D3 - DoomSayer’s Dev Diary     

I moved to Pittsburgh last year, so this information is pretty vital to me:

Pittsburgh has been gearing up over the last several years in an attempt to become the next big market for game development studios.  Carnegie Mellon University started offering a Master of Entertainment Technology program which has recently spun off many school projects into independant game studios.  There are currently about 6-7 small game studios working in the Pittsburgh area (several of them doing work for Disney products, such as Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Disney’s Toontown).  The Art Institute of Pittsburgh also started offering a Bachelor of Game Art & Design program that prepares artists for the game development scene.

Now, Pittsburgh is the front-runner to become the U.S. headquarters location for a British videogame developer looking to expand its operations abroad.

Eutechnyx, the driving force behind such games as “Big Mutha Truckers” and “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift,” is “awfully close” to settling on Pittsburgh after considering Montreal and Atlanta, said Todd Eckert, the local movie producer who has been tapped to head the company’s U.S. operations.

Mr. Eckert, best known for “Control,” the biopic about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, said the primary attraction of Pittsburgh was the talent being developed at local universities.

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Tags: Business, Game Development, Game News // 1 Comment »

Hre’s my latest creation.  This was created and rendered in 3D Studio Max 8.  The scene polygon count is 3,178.  I was thinking of adding some debris to “finish it off”…maybe some on the shelf, behind the monitor, and maybe a little on the floor…I’m not sure yet.  The one thing I am sure of is that it’s not the greatest since sliced bread, but it is some of my best work to date.  I know, I suck…but I see myself improving slowly.  For now, I consider it done.

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It’s been forever since my last post…well over 2 months anyway.  I’ve been trying to get through some of my higher level classes (only 3 more to go once I’ve finished the last 3 weeks of my current classes).

I don’t really have much to report back yet.  I’ll have something in less than a week, I hope. While I’ve been away, I did find a pretty cool website for continuing my education after I get my Bachelor’s Degree.

http://www.gameinstitute.com/

Some of the stuff that the Game Institute teaches are:  C++ and DirectX Programming, 3D Studio Max Artwork, Game Math, AI, and Game Physics.

I know I said I wanted to get my Master’s Degree (and I still do), but this Game Institute offers some good training in the actual development of games.  Of particular interest is the 3D Studio Max courses.  I can hold my own, but I still want to get better in that area.  My Master’s Degree would be more focused to running a Game Studio, and not actually focused on making any game assets.  In a perfect world, I’d like to do both.  I’m probably just dreaming…

Tags: Game Development, Production, Programming // Add Comment »

by Jason McIntosh

Anyone who develops games (or carries on any kind of business) completely in the comfort of cyberspace can claim to be a “virtual company” or “virtual team.” These groups are creating something together in a coordinated way, but are dispersed around the globe and communicate only through their internet connections. Some “physical” companies might have a website and even use the internet to augment normal lines of communication, but that is not a virtual company. There are many hobbyist/amateur development groups working as virtual companies, striving to finish a demo or game in the hope that they’ll get a chance at the bigtime as a physical company. This may not be everyone’s goal, but if you fit in this category, you might find this information useful. Since the goal of a virtual team is to create something of professional quality, it is often hard to know where to start in terms of organizing and communicating effectively. It is even harder to maintain the momentum, morale, and interest for a large project.

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I have another good lecture from one of my college classes.  This one is a brief overview of Project Management.  A project has has a definite start, finish, and deliverables which are the hallmarks that distinguish a job from a project.

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Tags: Game Development, Production // Add Comment »