Fall 2009 Artwork Showcase

Two more to go! I've been hard at work completing my final projects for Jacksonville University and I've decided to share with you guys my favorite pieces of art that I made this semester.

3D Modeling

He's Zero from the Game Boy Advance series Megaman Zero. Probably the hardest GBA games in existence, it is also one of my favorites from that generation.

Zero is the cream of the crop, the hardest most frustrating character I created this semester; and as you would expect he was also the most rewarding to finish. His entire body took roughly two weeks, while it took another two just for his head!

For you modelers out there, he's created with polygons (I used cylinders), and he's completely UV mapped (not texture mapped however, I used a combination of Lamberts and other stock Maya materials to give him the glow effects of his hair and the illusion of the head crystal being see-through.

Now I haven't gotten the opportunity to weight-paint or rig this character yet. If the opportunity arrises I'll complete those two tasks during the winter break.

For reference on this character I used the official Megaman Zero modeling sheet that I found while scurrying around on the internet...

I had to edit this sheet before using it as my reference, but here's the original.

The rest of my 3D modeling work is available on youtube, click here to view a playlist containing the models from this semester.

2D Typographical Art

Illustrator crashed roughly four times while making this image.

This semester I took a course in typographical art, meaning art that is creating solely with letterforms. This piece above is created solely with the letters "V" and "Y", its a fully tileable image that could be used in a wallpaper or as a Christmastime wrapping paper.

While fun, creating this piece was an excercise in fighting against the computers inherent need to crash whenever something CPU intensive was happening. This snowflake tile took roughly 300 objects to make, something that the iMacs that we use in the art labs at Jacksonville University were quick to remind me of.

Still this is my favorite piece of 2D art that I made in that class, As usual I've uploaded the rest of my artwork from that class onto Flickr. Click here to take a quick look.

Game Design For The Mentally Handicapped

Over the last few weeks I've been scouring the web looking for video games design theory based around the concept of designing for the mentally handicapped. Unfortunately my search has turned up empty, it would seem that the mentally handicapped are too small a demographic for any conventional companies to take notice, or that the restrictions on design would be too tough for a team to put the effort. It’s probably a mixture of both.

So why the sudden interest in a subject that seems largely unexplored with a high risk of failure? Turns out one of my computer science classes (project management [CS 365]) is looking for a project to work on for the Spring semester; originally we thought about making an Xbox Live Indie game (Our classroom computers are outfitted with XNA, which makes Indie game development streamlined), but that type of self-indulgent program wouldn't land us any community service credit hours, which are necessary for each student to achieve before graduation.

Now my professor has brought this new concept to the table; design a game for a group of mentally handicapped individuals with various IQ and physical disparities that range from kindergarten levels of intelligence to blindness and autism. Although we would be developing under the aforementioned restrictions we would have full control over everything else in the game design process (although obviously the team would have that anyway when designing an Indie game).

Personally I'm stoked to be working in any development environment, no matter what potential pitfalls there are, simply to practice my development skills. I am worried about the rest of my teammates however; according to my professor they have shown signs of disinterest in this project, and possibly even disdain. Now as any good producer knows running a ship filled with a crew that would rather stay onshore is a suicide mission. Which is why the development team and will be meeting in class tomorrow to discuss our individual feelings on the project and what course of action we should take.

I'll be playing the role of devil’s advocate in tomorrow’s proceedings, trying to open up the teams minds up to the possibilities available to us no matter what way they decide to push forward. Hopefully the team will come to an understanding regardless of our final decision.

Spearheading new website for JU as Project Lead

The start of each semester at Jacksonville University brings with it a unique set of opportunities to develop exciting applications and projects.

This semester I'll be working on the Jacksonville University Graywater Irrigation Initiative as the head of art and website development. Now of course this isn't my usual caveat of video game flavored production but its good practice for FIEA. The teamates that are working with me for this project will be a traditional 2D artist and one other web developer.

And of course I'll be putting my project management skills to good use keeping the team on track to hit our milestones, I might give Microsoft Project a chance for this one and set everything up through that.

Anyone that is in the business of developing websites can tell you that a project of this scope could be completed in just under two weeks with the proper conditions. But since I will only have one hour each week to meet personally with the project staff it's going to be a slow, controlled development cycle instead of the rapid development you would see with a scrum approach.

So for my next scheduled meeting I'll be presenting a basic outline for what needs to be accomplished, by when, how they can be achieved, and potential pitfalls. I'll also get started on some preliminary UI discussion with the other development staff, although I imagine most of the UI will be designed once we've established a proper icon and theme for the project.

More on it as it happens!

Scrum Certification comes to Jacksonville

Scrum flow chart

It's about time northern Florida recieved its very own Scrum master certification! This two day course will be taking place from October 12-13 in the University of Pheonix. It's unfortunant that the cost is so high, ($1,100 per person) since I would be totally stocked to recieve my certification this early into my education.

For those that aren't fluent in producer speak Scrum is a set of ideas on how to properly manage a teams time to stay the most productive. Since most projects have different aspects being developed simutaneously (Agile project management) instead of one step at a time (old-school waterfall approach) there are many opportunities for mistakes to occur when mismanaged. Scrum is a set of techniques that can be applied to any small team effort, where the task at hand is seperated into a sprint that will last two weeks and split again into smaller managable tasks that improve visibility and keep morale high. That coupled daily meetings and weekly retrospectives keep the team on task and on schedule.

I'm sure I'll be taking the Scrum certification sometime down the road, I wish I had the funding to take it this year though!

Anyone else thats interested can find more details through the Winnow Management homepage.

/Rant- G1 VS iPhone

In short, yes as a smartphone and a resounding "No" as a gaming device.

In terms of functionality, pricing, and developer support the Android ranks right up there with the ever popular iphone. The platform checks off everything the end user expects out of a smartphone (touchscreen, app marketplace, gps, 3g, etc), and Android phones are priced lower than their iPhone counterparts.

But there is one crucial thing missing from the Android initiative, something that most reviews of the platform failed to spot. Something so important that its amazing that HTC (developers of the most popular Android device, the T-mobile G1) could even think of releasing the first Android phone with an oversight this large. They have permanently damaged any possibility of the Android ever becoming as popular as Apple's cashcow.

Now what could possibly be so important that it would create an artificial ceiling on the platforms popularity, but be small enough for HTC to miss?

The G1 only comes with 70mb of space for applications and games, this lack of a large internal storage solution limits what updates the platform can recieve, and how many apps can be downloaded before hitting the glass ceiling. Since the G1 was released its quickly become the most popular Android device, therefore all developers hands are tied to adhere to the phones storage issues (not to mention any other limitations a first generation device carries).

This might not seem like an issue, until you consider that developers on the Android marketplace are fighting for your storage and money; so instead of the consumer being able to download what they want they are limited to cherry picking only the most essential applications, things that the G1 didn't ship with on the operating system (Microsoft Office viewer/editor, turn by turn GPS navigation, etc...). And then skipping out on the "discovery" that iPhone users enjoy; hearing about great apps from friends and checking them out for themselves.

Of course you might think that Google would be all over this problem with a patch to the OS, but according the development team there are no plans to bring this much needed feature to future updates, due to "piracy concerns".

Now of course most Android users won't mind this, they'll use their phone and enjoy its features and in two years (once their contract expires) they'll move onto whatever is hot at the time (whether it be another Android device or not), they won't feel compelled like iPhone users do to stay on the respective platform since they won't be making purchases that don't transfer to another platform.

/Rant

The Mythical Man-Month: Chapters 1-4

The Mythical Man-Month Book Cover

So I stopped by Borders last night with Katie and did what any good nerd would do, immediately high tail it to the computer reference section to check out the latest releases.

Initially I peered around for new production books or project management techniques, but my eyes got caught on one particular piece. I had read about The Mythical Man Month before in Rapid Development; where it received high praise for its groundbreaking observations (groundbreaking for 1986 anyways) in the software development industry.

The book is essentially a collection of essays written by Frederick P. Brooks Jr, in an effort to persuade developers into avoiding the same tar pits that sunk many development projects and studios. I'm pleased to say that Brooks work did not go unnoticed, as even the most basic programmer is being made aware of the ideas brought forth in The Mythical Man Month through Computer Science classes the world over.

 

Herein lies a summary of the chapters core ideas, for future reference

 

Ch.1- The Tar Pit

Small garage programming teams are great at programming systems, while professional development teams are best for developing products.

Ch.2- The Mythical Man-Month

Using the classic man-month system for estimating software development times is dangerous, because it assumes that the amount of manpower and months till completion are interchangeable.

Ch.3- The Surgical Team

Best and worst performances among programmers average at a ratio of 10:1, also a small ten man team that is highly trained to work as a single unit (referred to as a surgical team) can be scaled up in size to include multiple surgical teams using proper technique in order to lower the time to market, allowing the product to be feasible in the marketplace.

Ch.4- Aristocracy, Democracy, and System Design

Balance your product for ease of use and functionality. Also there needs to be checks and balances in your products feature creation, a democratic system of deciding feature sets that includes the whole team instead of an elite few leads to chaos and disorder. The object of development is for many cogs working together to bring about one vision. Lastly implementers (cogs) still have plenty of room for their creative expression and inventiveness to shine through in their daily work. Avoid the sirens song of having the many do the task that would be best given to the few because of the fear of implementers not showing off their creativity.

That's as far as I've gotten for now, I'll be posting more chapter summaries in the next few weeks as I read through them.

Bring what you need to survive.

So I just went through the super joyfull experience of sitting outside my apartment complex waiting for the fire department to shut off what turned out to be a false alarm. Looking back I can honestly tell you that I was only concerned about bringing three things with me to insure that my I would be able to bounce back from having my collective stuff burned to a crisp.

My family (Katie and Gizmo [didn't even think of my poor fish!]), my wallet (ID, credit cards), and lastly my G1 Phone (It never even struck me that maybe I should worry about the portable hard drive with thousands of hours of projects secured within its plastic shell, or for that matter my Alienware computer that cost me $1600).

Now that I'm laying in bed thinking about it, this phone has replaced every electronic device in my life and has become an essential part of my daily routine, and you know what's funny? I could let my G1 burn because I pay for T-Mobile's $5 monthly insurance.

P.S- I'm typing this on my G1, instead of my laptop, huh.

God of War on Gameboy

Ever wonder what Sony's stellar franchise would look like on the monochromatic screen of the GameBoy?

The picture comes from the talented artists on the Way of the Pixel forums, click the link below to view even more modern titles redone in different shades of grey, Bioshock anyone?

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=5016.0

New Site Finished

Now I can finally take a well deserved break from staring at this computer screen, the Tri-Something website has been abandoned, and in its place is www.derrickbarra.com (The site your looking at now). Weeks ago I attempted to make a Blogger hosted website but I found SquareSpace's development system much easier to work with.

I developed this website to be fully compatible with Mobile Web Browsers (it adheres to the 480x320 resolution and uses mostly text. I might tinker with the background in the future but for now I'm satisfied!

Finished Star Trek Enterprise Model

Hey guys, I just finished up the original Star Trek Enterprise model that I've been working on in Maya, its fully rendered and uploaded to youtube, take a look!

Visiting FIEA

Todd Deery

Tom Carbon

Man its been a while since I updated the Tri-Something website, Almost two months now! Well in between the gap of time between updates FIEA's Todd Deery visited Jacksonville University and gave a speech to the students about the current situation in the video game industry, and what JU students would need to do in order to apply at FIEA. Tom Carbone (FIEA's technical director) then took center stage and gave some insight into the daily lives of programmers that are in the thick of things working for EA on the Madden series of games, focusing on how to design and write your code in order to provide maximum ease of use to producers and prevent problems when planning a non-exclusive game that will appear on a breadth of platforms.

At the end of FIEA's visit, Todd and I penciled in a date and time for the Tri-Something crew to visit FIEA during Jacksonville Universities spring break; when the time came my fiancée and I drove to Orlando and stepped into the campus, unfortunately I was the only one that made it out of the Tri-Something group. Todd met up with us and gave us the grand tour; I must have been a bit awestruck because I completely forgot to take some photos of the campus, luckily the FIEA website has great shots that I've linked to below..

Cohort RoomMocap Stage

After the tour we had the opportunity to sit in on team Drifters (A nickname I recognize them as seeing as the game they're working on is called "Drifters") speech on their current game updates. I won't go into too much detail but the full breakdown is available at the FIEA blog.

After the class ended I met up with the students working on Drifters and got into some tea-time conversation with them about life at FIEA, they were all enthusiastic about the experience, but lamented about the overall work load (they were all pulling 10am-10pm shifts everyday). Afterwards we headed for home, hopefully the next time I visit FIEA will be to attend class!