer. Both are partially done, and can be improve to be much more user friendly.

July 5: Continue doing the walkthrough application. I've created a function that will dynamically load the data(path and grid coordinates) and convert it into 3D object in the Irrlicht engine.

July 6: Re-scale the ratio of the grid world into the 3D world coordinate, created two more tools for the artists to use. One is the walkthrough viewer and another is the character animation viewer.

July 7: Mr. Shahrizal ask me to test the engine using Walkthrough Viewer that I did, we going to load full object on the 96x96 grid. Firstly, we tested with the tree 3D model, and the FPS that we got is 4-5. The tree 3D model was only about 300 polygon count. Next, he ask me to try to load the palace 3D model, which roughly around 60 000 polygon count each. First attempt was a failure because the virtual memory is not enough. After few tries, I’ve calculated the amount of virtual memory that is need to load all the model in real time rendering. The total sums up to 16GB of virtual memory. Thus, it cannot be done on the PC that I’m using. Later, we have discussed about the implementation of Standard Template Library as one of the optimization techniques. Since the day almost ends, we decided to continue about it next week.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 4

2006-06-28T17:01:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 4

Date : 26th June – 30th June 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

June 26: Mr. Shahrizal ask me to look out and try some of the optimization features in Irrlicht engine. Some of it are Level Of Details(LOD), culling, Binary Space Partitioning(BSP), Octree and scene graph. Most of them are already implemented in Irrlicht engine, it is just a matter of tweaking and manipulating it to suits our need. Though, some of implementation is too simple and to give a better result we might need to implement our own optimization. It is still open for discussion.

June 27: Today, Mr. Fauzi discussed with me about some problem with GUI implementation, which are transparency problem, and also alpha channel manipulation. Today also we have completed the Object Modeling Technique(OMT) diagram of the current structure of the first level. At the end, I've explained about overall of animation in games to a new trainee, Mr. Azim.

June 28: Today is the most enjoyable day, we get to watch the videos and files in Virtual Reality Center(VRC). We even follow Mr. Azmir's presentation to Iranian's visitors. Following yesterday's work, Mr. Azim and I have succesfully converted the animation from 3D Studio Max to Direct X file format.

June 29: We just realise there is some problem with the new Direct X file format that we have converted to. Some of the vertex are messed up and it causes the model to look ugly. We did some research on the internet, we now know that the Biped technique does not work well with Direct X exporter on 3D Studio Max.

June 30: Mr. Azim and me have a discussion on how to settle this problem, he is suggesting to remodel the character and do it all over again. We ask Mr. Shahrizal for his approval and we got it. Then, Mr. Shahrizal ask me to start programming the walkthrough application that can read from external file and load a level in the Irrlicht engine.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 3

2006-06-20T11:36:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 3

Date : 19th June – 23th June 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

June 19: Continue my task from last week, which is to recompile the Irrlicht engine, after few hours of searching tutorials from the internet, I've manage to find the old DirectX 8 header and library files to be downloaded. After a few tweak of settings in the project options, I've successfully recompiled the Irrlicht engine.

June 20: Trying the .X exporter with the help of Mr. Syafiq (another trainee), the exporter was meant for Maya 7.0, but the version we are using is 6.5, thus we cannot make it work right, only manage to export the mesh, texture, and bones, without the skeletal animation.

June 21: Mr. Shahrizal have a meeting today, so I have to find my own task to do. I decided to change the gameflow, which is to load the first level after the splash screen/intro. It takes a while since the current structure of the program is not dynamic enough to allow changes. Later, clean the code, put a lot of identation to ease my eyes looking at it.

June 22: Mr. Shahrizal ask to list out the bugs of the first level. I do a lot of testing and trying to debug some of the errors that already exist in the game.

June 23: Continue removing the bugs. And plan for some redesign of the program flow.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Week 2

2006-06-20T11:35:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 2

Date : 12th June – 16th June 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

June 12: Early in the morning met with Mr. Shahrizal (he's back from the conference), later then, he ask me to join him and Mr. Fauzi for a break in the cafeteria and have sort of informal meetings to define my task in the team. I was briefed about the current development progress and what were the objectives of this project. Then, I continue to learn Irrlicht engine.

June 13: Today, all the trainees were given a tour to know the peoples around here and also the facilities here. After that, Mr. Shahrizal ask me to play around the first level of the game and then program a skip button that can be pressed to skip the long intro movies.

June 14: The first level demo uses 2 external libraries, so I decide to understand both functionalities. First is Magic2D which is a 2D gui manipulator, it also plays video files. Second one is Audiere, which is a sound library, it doesn't support MP3 because of licensing issues, the main format it is OGG. Next is helping to update the documentation of the project.

June 15: Today, I've search for DirectX file exporter, this is for character animation for the game as it requires bone and skeletal animation. There are few .X exporters, but it supports certain version of 3D modeling software only, and the 3D modeler in our team uses mainly Maya, so I've searched and found several .X exporter for Maya but different version of it.

June 16: Mr. Shahrizal ask me to recompile the Irrlicht engine from the source that is available in the SDK. After few hours of trying, there are several problems because the PC that I'm using are not installed with DirectX 8 SDK, thus there are a lot of missing libraries and header files. I didn't manage to compile it.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Industrial Training Log Book

2006-06-13T07:22:00.000+08:00

Weekly Log

Week Number : 1

Date : 6th June – 9th June 2006

Trainee Name : Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin

Description of tasks/assignments:

June 6: I was assigned to the programming team under Mr. Shahrizal, a lecturer from UTM. He is on leave for a conference. So, for the first week I helped Mr. Aik Wee for a project with National Science Center in Creative Multimedia Lab, I was asked to scan 3 books for all the images that is inside. It takes me almost 5 hours to scan the first book, there are a total of 200 images scanned by me, average speed of each scan is 1 minute and 30 seconds, and this is because the HP scanner needs to scan twice to give the output to Adobe Photoshop directly. First scan takes 10-20 seconds and second scan takes 20-25 seconds.

June 7: Today, Mr. Shahrizal sends a sms to Mr. Fauzi (his student and my team member) to tell me to learn what they have already done with Irrlicht engine. I was given a report that they have made and from there I progress with recompiling their work and start learning some tutorials. After few hours of learning, I get back to see Mr. Aik Wee and continue my scanning task again. I’ve managed to finish the other 2 books and have scanned around 140 pages. After I’m done, I get back to my place and continue learning and go through the Irrlicht engine. There are two FCM students that are reporting themselves for industrial training.

June 8: As the task with Mr. Aik Wee is done, so I just concentrate to my task as a programmer. Anyway, I did go and ask Mr. Aik Wee if there is anything he wants me to do, after few Q&A, he just ask me to concentrate on what Mr. Shahrizal ask me to. Since, I’m not that busy, I go and help the FCM students with their modeling. I search the internet for free 3D models and also good texture files. After I’m done, I get back to my place and continue learning.

June 9: Today, I started tweaking and modifying the tutorial source code to get better grasp of the Irrlicht engine and how it works. I find the engine design is very powerful and can be easily manipulated or modified by user because it uses Object Oriented concept thus allows inheritance and polymorphism to be done. The documentation that comes with the Software Development Kit (SDK) is very good and complete. However, the tutorials are small in amount and mostly emphasizing on graphics features rather than game play features of the engine.

Signature :

Supervisor Name : Mr. Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib

Date :

Remarks :

Terence Tan

2005-04-11T17:34:00.000+08:00

BuZz,
Sorry for taking so long to answer your email. I have been away in San Francisco attending the Game Developers Conference here. I would be happy to answer your questions.

1. Personal info? – name, age, sex, location, interests contact details, and etc…
Terence Tan
35
Male
Petaling Jaya
Game Development Production, Technology, Business and Design.
Personal Interests:
Cars, Music, Reading/Writing, Traveling

2. Academic info? – course, major, institute, and etc…
American High School Diploma, ISKL
Bachelor of Computer Engineering, Oregon USA

3. Career info? – company, job title, tasks, the career path taken and etc…
Currently Consultant for Industry
Previously,
CEO - Phoenix Game Studios
-Oversaw business, production and technology for studios
-Shipped Fung Wan Online
CEO - Web-Works Interactive
-Same as above

4. What skills (technical and non-technical) that is essential to you as game developer in Malaysia? Please elaborate or give example…
Technical
-Understanding of Electronics, Operating Systems, Math(Calculas, Trig, Geometry), Object Oriented design, Compiler design, Interpreters, Architecture(How things are best put together), Optimization, Network system, Artificial Intelligence concepts-Computer language(Secondary) C/C++, Assembly-Interfaces(Secondary) DirectX, OpenGL API's

5. In your opinion what makes you get the job? – the interview or resume, elaboration are really appreciated…
Determination. If it isn't there, do something about it.

6. What makes you to get into game industry?
Decide to create because of personal interests, later shared with friends. Technology focused first, but later attracted to both Business and Designs.

7. Your idol of game developers in world game industry?
Richard Garriot, Marc LeBlanc(Zork),Paul Reich III(Star Control)

8. How to do you future of game industry in Malaysia?
There are a few exciting things happening in the Game Industry..most that I can't talk about...soo..

9. How is your life as game developer? – work life, social life, and personal life…
Used to be longer hours,but working as a consultant now. I always keep a good balance between work and exercise. No major illness.

10. Anything you would like share to us? – it could be anything, advice, experience, complain, shout out, and etc…
Game development is a career choice that your can be passionate about but still be grouded with a sense of reality. There is no way that a 'graduate' coming straight out of college will be able to 'create' the game of their dreams.I applaud those who try, but the reality is even
with those with years of experience in this field find it difficult to succeed. Many people work years just to be able to get to the that level. Before you jump you have to learn how walk. If you are long for the long haul, you need to focus and create oppurtunities. Game development is not the faint of heart and those looking for a 'fun' life quickly realize the realities are different. Always ask questions in a company, always be open to learning newthings, always be ready to re-invent yourself.

--
Terence Tan
http://www.posdreams.com/

Soo Jin Kai @ killarkai

2005-03-29T15:04:00.000+08:00

Hello there Buzz:

I am officially not in any industry, not even game industry, as I am currently jobless. I will depart to Shanghai on 10th April to try my luck there. The game industry in Shanghai is more established than in Malaysia (giants like Ubisfot and Gameloft have presence there). Plenty of opportunities? Yes. But I'm bearing in mind too that competition is a plenty too.

1. Personal info? – name, age, sex, location, interests, contact details, and etc…
Name: Soo Jin Kai
Age: 24
Sex: not had any lately
Location: was KL, now Kuantan, Shanghai soon
Interests: games(obviously), music(playing and listening, jazz to be precise), football(playing for real, playing for fake(winning eleven) and watching)
Contact details: killarkai at yahoo dot com

2. Academic info? – course, major, institute, and etc…
- Ex-MMU SEGD student, the batch before Ee Xiang's andafter Jeevan's to be precise

3. Career info? – company, job title, tasks, the career path taken and etc…
- My last and only job was as a Applications Developerin Unrealmind Interactive. Did some mobile games.

4. What skills (technical and non-technical) that is essential to you as game developer in Malaysia? Please elaborate or give example…
- NON-TECHNICAL:
As a game developer in Malaysia, the ability to innovate and think out of the box is extremely important, if you don't intend to work for struggling local game companies forever that is. We need a unique distribution model, a unique business model, unique marketing model, to compete with the big boys at their own playing field will almost mean certain death. With the pirates at power, going conventional MMO is not the answer either(IMHO), neither is going conventional mobile(market too saturated). In conclusion, I am saying you need something new, without me suggesting anything new, there you go!
- TECHNICAL:
Most of it is already covered by Jeevan, one more thing that I would like to add is be independent. Got a programming problem? Don't message that guru yet.Give yourself a timeframe to figure out the problem yourself.(before asking for help) Google is your bestfriend. You learn more this way. Oops, does this qualify is a non-technical skill?

5. In your opinion what makes you get the job? – the interview or resume, elaboration are really appreciated…
- For my case, I guess its because I did internship with the company :P and they didn't spot anything bad with me. (and decided to keep me)
My advice? Work on a non conventional resume ;) sometimes resumes can bore the crap out of people, if you want to show that you have something special, do something special! Make yourself distinguishable from the pack.Here is an example ;)http://213.186.36.10/~al/alstudio/cv/en.htm

6. What makes you to get into game industry?
- I am not in yet, will let you know if I managed to, in the future.

7. Your idol of game developers in world game industry?
- John Carmack

8. How to do you future of game industry in Malaysia?
- Looks bleak, doesn't look to be improving. Maybe wrong about this.

9. How is your life as game developer? – work life, social life, and personal life…
- Work life was great, had a good team to work together on stuff that we like. Social life? No more energy left after work, all I want is a social life with my bed.

10. Anything you would like share to us? – it could be anything, advice, experience, complain, shout out, and etc…
- What else but YOU ARE THE HOPE OF our future! Be realistic, and be brave at the same time ;) Do something great while you are still young and screw ups are still affordable! And to Buzz: keep on blogging!

Jin Kai

Mayling

2005-03-29T14:48:00.000+08:00

Hi BuZz... I've answered your questions... Hope they're okay. :D Lemme know if you need anything more ya?

1. Personal info? – name, age, sex, location, interests contact details, and etc…
-Mayling, 23, Female, Living in Serdang, currently working in Sentul but switching to KLCC in a couple of weeks' time hehe.

2. Academic info? – course, major, institute, and etc…
-Same as Jeeves, SEGD 2nd batch alumni of MMU, graduated May 2003

3. Career info? – company, job title, tasks, the career path taken and etc…
-Currently a 'Quest Designer' (yuck, don't ask me what that is. I'm a mere game designer) employed with Terra ICT. I worked as a Games Designer with Phoenix Game studios for 6 months before settling withTerra for slightly more than a year. I'm moving over to Gamebrains as a Junior Designer/Producer mid next month.

4. What skills (technical and non-technical) that is essential to you as game developer in Malaysia? Please elaborate or give example…
-Technical Skills:
a. Basic knowledge in using a variety of software – both in the field of programming and art/animation. Its good to at least know how, and what these software do, and how they basically work. Figure out how the scripting tools work, how the 3D modeling software works. These basics are already taught in SEGD, so yeah, they do come in really handy.
b. As a game designer, expect to see a lot of numbers and spreadsheets. MS Excel skills are important; as you'll need to come upwith formulas, tones of stat tables for characters, items and quests.
c. You'll have to feel at home using MS Word to do your documentation and this will run up to hundreds of pages.
d. Software engineering tools – You'll be drawing a lot of diagrams and charts when it comes to doing documentation for the Technical Design Document. Gantt charts, flowcharts, data flow charts, user requirement charts… list goes on. Its good to pick a software you'recomfortable with and use this to your advantage. (For example:Rational Rose. I picked this up working with project managers)
-Non- Technical Skills:
a. Good reading habit. It's a no-brainer, that you as a game designer should devour books. Its always good to keep an open mind, and read ANY type of books you can get your grubs on.
b. Good writing skills. Its important that you write well enough to convey your ideas across.
c. Great people skills. Communicating an idea across is important. You have to speak up, and convey your ideas across to the artists and programmers. Its pointless if you have a great game idea, but don'tknow how to tell people about. Keeping team morale up is important too, and keeping the team happy working with you is one of the keys to a productive team.

5. In your opinion what makes you get the job? – the interview or resume, elaboration are really appreciated…
-Both are equally important. Of course, an impressive resume would help you stand out from other applicants for the job. However, it's during the interview that your future employer sees whether you're really cut up for the job. In the interviews I've attended, there's been more than 1 interviewer, so be sure you're projecting positive body language!

6. What makes you to get into game industry?
-I got interested in games design after my application to study chemical engineering was turned down. No, really! Hahaha I picked up games, and found that making them was interesting. I've been playing games ever since I was a kid, so there's always been a fascination with games.

7. Your idol of game developers in world game industry?
-American McGee, CliffyB and Tetsuya Mizuguchi

8. How to do you future of game industry in Malaysia?
-Its bubbling, and right now, it really looks promising. There are more companies emerging who understand that there are a lot of aspects to and potential in the games industry. Not only in developing games, but publishing and distributing them as well. This opens up a much more varied market, and that's a good thing. Hopefully in time, larger games companies will consider Malaysia good grounds for expansion (eg:Koei Singapore). We could use the exposure.

9. How is your life as game developer? – work life, social life, andpersonal life…
-My work life has been interesting, but games dev is just like anyother job. A job is a job. So far, I haven't had to work on any crazy projects that affects my social and personal life much. I think my life is pretty much normal, like everyone else. However, you do get raised eyebrows once in a while when you tell people you make games hehehe.

10. Anything you would like share to us? – it could be anything,advice, experience, complain, shout out, and etc…
-A big shout out to the lecturers in the SEGD courses in MMU – Hilmy, Mr Wong… thank you for teaching me what I know now, and pointing me in the right direction hahaha.

Keep together in the games dev circle! We game devvies need to keep together, yo!

Cheers!Mayling

Jeevan Prasad @ Jeev

2005-03-26T10:15:00.000+08:00

I'll try my level best to answer these questions tohelp u out. Mind you, I am NOT actively participating in the games industry... yet :P But I am a programmer;)

1. Personal info? – name, age, sex, location, interests contact details, and etc…
- Jeevan Prasad (Jeev), 24, Male, Live in Klang - Workin Cyberjaya.

2. Academic info? – course, major, institute, and etc…
- Software Engineering and Games Design (Grad: May 2003) MMU, 2nd batch of SEnGD!

3. Career info? – company, job title, tasks, the career path taken and etc…
- Panasonic R&D Centre Malaysia R&D Engineer aka R&D Programmer Network programming and software design improvements
Note: This is my primary job and I do it as a learning experience. I have not considered full-time jobs in the local games industry yet for the sake of self-development.However, I do perform occasional freelance projects some of which revolve around Games. Also, my previous job was an educational software house, and I was in charge of developing educational software for the young age group of 6 to 10 years old.

4. What skills (technical and non-technical) that is essential to you as game developer in Malaysia? Please elaborate or give example…
- This will be highly opinionated.
Non-technical attributes
a. Desire - You cannot accomplish much in a field you have no interest in because you probably would lack the attention span and dedication to it.
b. Commitment - The biggest flaw in the average M'sianis their potential to 'dream' instead of developing an 'ambition'. You got to pursue it and follow through your task. Of utmost importance is to start a project,and see it to completion. It is ok if u make small simple projects... but better to have completed small projects than incomplete huge projects. Strive to release, release and release. Stagnation is evil! :P
c. Explorative - Y am I not in the games industry? For me, there is so much to learn. My previous job was on Flash development. Would you believe me I was offered the job BECAUSE I didn't know flash? :P It was the drive to learn and experiment on new challenges that got me that job. But y stick to something as simple as Flash?Games are not all about 3D and windows and desktop apps. The web is a potential playground and you can do that with Java for instance. But Flash is the dominant and most penetrative web medium to develop on. But it has limitations. Most of the time, you wouldnt be able to experience these limitations without having prior exposure to it. Today, I can pretty much tell u the general flaws and strengths in Flash and easily begin developing simple game or simulation systems on it.My current job is all about networking. I hate networks! haha. But networks is also the one field I was almost never exposed to, plus it has multiple fields of knowledge in one. It teaches you delay considerations for performance optimization, datapacking for transmission optimizations, and general network knowledge to even do simple networking.Working on commercial development also teaches you how to implement design stages and iterative testing and coding cycles to build up an application. In short: proper software engineering beyond the class room.There is more to explore, but my future in serious games development will probably exist when I believe I have explored enough to sit down and say 'Time to package the knowledge' :P

Technical skills (for programmers)I will base these more on general programming.
a. Logic competency - It is not the language knowledge that makes you a good programmer, but the logic of programming. Why? Every language serves the same purpose: to instruct the CPU.That is a single-tracked task. So the key necessity is to understand how to construct the software logic and only THEN think about the language. All high-level languages have the same basic constructs albeit changes in syntax and extended features. The languageis what I would consider something that is learnt on a need-to-know-basis. Educational systems prioritize it the other way around. They teach u languages, and not much of application of logic. If you can make that distinction, you're on the right track already.
b. Design - Given a problem, how do you create the solution? Even more importantly, how do you make a solution that may not necessarily be the quickest way, but potentially is the easiest (or least cumbersome)? Design skills come here.I'm not gonna enforce OOP design coz I find non-OOP languages just as useful. But modularity IS important.Software architecture and design is not a trivial matter, nor is it an overhead. There is a significant difference in a system that is designed with expansion and easy modification in mind than a system that was written without design in mind. Some would argue design will be an overhead of time, but when you getto commercial production... bug fixes and requirement changes are bound to happen a LOT. The sheer size of the applications will make it difficult to make quality code when all your fixes are hacks rather than basing ur changes over an adaptive design. Look-ahead,thats wat design is for.For small projects, these are the best places to start learning design coz they are small and turn around time is quick. U can do 3 small projects in the time of 1 large project. So u had 3 times (though not of equal complexity) the training in design.
c. Debugging - Learn your compiler, and learn your debugger. Not helpful enough? Make your own debugging tools like runtime messages or file logs.
d. Toolset - If you do not have your own set of libraries, then you probably have not coded enough. Your own libraries may not be the best optimized options but it does imply that you understand what you've done. And having a common toolset makes it easy to jumpstart new projects, be it personal or commercial. You have agood toolset if when you have a game idea, u bunch up your toolset and realize u can start coding the game instead of the skeleton application.Building your own toolset requires dedication and the need to improve. Toolsets always change or grow. I started with an application skeleton. Now I have a math library, vector library, timers, loggers, text output, common macros and utility function libraries,etc. When you find something usefull, keep it ;) You never know when u'll need it.

5. In your opinion what makes you get the job? – the interview or resume, elaboration are really appreciated…
- Interview is a start :P I dunno bout serious game-related jobs, but the general job interview can make or break your chances. Confidence, warmth and results.Results are your portfolio. Whether or not your employers asks for one, you should have one. I believe this is more so for a game job. If you dont have work sample, your degree aint gonna help coz the industry doesnt seem friendly to degrees :P Remember, all talk and no show = boasting. Employers want people who can work for them, and who they can work with.

6. What makes you to get into game industry?
- N/A <-- I'm working on this myself :P

7. Your idol of game developers in world game industry?
- Peter Molyneux

8. How to do you future of game industry in Malaysia?
- I have no 'good' or 'bad' answer. I just think the future depends on our generation. We need to start it, and only then can we gauge the future ;)

9. How is your life as game developer? – work life, social life, and personal life…
- N/A <-- I dont consider my Flash games to have conributed much to being a 'Game developer' yet :P

10. Anything you would like share to us? – it could be anything, advice, experience, complain, shout out, and etc…
- Er... if you guys got anymore of those SEGD activities, keep us seniors posted :D Hope that helps. Since I'm not in the games industry,I can't be of much help. But I still have the desire and love for making games. Glad to help out anytime I can ;)
Jeevan

Tan Yee Siang @ eXiang

2005-03-26T10:03:00.000+08:00

1. Personal info? – name, age, sex, location, interests contact details, and etc…
- Tan Yee Siang, eXiang; age21 male from malacca; interest in both programming and design (in term of art as well as game design); my blog at http://exiang.xullum.net/blog

2. Academic info? – course, major, institute, and etc…
- MMU cyberjaya, SEGD final year student

3. Career info? – company, job title, tasks, the career path taken and etc…
- Starting up own company with 2 others partners. company name is miniMAX Studio; have startup a computer hardware partnership company before.

4. What skills (technical and non-technical) that is essential to you as game developer in Malaysia? Please elaborate or give example…
- To me, sKill to understand the industry is more important than any technical skills.On technical wise, it is really hard for us to compete with those big bro in oversea which hav developed their state-of-art game engine much more earlier than us.In local, we have very good graphic designer but they are not much into computer game.Local game designer cant go far if he dont have the ability to realize his idea. Sad to say...the only way is to master programming.

5. In your opinion what makes you get the job? – the interview or resume, elaboration are really appreciated…
- Confidence is the most imporatant characteristic that local game developers should have.Next, you also need interest as well as the spirit not to give up.This is a very new industry and to be able to work out your dream while surviving, one should be realistic and yet optimistic.Also, cert doesn't mean anything in this new industry although some company such as EA and GameBrains still holding strong to that.

6. What makes you to get into game industry?
- My own characteristic as well as my interest in both design and programming field.

7. Your idol of game developers in world game industry?
- It is not a person, but a company and that is Blizzard

8. How to do you future of game industry in Malaysia?
- There is still hope around.MSC is not dead yet. More and more interest is in this industry.At the time I enter this uni, ppl keep telling me that there wont hav job avaiable to SEGD students.However, now even Intel is coming to interview for game dev student.

9. How is your life as game developer? – work life, social life, and personal life…
- Life as game developer just suck. My health condition is very bad since i study in SEGD :)But anyway, I enjoy what i did and what I am doing and have no regret for choosing this path (so far la. haha).My personal life.. hmm. i have a girl friend in my home town and i always go back to visit her.Luckly she is not that demanding and thus allow me to focus on my game dev.I still be able to manage my social life here although it might look boring to some ppl.I like to meet anyone that have same interest with me in game dev: course mate, juniors, lecturer, others university student, industry ppl.So far, wat i did is to build contact around and connecting everyone in this industry together.

10. Anything you would like share to us? – it could be anything, advice, experience, complain, shout out, and etc…
- Advice... just is my quote: It is not in the star to hold our destiny but ourselves.Study could be hard when some of the lecturer do not appreciate thing that you did.In this case, do not let others to judge you but you should be able to judge urself.This university is cool and people in the industry is nice too.Do not affraid to approach dean if you have any good idea to help this course and the junior.Other big industry ppl such as MDC are very interested in game dev as well and they are very friendly.Do not be shy to show off what you can do to others, publicity is important to promote game dev as well as yourself.Always help each others and improve together. Pay attention to your junior and provide as much help as you can to them.

p/s: kind of hurry to reply ur msg as i am dong my fyp now..anything just email me

The replies...

2005-03-26T09:32:00.000+08:00

from now on, i will only wait for reply (makes me looks like lazy but actually got couple of other assignments on my shoulder and this blog is working find as i've planned) from malaysian game developers and i'll keep mailing this interview to new person, who i didn't get to include them in the first list...so, again i welcome any new contact to any game developer in malaysia preferably through email... :)

i've receive some replies from those that i've mail and i'll paste an interview UN-EDITED in a new entry, that means, the title will be the name or nickname of the person who have replied the interview...

that's all from me...happy reading, if anyone would to comment anything about reply of the interview u are welcome to do so...i'm myself will give a comment... ;)

adios, votos locos forever...

The Links...

2005-03-26T09:23:00.000+08:00

Here i will post all the links that i can find and give a simple description for each one of it...as i'm only posting reference to IGDA.org, but actually i've search quite a number of website, and all the post b4 this are cumulative info which the main reference is IGDA.org :P

Links List (sounds like an ADT :P ) :>

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Master Link
?> http://www.igda.org/breakingin/resource_links.htm#1
?> a lot(i mean a LOT) of links, maintained by IGDA...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

?> http://www.edmagnin.com/careers.html
?> general info, good starting...

?> http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/444/Inside-the-Industry/p1
?> explaination from TeamXbox and J.F. Williams about worklife, 4 page...

?> http://www.makegames.com/intro.html
?> step by step and break to different part, easy to read...covers most of the issues...

?> http://www.obscure.co.uk/industry.shtml
?> different view from multiple side...

?> http://slashdot.org/features/99/08/20/143215.shtml
?> the negative part of being a game developer, by ex-game developer...

?> http://www.guildhall.smu.edu/News/rgray-gamedeveloper.htm
?> interview with Richard Gray, Duke Nukem 3D...

?> http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/cat_games.php
?> weird stuff and news related to game...

?> http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/games/gdc2004.html
?> java games development...

?> http://mgdc.xullum.net/html/index.php
?> by our sempai...nice work...but sadly less active forumer... :(

?> http://www.fuelfactor.net/3wgd/
?> 3rd world game developer's issues...

?> http://www.debtventures.com/page.cfm?name=Game%20for%20growth
?> statistic, numbers and facts about game development by Terra ICT...

?> http://exiang.xullum.net/blog/2005/03/myths-about-game-developer.html
?> good article by exiang...

i'll be updating this post as soon as possible when there is new info or link i've encountered...

The interview...

2005-03-25T01:01:00.000+08:00

at last, i've mailed my interview to some of people that i can get their mail, and some of them are our seniors :D, i hope that i would get their reply as i have no other method that i can think of either that email. Here i paste what i've mailed to them...

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Hello and Assalamualaikum…I’m Bazil Akmal Bin Bidin(preferably called as BuZz), I’m Beta-2004 Software Engineering & Games Design, MMU Cyberjaya…I was given task to create a blog which provide information about “skills needed as game developer in game industry”…here is the link for my blog http://anonymoushomosapiens.blogspot.com/

The reason I write this mail is that I would like to interview you (generally since I mail to multiple people). I’m doing this is actually because I can’t really find specific info regarding my task which is local and I believe that is the best to get the info straight from the source itself. I personally hope that you can share you information to help us the younger generation of game developers by spending couple of minutes to answer this interview. You can answer the interview in formal or informal way, no harm about it.

And if this mail is not related to you or it annoys you, just ignore this mail and I’m really sorry about that as I’m just doing my job to accomplish this task.

Here the interview goes…

*Notes
– [ You have the right not to reveal anything you want ]
– [ You also can skip any question that is ridiculous and not important]

1. Personal info? – name, age, sex, location, interests contact details, and etc…

2. Academic info? – course, major, institute, and etc…

3. Career info? – company, job title, tasks, the career path taken and etc…

4. What skills (technical and non-technical) that is essential to you as game developer in Malaysia? Please elaborate or give example…

5. In your opinion what makes you get the job? – the interview or resume, elaboration are really appreciated…

6. What makes you to get into game industry?

7. Your idol of game developers in world game industry?

8. How to do you future of game industry in Malaysia?

9. How is your life as game developer? – work life, social life, and personal life…

10. Anything you would like share to us? – it could be anything, advice, experience, complain, shout out, and etc…

*If you have time, you are welcome to forward this mail to your friends who is also a game developer, thanks a lot.

Thanks for spending your time to answer this interview, I will post it in my blog, as soon as possible, I also would like to apologizes for my bad English, my bad style, my bad mistake. Again thanks a lot and here are my details…hope you can reply this as soon as possible, because deadline for the assignment is coming soon, but even it is over the date, your reply will be truly appreciated.

Mail : anonymoushomosapiens@yahoo.com
YM : anonymoushomosapiens@yahoo.com

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

i would like to welcome anyone to give contact(email) to any game developers in malaysia, and i would like to thank you in advance for your help...

Publisher...

2005-03-24T08:11:00.000+08:00

one of the biggest publisher...is EA and we heard some stories about it in class...here is a list of video game publisher...

publishing skills :>

c> business skills - know how the business world works especially the game industry...

c> management skills - being able to manage the company and able to overseeing the developers company also :D

c> connection - link to goverment, corporate people, and to the resources as well, sometimes it is not about what u know it is who u know :P

general skills :>

c> business minded - always do things with the awareness about money...

c> have enough money :P

there are several things which is common among game publisher which is :>

c> they make game to make money

c> they don't really care about the content of game, what they want to know is it sells only...

c> exist a conflict between them and developers, as told by mr hilmy in the class...

Game Tester...

2005-03-24T07:37:00.000+08:00

for this one, i would make it a bit simple...

testing skills :>

:=> core gamers - u need to be a core gamer to test a game in every aspect u can...in another word, beyond its limit...with that way u will find bugs or certain error(it could be anything that doesn't purposely created in the game)...

:=> love games - this is a requirement :P, since u will be playing the same game everyday 9am - 5pm(assume it is normal working hours) until the game is shipped...

:=> analytical about games - u required not only to play the game, but to analyze it...u should know what is good and what is bad about it...

:=> gaming experience - in order to analyze a game, u need to have a certain amount of experience in gaming...that will helps a lot...other than that, it is also significant in improving the game by giving ur own idea of what makes the game better...

general skills :>

:=> motivation, ability to learn quickly, problem solving ability, IT - educated and etc...

there are several things which is common among game producer which is :>

:=> most of them born to play game :P

:=> they play different genre...

simple? :P

Producer...

2005-03-24T04:07:00.000+08:00

A game producer is the person in charge of overseeing development of a video or computer game. <-from here and here we go...

producing skills :>

&> people & management skills - this is the vital part of this job type, and this aspect differs producer from game designer & game tester...as the definition given above, ur work is to make sure the development team is progressing...therefore u need a good management skills to LEAD the team is the right way, some of ur task(generally) would be like negotiating contracts - including licensing deals, acting as a liaison between the developer and publisher, developing and maintaining schedules and budgets, overseeing creative part(art & design) and technical development (programming) of the game, ensuring timely delivery of deliverables, documentation and etc...in order to deal with all kinds of people, u must have good people skills and there goes another list of skills u need to have such as communication skills, ethics and professional conduct(sounds like a subject in FIT :P ) and etc...

&> crisis management skills - this is also a part of the above skills, but i do feel that it deserves to be mentioned on it own...one thing u can't run from developing a project is crisis, problem, difficulties and obstacles...here i would like to share my own experience, back in school days, my friends and i joined a science innovation conmpetition(SSEA), while doing the project a crisis pop-up because of a certain thing, and the team almost break into parts and the project would left abandoned just like that...fortunately, we've manage to solve the problem diplomaticly and at the end we win the 3rd prize :D forget about my story and let's get back to games world, again from mr. hilmy's story (i wonder why i can relate so much thing under this topic with our lesson in class :-? ) about FF and DOA, as these games are going to be the last product of their company, i believe they will face a lot of problem and crisis such as their emotion, their future prospect, their spirit, their mindset and lots of other things...amazingly, how things just flipped in to the opposite way...i wonder how their producer handle the crisis...*respect*

*note - hinorobu sakaguchi is the game designer and also producer for FF and Tomonobu Itagaki is the producer for DOA...

some links...
http://www.answers.com/final%20fantasy
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/535/535283p1.html?fromint=1

&> all rounder - to be a producer u need to know and have skills just enough for everything...this is important in dealing with other team members..."you can't talk to an animator about scheduling and evaluating his work if you don't know what's involved in skinning and boning a character model" quoted from Chacko Sonny - CFO/Project Lead/Creative Director/Co-Founder, Savage Entertainment...

general skills :>

&> understand what makes a good game - in producing a game, u need to know the elements that creates a good game, u need to understand what are the aspect that ur game need to offer for people to play it...i would like to relate it to mr. hilmy's lessons in class, one of it is the "reward" and "why people play games"(forgot the exact title but this close to the concept of it)...in these classes we learn about the theory of the reward(got 4 types IIRC and again forgot the details about it), why games are easy at starting and increasingly harder then, the CS player who die bcoz of playing it to long, and lots of other stories which helps us understand what makes a good game...

&> grab things quickly - as game industry is at its growing phase...no one can be surely say how the industry works...it becomes a subjective question which has multiple answer and all of them are true, in their own context and scope...that is why u need to be able to grab things quickly, as u join a particular games company, their have their own style in developing games(work wise) so u need to be able to cooperate, tolerate and manage the whole development team , but experience of producing games will help a lot (it doesn't really matters whether it is ur own project, assignments, other company or etc) ...like mr. hilmy said in the class, "u won't know what it takes to develop a game unless u develop it", i fully agree with this point - books, advice, internet might help, but not much, because most of it are just general info and doesn't really explains how the system's goes in a particular company...so, my advice would be produce ur own game & work in group(different people if possible, it will help u a lot) ...

there are several things which is common among game producer which is :>

&> they take a longer path...because they need to gain experience as much as possible...

&> most of them start from zero, they usually apply for easier job b4 climbing up to the top...that will help a lot in understanding others area in game development...

&> they feel the same way about games...they love it :P

that is all from me regarding this topic, i think i talk to much above( :">) sorry for the long unneccesary info that i've post...

Designer...

2005-03-15T20:34:00.000+08:00

game designer are people who create the game concept, layout and gameplay...in the class, mr. hilmy introduce us to john romero the designer for wolfenstein 3D, doom, and quake and previously mentioned about other notable game designers such as hideo kojima(MGS), shigeru miyamoto(donkey kong, super mario, & legend of zelda), peter molyneux(populous, black & white, and theme park) and hironobu sakaguchi(FF), sid meier(civilization & railroad tycoon) and other...well this are the famous games one, i have my own fav game(don't know who is the designer for it) such as poy poy, power shovel, crash bandicoot and lots of others...

i believe most of us join this major in the sense of creating our own game, no matter in what area it would be either in programming, visual art, audio or else...that is why designing is important no matter where ur area would be...u need to know at least a bit about game design...so, without further ado...let's get it started :D

design skills :>

%> oral and written skills - it is significant that u need to have the skill as u need to explain ur design to other people...especially programmers and artist, since they are in their own world :P

%> analytical thinking - when playing game, we usually rate it either good, ok or bad...it sound's so simple, but not in designer's case...u are require to tell what is good and what is bad about a game distinctively...that means u must scrutinize, examine, study, explore and understand the game to it's limit ;)

%> creativity - u should be able to bring up new ideas, gameplay, layout, story and etc...not just that, u should be able to fix & improve an old game, and make a better version of it such as a sequel...

%> be a gamer - it is just like writing books, u must be a book reader to write good books, because that is where u get enough knowledges and skills to make ur own book, same rules applies here...u need to be a gamer in order to be a game designer...

%> versatility - it is an advantage if u have wide experience, knowledge and skill in other area, a bit of programming will help u to know the limitation of ur creativity, a bit of art will help to potrait ur design better and a bit of management will help u to understand how games industry works, thus ur idea will be more efficient, realistic and profitable... ;)

general skills :>

%> organized and well-prepared - this is essential in ur documentation of ur game design...a great idea is worthless if others can't understand and appreciates it...

%> never give-up - one of the person being interviewed by IGDA have been through lots of "bad luck" and he is still doing what he loves most and that is as a game developer...*respect* :D

there are several things which is common among designer which is :>

%> most of them start from the bottom, as an QA tester...then gain experience and climb up the ladder to be a designer...

%> they say that don't join game industry for money(since it is proven it is hard to make money from game - covered in last class :P ), join it for the passion towards game...

%> they also said that in game industry u make game for others not for urself, if u still wanna create a game for urself, just do it at ur own free time :)

%> "makan game & tido game" a little changes to the famous phrase for football(soccer for mr. hilmy :P) this is exactly what most of the designers do, they play LOTS and LOTS of game...here i would like to quote a part of the interview from Patricia A. Pizer, designer at Large, which i find it quite funny...

"To be a good designer, a little bit of everything. First, play games - LOTS of games. Written and oral communication skills are essential. Play games. Deconstruct games; figure out what it is that you like and don't like. Play more games. Examine game systems. Read about game designs. Read post-mortems of games. Some computer science is helpful. Did I mention playing games? "

that is all from me, to get into more details, u can always search HERE or read books about game design ;)

Audio, sound & music...

2005-03-13T23:09:00.000+08:00

in my opinion, back in the old days, gamers tend to overlook this part of game development...but nowadays, it becomes one of the important aspect for a good package of game...this is good sign towards game developer under this roof as they will be much more appreciated in the future...get back to the topic...here the list goes...

audio, sound & music skills :>

#> music background - it is an advantage if u have a music background, the most common one is as a pianist...essential if u are composing music...

#> versatility - u need to try every genre possible even the one that u dislike also :P, then u won't be limited to any type of game, as u already have basic in most of them...

#> software skills - there several programs used in audio industry such as Sound Forge, Vegas, ProTools, Acid, Microsoft's DirectSound and DirectMusic tools...it is vital since u are in digital audio field...

#> specific skills - most of it i even don't know what it is...however i will list it all and for those who are interested, just google it ;) music composition, sound design and editing, location audio shoots, managing audio assets, developing and maintaining scripts, in-game audio tuning, voice-overs, dialog editing and tweaking, recording and editing voice over, creating sound effects, and writing and producing music...

===================================================
Here are some things that all game audio professionals should have a handle on:

#> Digital audio - how it works, the ins and outs of A/D and D/A converters, what sounds good, what doesn't and why. How it differs from the analogue domain in several important areas.

#> MIDI - learn it, use it, get creative with it...

#> PC and Mac hardware, software and OS. You'll eat, breath and sleep this stuff so get to know it.

#> Recording engineering and basic acoustics. Signal path, recording techniques and mixing chops.

#> As much recording and editing software as you can get your hands on for both Mac and PC.

#> Location recording and Foley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_artist

#> Psychoacoustics. We build worlds. If you want to make them sound good and/or real you need to understand the basic principles of how we perceive sound.

#> Programming - Composers and sound designers who can code are like gold in this industry. If you want to guarantee yourself a position somewhere, learn to code. C and C++ are great to have.

#> Synthesizers - architecture, programming and effects. A lot of game audio implementation is done using a similar paradigm to synths and samplers. ===================================================
this was exactly quoted from Crispin Hands,Lionshead Entertainment, as i can't translate it in my own words since some of the terms, i even never heard of it b4... :P

general skills :>

#> a natural ear - i quote that term from Darryl S. Duncan, EA Florida, audiophile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiophile is one of the element...this means u are sensitive to sound quality...that will help u a lot to excell in this field...

#> get to know about all aspects of game production, especially the game design area that as ur job is pretty much interrelated with it...

there are several things which is common among audio artist which is :>

#> they love music...well that is their world...and an interest in game is a plus...

#> they say that audio programmers are rare and is one of the holy grails in the industry...

#> demo CD is where everything starts... :P

for more info about sub-types of this area refer to this... http://www.igda.org/breakingin/path_audio.htm

Visual Art...

2005-03-05T23:07:00.000+08:00

although i'm not really talented in art, but i do cherish it...here the list goes...

visual art skills :>

$> traditional art skills - i found it is interesting of that we have this term :P...it mean drawing & painting...this are basic skill usually learn by an artist b4 they find a newer way to express their art...it requires training and passion to be good at it...it is simply about understanding of color, form, line, shape, space, balance, contrast, emphasis, harmony, pattern, variety, texture, value, proportion, and composition...(don't ask me whether i really understand what i'm saying :P...)

$> an potential platform - find a good way of expressing ur talent in the best medium u can...but of course choose a carrier wise one...such as Maya, 3D Studio Max, Lightwave, SoftImage, Photoshop, Flash, Director and other current 2D and 3D software...

$> technical skills - nowadays, artists will need to understand the limitations of the latest technology in order to create cutting edge effects...that is why they need to have technical skill especially 3D art packages...one good example is low-polygon character which helps to increase the speed of the game by reducing polygon count...another example of techinical skills is scripting such as Mel-scripting fro Maya and Max-scripting for 3D Studio max...

$> specific visual art skill - in other to proves that u are worth it...u should have to really good a something...being all-rounder is bonus...but like mr. hilmy said in class, "saying that u are good at everything mean that u are good at nothing"...this applies perfectly in game industry, job are getting much more specific and team of developers are getting bigger bcoz of it...so, make u choice of one of these categories 3D Model Builder (Objects), 2D Conceptual Artist, 2D Texture Artist, 3D Cutscene Artist, 3D Character Builder, 3D Character Animator, Level Builder, Art Director, and Art Technician...taken from http://www.igda.org/breakingin/path_art.htm

general skills :>

$> express-able - when we are talking about art, it is definitely a way of expressing ur idea, but let's take it deeper, the term symbolize the ability to make people understand and appreciate ur work...as a game developer in art field...u will have to work with around 4-10 other artists which have their own creativity, idea and work...that is why u need to make urself express-able in order to work collaboratively with other artists and also programmers...

$> improve-able - 3D has a rapid growth since it is created...and it is still growing, therefore u need to be able to learn, adapt and assimilate new technics, skills, and knowlegde to ensure u are not outdated...there are ways of doing it for instance participate in conference, join group or forums online...

$> quality and quantity - one of the critical aspect of being in this kind of job is being able to fulfill ur work on time(in terms of quantity) with highest quality...

there are several things which is common among visual artist which is :>

$> wide-knowledge - in order to create art that is somekind of realistic, logical, and historically true...they need to have information from various field such as history, physics, architecture, math and etc...usually they get this kind of info from movies, anime, novel, games, music and their own experience ;)

$> demo reel - basically demo reel is like portfolio of ur work, it shows ur true ability regardless the academic qualifications u have..."Make sure anything you put in your demo reel is of professional quality. A person with a killer 45 second demo reel will always get an interview before someone with a few minutes of good stuff mixed in with a few minutes of garbage."...quoted from Chris MeadLead Animator, Angel Studios...

for this one, i don't really have a specific website for futher reference, since i gather the information from lots of websites and say it from my own word...but probably u can find more info from IGDA link in the post below...

Programmer...

2005-03-05T04:25:00.000+08:00

after reading 12 interviews by IGDA for programmers...i was "on fire" and ready to kick ass =)

programming skills :>

@> data structures and algorithms - exactly the subject that i'm taking now :P basically it is essential that u make sure to have the skill on this part, bcoz it is the foundation of good game...

@> an establish language - the best is C++, but as for a start maybe J2ME or flash....

@> debugging skill - it seems like funny when i read this, but the author explains that this might be the first task u get as a junior programmer :P and IMHO, this is definitely true, as we doing the codes, sometimes it doesn't work out the way we want it to be, the algorithm may be right but just simple range error like for loop or the if statement would cause ur program to crash... ;)

@> specific programming skill - there are a wide range of programming skills, to be a unique, u must have a specific area that u are really good at it...such as networking(relates to Massive Multi Player-MMP type of game which is the current trend), database(MMP also since they are base data on data of each individual player), graphic (math & physics related), sound(less popular), and AI (the hottest of all)...

general skills :>

@> information-thirst - the desire to get as many information as possible, the best way is the internet, knows what kind if info is vital, from who, where & when, and how to get it...

@> absorber - able to understand and comprehend the information and utilize it...

@> endurance - able to sustain a great amount of pressure, short time constraint, a heavy workload...

@> teamwork - nowadays there is most of the game were created by 4-10 man team for the programming part only, this show how huge the industry is...i don't really agree with general statement by mr. hilmy which is "programmers are lousy managers"...i do believe myself as a programmer and a managers...but again it is a general statement and it is true in the general context - proven by history and experience, as an example most company founded by programmers failed to survive long since they are lousy managers and businessman :P

@> try and error - dare to fail, willing to take risk and learn from mistakes and failures....

there are several things which is common among game programmer which is :

@> they just loves game...play LOTS of games(all kind of game)...analyze it, understand it and find ways to make it better...

@> they create demo to apply for job...it is vital...ur portfolio speaks louder than ur CGPA :P few tips given is, do a LOT of simple games -> learn more, but at least create one masterpiece of ur own from all the experience u've gain from making simple game... ;)

@> they are glad that they are in the game industry despite all the negative side...

@> they say one same thing, "get into the game industry if and only if u LOVE games"... :D

that is all for now...i'll update it for any new info...and any feedback is welcomed....

for full interviews read it from...
http://www.igda.org/breakingin/profiles.htm

:: > edited < ::

NEW INFO

here is a good link given by our senior, yowchuan in the MGDC forum...

http://www.gamesfromwithin.com/articles/0501/000066.html

my first personalize post?

2005-03-05T00:24:00.000+08:00

after a long time i'm back to post up info as i've promised...but i can't really do any interview yet because at first, i thought that i can get game developers personal e-mail from IGDA website, but it turns out that the only mail i can find is the webmaster for company's website... :P

so, my plan B is just trying to find the points from ready made interview by IGDA in their web, futhermore, i've consult mr. hilmy about my blog, and he hope to see more personalize posts, which means he want to hear my own opinion regarding the topic...well that is totally different from my plan A which is "i will only say things that i can prove it's validity only" in a simpler phrase, i only post things which i'm really2 sure it is true (at first i thought it is OK to do that since i'm not in the game industry so better not mislead people just by my own idea and again mr. hilmy countered that and yes i do agree with his points)...

and one more thing, i actually never think of myself doing a blog because i "hate" it, and when i got this assignment i was like => damn <=...ermm...about the reason why i hate blog, it is just bcoz how most of malaysian utilize it...no need to explain more about it...since it might pissed people off, anyway it is just my previous experience with reading blog which makes me think that way (hey, nothing wrong with that - human are perceptive ;) )...now i'm more open about the concept of blogging since i've seen the other ways of utilizing blog, and this happens just bcoz i'm actually doing one :D

let's get back to the topic...feel free to comments, critics and condemn my opinion...

career as game developer...

2005-02-19T02:00:00.000+08:00

there are several type of it and each of it requires a unique or special skills to be as one...

+> programmer
+> visual artist
+> audio/musician
+> designer
+> producer
+> game tester
+> publisher

later i will explain it one by one, so that it will be organized and structured...

*btw, now i'm trying to get contact with at least one for each type of career and i will interview them to get to know exactly what are the skills needed to be like them...so, please be patient :)

type of game developer...

2005-02-19T01:05:00.000+08:00

IMHO, it is essential to classify the type of game developer that we want to be, as they need pretty much different set of skills and we need to be aware of it...here the list goes...

::> third-party developers - a small group of people who were called upon by game publisher and given the task to develop certain title of the game and they were paid for it, it seems to me like a group of freelancers (can refer to william's blog => http://qweweng.blogspot.com/ for more info)

::> in-house developers - these people they work under video game publisher... and they might have several group working on different projects at the same time...here is some of the list of it http://www.answers.com/List%20of%20video%20game%20developers

::> independents - this people create their own game and publish it themself, often relying on the internet and word of mouth for publicity...so they have freedom to push their creativity to go beyond the limit, and they are not really commercialized...

for more details read this http://www.answers.com/topic/video-game-developer

prologue...

2005-02-19T00:14:00.000+08:00

to begin with, i will break this topic into several part and i'll try to make it simple, informative, systematic and chronological as possible...

IMHO, the the first thing we should understand is what is game developer means? and now i'll talk about game developer itself before i go deep into what the skills needed to be one of them...

after several simple search from google...here is what i get :

definition of of game developer :

A game developer is a person or business involved in game development, the process of designing and creating games. Game developers often specialize in a particular type of game.

to be more specific...this is what video game developer is =>

A video game developer creates computer or video games. For all other types of developers mentioned here, the role played by the game designer for a video or computer game is analogous their roles. The more generic term video game developer can refer to anyone involved in the video or computer development process, such as game programmers and game producers. The term "video game developer" can also refer to a company specializing in game development.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_developer

and this is similar from what mr. hilmy said in class...which is "game developer is people who make game" as simple as that ;)

let the games begins...

2005-02-18T23:10:00.000+08:00

first of all assalamualaikum and hello to everyone...i'm BuZz, and that is more than enough to know me better by starting a conversation with me...

i was given a task to create a blog containing info about "skills NEEDED as game developer in game industry"... (this is not the actual title from mr. hilmy but this is what i understand from it)... the caps is just trying to emphasize that i should only talk about the essential one as game developer... if i'm out of topic anyone is welcome to "knock my head" and wake me from my own dream...

i will try my best to express myself here and share as much info about it...

for past, current and future mistakes...i would like to apologise for it...gomen nasai...