gravits

Pullin� the blog.

Well, it�s been a long time since I�ve posted. And I realize that the longer I wait between posts, the less and less people check it. Not to mention, I can't talk about the things I do at work (non-disclosure agreement) and I know that you guys don't want me talking about my other bad habit... World of Warcraft. So that's pretty much all that's going on in my life.

My current update is this:
I�m doing great, EA is awesome, graduation was worth the time, and having lots of money is the best feeling in the world. Opera Slinger is on display at the Austrailian Center for the Moving Image till November and was even demo'd for Congress in Washington DC by our producer Matt Laurence.
NCAA & Madden ship in the next two months and my name is on both (XBOX 360 and PS3 versions). All of the hard work and lots of student loans have finally paid off!
Even Serenity is doing great! She has made a full recovery after she hung herself in the blinds and currently living a happy life (and getting slightly chubby too).

So I�m gonna work on a nice holding page for the domain but the blog will come down. I know, I know� don�t cry� I know it doesn't seem like it but the world will go on�

sophisticated new branching animation technology

WOW! That's mine!!!

I can't say what/how we did this, but the implementation of this features was one of my first tasks at EA!!!! This is exciting! Both Madden and NCAA will be out this summer (I worked on 360 and PS3).

This quote is from a gamespot review of NCAA.

Full quote:
The bigger change could be felt in the responsiveness of the players in the game. Players felt more nimble and quick to respond to the slightest change in direction when using the analog stick. Producers are chalking this up to some sophisticated new branching animation technology that is being built into the core football engine that powers both NCAA 08 and Madden NFL 08. Instead of players being "stuck" to the longer animations of their on-field players, branching animation will allow you to break out of an animation and into an entirely new set of moves. As one producer explained, "Why should you have to wait for an animation to finish?"

Article found here:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/ncaafootball08/news.html?sid=6169805&om_act=convert&om_clk=newlyadded&tag=newlyadded;title;1

Another review of NCAA from IGN with the same comment:
You'll also notice a lot more control with a receiver as soon as you catch a pass. Say you're running an out pattern. You can catch the ball, stop on a dime and turn right back into the middle of the field to avoid a corner that is shading you to the outside. Right now the action is so fast it feels as if it defies physics compared to the weighty physics system in 07.

Article found here:
http://sports.ign.com/articles/784/784019p2.html

New Album & concert

playing in orlando the day after the release, I love this place!

Worth The 10 minutes

I can't tell you how many times I watched the first video today, it is extremely well done. These songs are on my iPod's most frequently played.
The following 3 videos are worth the 10 minutes.

"You're Not Here" by Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 3

One of my favorite songs of all time, not as good of a video though:
"Room Of Angel" by Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 2

Random video - turn up audio & don't miss the ending

Opera Slinger overtakes the FL Capitol

The following is from the Orlando Sentinel.

Video Games overtake the Capitol
Etan Horowitz on Mar 14, 2007 12:15:45 PM

The first floor rotunda of the state Capitol looked like a video arcade today as several of Florida's digital media schools set up demonstrations.
Among them were a few students from the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy at the University of Central Florida. They were showing off a new video game called "Opera Slinger," which was designed by students. In the game, participants belt out opera classics and try to match the pitch of their voice with the actual pitch of the song. This caused several legislators and lobbyists to do a double take as they passed by.
Jonathan Yuhas, one of the students at the academy, said the goal of the demonstration was to convince lawmakers to pass a bill to provide more incentives for video game makers to relocate to Florida. Yuhas said the state wants to overtake California as the digital entertainment center of the country.
Industry giant Electronic Arts, which has a big presence in Maitland, also had a booth set up.
For more information on the state's video game industry check out the Digital Media Alliance Florida.

Sera's Update

I went and saw her this morning at the hospital. Thankfully, she�s not in any pain and is putting weight down on her paw. We know for sure that she has retained function of the shoulder and elbow and we still don�t know if she will regain it to the wrist. Luckily she has feeling in her toes (separate nerves from motion) so she�ll at least keep from standing on something that could really hurt her (like jumping on the stove or standing on a thumbtack).
She was still exhausted after this whole ordeal and obviously very confused. She gets to come home tomorrow. The recovery will take weeks so I�ll post updates as soon as they happen.

Side note: I didn�t think anyone read this thing but I kept updating figured that some people check it once-in-a-blue-moon. However after my midnight post last night, I got messaged first thing this morning (love you Krystel/Sam). So I guess I�ll keep this thing better updated when I at least have something interesting to say.

Vladymere and Sera about one week ago before this accident.

The Good & The Bad

Only two days into the week and I�m already exhausted�
Good news first. EA offered me a position yesterday to end my internship four weeks early. Of course, I accepted and I will be starting next Monday (same team, same games, same desk, just a new status).
Now onto the bad. Erika arrived home from work today to find Serenity (Sera) hanging by her arm from our living room blinds. Apparently she had stepped through the blinds while trying to get onto the windowsill. In doing so, she hung herself by her paw and had been hanging there for around an hour or so (estimated under two hours by the vet). Erika had to cut her free and rush her to the vet. She�s been diagnosed with this really long term which basically says that there is an injury with the nerve rootlets from their spinal chord attachments. There is no way to tell at this point if she will regain function of her front left leg. She does have slight feeling in the paw but that doesn�t mean too much. Her recovery will take weeks and we just hope that the nerves were just stretched and not severed. The vet said that this should not be a painful ordeal (after the immediate injury subsides) but either way, Erika came home to a terrified kitty. I am going first thing in the morning to see her, since I didn�t get off work till after the vet had already closed.
This is the same kitty that was diagnosed with kidney failure fourteen months ago. She just can�t seem to catch a break. Well, at least now I make enough money to pay for these damn vet bills.

More Opera Slinger Attention

This has been so great! I can�t believe how much attention we have received from our project. We received more web press when our post-mortem of the game was released in the education section of gamasutra�s website.
That was pretty cool, but I�m most excited about the office of the Provost at UCF requesting that the Opera Slinger team attend and demo our game at the 16th annual UCF Founders� Day Honors Convocation in April. In my opinion, the invitation alone is one of the greatest honors to receive from the university.
Still to come is the IGF at GDC in early March and then graduation in only 2.5 months!

It's ALL been worth it

I just finished my second week at EA and every day it just keeps getting better!
On the first day, I was made to feel like part of the team and my tasks are far from trivial. I expected to get some �keep the noob busy� work, but I couldn�t have been more wrong. I obviously can�t talk about what I�m working on per the Non-Disclosure Agreement, but I can say that I am doing game play features for Madden NFL 08 and NCAA 08 for PS3 and XBOX 360. Just some small notes, EA is the 4th largest software company in the world and USA Today Reports that Madden 07 ranked 1st and 9th on the top selling games of 2006 (1st place was Madden 07 for the PS2 and 9th place was Madden 07 for the 360).
The atmosphere here rocks, and I�ve made some new friends. I am even participating in a Magic: The Gathering tournament that some of the employees put together (after work of course). I even have to force myself to leave at night because I can�t get over-time at this point. Even without any OT, my first week�s paycheck about made me choke. :)
This is by far the coolest job in the world. I am surrounded by some of the smartest people that I have ever met and I�m living my dream!
Going to FIEA was the best thing that has ever happened to me, period.

GDC, here we come!

Back in November, we (The Trebelmakers pictured below) submitted our game, Opera Slinger, to the Independent Games Festival's student showcase.

There were 102 entries from around the world, and I am very proud to say that we were one of ten to be selected as the showcase winners.
This showcase takes place at the annual Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco March 7-9.

We are also listed in the news of gamasutra.com and the screen shot they used for the news article is from Opera Slinger! Here's the snippet they use on their home page for the link:

[01.05.07] The organizers of the Independent Games Festival have announced the ten 2007 IGF Student Showcase winners, including top student games such as karaoke/action title Opera Slinger and city-painting ball rolling game The Blob - full list of winners inside.

With the announcement hitting last night and this article posting only a few hours ago, within 7 hours, I have already received emails from recruiting coordinators requesting phone interviews.

Full list of articles/reviews:
Gamasutra (screenshot)
Game Set Watch (screenshot) : "the delightfully wacky Opera Slinger"
plnehry.idnes review in Czech - 9 out of 10
Orlando Sentinel
itS4free.de review in German - 4 out of 5

If you have not yet played the game, please visit our website.

What a great start to 2007!!!

Opera Slinger Gold Master!

Hey guys, we just finished up our gold master build of Opera Slinger.
For those of you who I haven't been keeping up-to-date with, this is my final project at FIEA. My other project was the full ground-up development of a 3D game engine which is currently XBOX only and not yet ported to openGL (hopefully will do this holiday break if time allows) so it can not be shown due to Microsoft contract requirements.

The game has been entered for the 2007 Independent Games Festival student showcase at the Game Developer's Conference.
Compared to our 2 week rapid prototyped games that many of you guys saw last February when I came up, we've come a long way.
This was a 10 person project (2 artists, 4 producers, 4 programmers) which was a total development time of 5 months. This time included pre-production and the development of the pitch detection system among many other things.

The game is graphic intensive and requires a fairly up-to-date (Windows) machine. If you see a huge lag in the main menu, then it will probably not run smoothly on your machine (but you should still try :) specs are below).
Must also have a microphone plugged in before running the game (USB preferred). Please let me know what you guys think.
Download is 140MB:
www.operaslinger.com/OperaSlingerSetup.exe

Click for more to see the ReadMe file (with computer specs):

]]> ----------------------------------------
OPERA SLINGER
Version 1.0
December 6, 2006
----------------------------------------

I. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
II. STORY AND GAMEPLAY
III. CONTROLS
IV. KNOWN ISSUES AND BUGS
V. CREDITS AND SPECIAL THANKS

I. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
________________________________________

Opera Slinger requires at a MINIMUM the following to play:

1.8 GHz Processor (Pentium(r) or AMD equivalent)
Microsoft Windows(r) XP
1 GB RAM
DirectX(r) 8.0 compatible 128 MB Video Card (Nvidia Geforce(r) 6600 or
higher / ATI equivalent)
DirectSound(r) compatible sound card with OGG support
Windows(r) compatible keyboard and mouse
Windows(r) compatible microphone and/or headset with microphone
155 MB Hard Disk for install
Analog Microphone
Monitor capable of at least 1024x768 resolution

Opera Slinger recommends the following to play:

2.4 GHz Processor (Pentium(r) or AMD equivalent)
Microsoft Windows(r) XP
2 GB RAM
DirectX(r) 9.0 compatible 256 MB Video Card (Nvidia Geforce(r) 6800 or
higher / ATI equivalent)
DirectSound(r) compatible sound card with OGG support
Windows(r) compatible keyboard and mouse
Windows(r) compatible microphone and/or headset with microphone
155 MB Hard Disk for install
USB Microphone
Monitor capable of at least 1024x768 resolution

II. STORY AND GAMEPLAY
________________________________________

Opera Slinger is a fusion of platforming and singing, like a hybrid of Mario 64 and Karaoke Revolution. Players will control Forte, Opera Slinger extraordinaire, as he defends his title and his fame against the nefarious machinations of Aria, the Opera Queen! A deadly mistress of musical bigotry, Aria intends to steal Forte�s fans and ruin him so that her music alone can reign supreme. To this end, Aria has laid waste to Forte�s once- magnificent opera hall. In order to prove his operatic superiority, Forte has challenged her to a final duel � a musical sing-off between the two of them!

In order to defeat Aria, players must out-sing her and win crowd favor. Players will race to spotlights set in various locations throughout Forte�s opera hall, attempting to beat Aria there. Whoever reaches a spotlight first activates the related sing-off sequence, giving them the advantage of being able to sing more notes than their slower opponent. The more notes they sing correctly, the greater their fan favor. The game's songs can also be sung outside of the spotlights, but with a much lower bonus to the crowd meter, as Forte's fans won't be able to see him!

Each of the game�s songs is a famous piece of classical music given a rock n� roll twist. After the first is activated and sung through, the spotlight will move to shine on another area of the opera hall, and players will have to platform through the crumbling ruins to reach the next location ahead of Aria. Whoever has the most fan favor by the end of the final spotlight sequence will be the winner!

Note that you must have a microphone plugged in before starting the application to play this game correctly.

III. CONTROLS
________________________________________

The controls for Opera Slinger are as follows:

KEYBOARD
W - Move Forward
S - Move Backward
A - Strafe Left
D - Strafe Right
Spacebar - Jump

MOUSE
Look around

MICROPHONE
Sing in the spotlights!

IV. KNOWN ISSUES AND BUGS
________________________________________

On some machines, users may experience sound card interference in relation to the pitch detection where the pitch arrow will appear even if there is no microphone input. To correct this issue, please use a USB microphone.

Not all on-board sound cards are supported by Opera Slinger. Using a USB headset should also correct this issue.

V. CREDITS AND SPECIAL THANKS
________________________________________

PRODUCERS
Krystel Guiloff
Matthew Laurence
Devon Sullivan
Ryan Willis

ARTISTS
James Moore - Lead
Ed Tiger

PROGRAMMERS
Jennie Gritton - Lead
Giovanni Acosta
Paul Dutka
Gabriel Montagne

AUDIO
Stella Sung - Music Composer/Arranger
Jonathon Friskics - Sound Recording/Mixing

VOICE ACTING
Chase Padgett - Forte
Meggin Weaver - Aria

SPECIAL THANKS
FIEA FACULTY AND STAFF
Ben Noel
James Brewer
Susan Bucciero
Todd Deery
Aaron Jeromin
John Rotolo
Tom Carbone
Dr. Michael Gourlay
Rick Hall
Brian Salisbury
Ron Weaver

David Verble
Jeff Riggall
Brandon Plagemann
Colleen M. Cleveland
Rogier Van Etten

All of our testers!
...and our loved ones and pets.

You can reach any of the Treblemakers' team members at our website, http://www.operaslinger.com

Bugaholic In The News

I've been so busy lately, I am just now getting around to reading the news article that the Orlando Sentinel wrote about the 3 flash games that made it into the mtvU online showcase.

Jeff Rubenstein, writer for the newspaper, gave us a serious compliment in his article titled "Local Gamers on MTV":
"The 3 FIEA submissions are Bugaholic, a Qix-esque spider web game; Up Your Kilt, a simple, 2D RTS; and Serpents on a Jet, and I think you know where that's going. Bugaholic seemed the most fleshed-out concept, and deserves its spot at the top of the page (not just alphabetically). I've said it before, and here goes again: this school is turning out some real talent, and it's just getting started."

/cheer

MtvU Game0RZ Showcase

During the summer, a group of us from school (3 people, James-artist, Greg-producer and me-programmer) submitted a game for an MTV online showcase called MtvU GameORZ Showcase.

Out of the 9 games selected for this showcase, 3 of them were from FIEA and includes my game, Bugaholic.
At FIEA, we only spent 5 weeks in Flash as a brief experience in 2D development. I actually didn't care for actionscript and flash much since working with 3D engines in C... spoiled I guess :)

In Bugaholic, you are a spider trying to quickly spin a web to catch enough bugs before the sun goes down. That�s basically it. Unfortunately, the game is not my favorite version as we had to �modify� it to be under 3 minutes of gameplay. Just like Tetris, the original game allows you to go through many days (levels) and as long as you can meet the daily requirement of bugs. For MTV, the game is only 1 day.
Check out the MtvU Game0RZ Showcase here.

All About Animations

Hardcore semester!

Since this is my last semester in-class (final semester is internship then graduate in May), it has been super intense.
Two classes are filling up my days like you wouldn't believe. In my programming class, we are making a game for the 3D engine we wrote from scratch last semester. This game is for the Xbox. I decided to specialize in 3D animation so the first part of this semester was rendering. Then we move into Physics and simulation. Really cool stuff, I can�t believe how much I have learned in the short 10 months I�ve been here.
My other class is the Opera Slinger project that I have mentioned before. I was designated �Lead Programmer� and also took the animation tasks for the game. I have been working mostly on the game manager (state machine) along with the event system but have had a good deal of time to play with the hierarchical animations and blending that the engine supports. Our core mechanics are pretty well hammered out so we�re working mostly on �bells and whistles� as well as polish. Which is a very good thing since we have a Game Developer�s Conference deadline in November. Needless to say, we have already started an early crunch. It�s definitely showing our work and is shaping up nicely.
We start interviewing for our in-industry internships next month. I�ll keep posting updates on that as well. I�m really hoping that the results of the Hacker�s Delight contest helps me out. : )

I GOT IT!!!

2005 Triumph Daytona 650 with 1,066 miles