Digital Dave

• Ronald W. Reagan was President
• Sally K. Ride was the First US woman astronaut in space as a crew member aboard space shuttle Challenger
• Federal Debt: $1371.7 billion
• Median Household Income (current dollars): $20,885
• Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.20
• Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $1.24
• Dow-Jones: High- 1,287
• More than 125 million viewers tune in to the last episode of M*A*S*H

• University of Kansas defeats Kansas State University at KSU’s home court, which would begin what became a 24 game winning streak… One of the worst streaks in national collegiate basketball history.

The Streak Ended

January 30th, 2008

KSU  84         KU 75

Congratulations Wildcat Nation

About Damn Time

Granted it’s old (7 Months), but I just came across this. Portal bots, in all their glory. Check it out for your daily dose of laughter.

So IGDA sent out their little newsletter this morning and in it was information about the IGDA Party. I’ve been reading about it from other sites, but I wasn’t sure if they distributed invites for it or not. Nope, they don’t. In fact, you don’t even need to be going to the GDC to attend. You just need to be a member and over the age of 21.

An edit, due to a bit of lackadaisical rushing for a morning blog post… Thanks Andrew.

I also wanted to mention that Jill Duffy and the crew at gamecareerguide.com posted a good article for the n00bs that are heading into the GDC. You can view it here.

I’ve been spending my off time catching up on some math topics needed for this graphics course that I am taking.   There isn’t a lot of math required for Computer Information Systems students.  I have an Analytical Geometry and Calculus I course finished, and another upper level course that reviews an array of math topics.  That is all that is required for IS majors.  So that means that I get to spend my off time learning what I need to know, when I need to know it, or just for fun.  So these past few weeks I’ve been covering some trig, linear algebra and some vector algebra.  I’ve never really messed with vectors and I found them to be pretty interesting.  It’ll be nice to apply some of this to the graphics course.

I’ve also started to run through several OpenGL tutorials at neon helium, and a few tutorials for Orge3D.

Speaking of this graphics course.  Supposedly this is an advanced course for an undergrad.  That said, it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.  There is a ton of material that we’ll be covering.  From basic display systems (clipping, view normalization, 3d graphics data structures, shading and illumination) to fundamental topics in realistic rendering (ray tracing, radiosity, texture and bump mapping, and splines and cubic curves).

I’m pretty excited for the course, but it’ll definitely be a huge load of work.

In addition to my independent project course, of which, I’ll be making a game for.

I FINALLY got a game ‘genre’ down so I can start building some systems.  My concept changed a few times, especially in light of this graphics course.  I will start coding on this game tomorrow.  I’m already behind, and kicking myself.

I’m getting pretty anxious for my first trip to the GDC, and back to California, in general.   I’ve scanned all of the events that they have listed on the site, so far, and I’ve found several programming and design topics that I will be hitting up.

I’m also looking for some gatherings to attend in the evenings.  I’ve been invited to a gathering that the GameCareerGuide.com is hosting Thursday, and apparently there is a ‘Suite Night’ that a bunch of students attend after it that I will be snooping around at.  If you’ve made your way here through myGDC, feel free to contact me (aim: aim marine || msn/email: dlmcgraw at ksu doht com) if you have anything that I don’t know that is open to the public.

The Game Developers Conference is right around the corner, and the internship process is getting under way.   I typically revise my resume, on average, every 6 months.  It doesn’t matter if I’m looking for a job or not, I just want to have it on standby if somebody needs it.

In fact… Just the other day a weak tie contacted me asking if I was looking for an Internship.  I told him yes and he told me to send him my resume as soon as possible so he could pass it on to the hiring manager.  That, in itself, is proof that you should always have it ready.  If you don’t have anything started and you are reading this, do yourself a favor and begin writing one.

So. It’s no secret that I am a fan of what Darius has been writing on his blog in regard to networking.  A few weeks ago he posted a link to a website that wrote on resume objectives.  After reading that site, Darius and I got into a discussion on objectives and he really got me thinking about how I am creating it.

Well, I’ve thought about it and today I decided to go and revise my objective.  Thanks, Darius!

I used to write my objectives in a very simplified way.  The reason: That’s how everybody in academia wants you to write them.  Short and sweet. To the point.   While there are certain situations in your life where you will want to do something like this, it didn’t suit my situation.

The problem with this is that most of the companies that I submit my resume to will already know I want a programming position.  Why re-iterate it?  Why not sell that space as an informal pitch? I will be applying directly online to a job posting, or directly in person where I can talk to them about what it is that I want to do.

So, in an effort to get feedback on my objective from people who hop on this site and are already in an industry, I decided to post some of my ideas that I wrote today.   All of these are really well spoken for what I believe in and what I am about.  There is no inflammation of words here, these are exactly what I truly believe in.

And please, for the love of all things sacred, don’t go and slap any of this on your resume.  My advice to you if you are trying to write an objective is: be yourself.  Imagine talking to somebody about yourself (what we ALL are good at), and what you can offer to help them.

Rough Draft Objectives:

• I want to use my continuous desire, and determination, to work with highly talented people on a common goal of developing a video game that will impact the lives of the community in a powerful way.

• I want to work with creative and intelligence people on a daily basis; creating and developing a vision that will transcend toward reality through raw passion, initiative, and enthusiasm.

• I need to work with individuals that will give me a chance.  Not guided by raw intelligence, but by determination and a will to never give up, I want to show that pure excitement for continuous learning and effort can drive success.

•  I want to use my attention to detail, desire to learn, and initiative, to add value to a development process.  I want to provide my loyalty to a company and help push a project from a vision to completion, motivating people along the way.

ASIA [1/20]

• Hang Seng Index: -5.49%  (chg: -1383.01)
• NIKKEI 225 Index: -4.58% (chg: -610.25)

Europe

• FTSE 100 Index: -5.48% (chg: -323.50)
• GERMAN SE XETRA DAX Index: -7.16% (chg: -523.98)
• CAC 40 Index: -6.83% (chg: -347.95)

Tomorrow is going to be a pretty interesting day… To say the least… I’ll pray for your 401K and you can pray for my personal portfolio.

I guess the good out of all of this is: If you are not investing, pretty soon you are going to have a perfect buying opportunity.

*Resumes Coding*

Edit Before Bed

ASIA[1/21 - So Far]

• Hang Seng Index: -8.04% (chg: -1,914.73)
• NIKKEI 225 Index: -5.03% (chg: -670.46)

United States: Futures

• DOW: -3.6% (chg: 436.00)
• S&P500: -4.3% (chg: 57.1)

Not good…

I spent a good portion of today finalizing a game project that I will be working on this semester.  I’m not quite sure how it’ll turn out since I’ve only seen 2D renditions of this type of game.  I did decide to go 3D.  The main reason is because we have a project in my graphics course that I could possibly use this project for.  Another reason is –> I need experience in 3D.

I spent the other part of the day reading and playing around with tutorials on OpenGL.

In my graphics course we will be using Ogre3D to work with the graphics pipeline.  I was interested in seeing it in action, so I downloaded the SDK and began playing around with it.  It’s interesting and seems pretty powerful.  I fully agree with their philosophy.  Developers should focus on a piece of the engine that that is specialized versus writing an entire engine.  Ogre3D is just a graphics library.  No collision, sound, input, etc.  You use other libraries for that functionality. But it adds to the powerful factor due to the amount of work they focused on one aspect.

I also spent a few hours playing around with Maya, refreshing myself.  We’ll be writing a lot of shaders in this graphics course, so I need to brush up before the whirlwind hits.

Well, more of my head start begins when I wake up.  Night blog-hopper.

So, I took an extended break away from the blog and away from, almost, everything else.  I decided to spend some time playing games while I have that luxury during school breaks.  During the semester, I rarely play anything.  This was a good time to relax and fiddle around.

One game that I played, and that I highly recommend is called ‘Peggle.’   It is a really simple game.  Pretty darn good design.  It will have you laughing for the first couple of boards.  The presentation had me rolling.  I showed it to Megan, and she was laughing pretty hard, too.  The game actually reminded me of Plinko from the Price is Right, which is still my favorite game on that show.  The objective of Peggle is to fire your ball into a maze of blue, red, pink, and green pegs.  Once all of the red pegs have been hit, then that level is complete.  Also, any peg that you hit is removed after each turn.  There are really interesting power ups for each stage that adds some flare to the game.  My favorite is the dragon ball. >;oD

But, yeah… Go try the trial.

So, my schedule for this semester is finalized.  I have the hardest time coming up with a legit schedule.  I hate taking simplistic classes for an easy A, and I don’t like classes that will not benefit me in any way. I attend classes with an open mind, and I am willing to learn about anything, which I couldn’t say while I was growing up.  I took education for granted growing up in a family where graduating high school was a rarity in itself.  I’ll write more about this later.

• General Psychology
• Intro to Operation Management
• Enterprise Information Systems (Database Class. PHP, MySQL, MS Access, Web Design)
• Interactive Computer Graphics (OpenGL)
• IS Project

Snowball Fight has been thrown to the side.  I had fun, and the project was something decent to introduce me to network coding, but I just don’t have the time (or desire at this time) to direct toward it.  The game is nearly playable 1 vs. 1.  My hopes is to get that working, and call it good.  I have a semester game project starting, and that will get my full attention…….

If I could decide what, exactly, I want to do. ;|

I must have thought about 50 different things through the break TRYING to come up with a semester project that is A) Not out of reach, and B) Something fun.  I keep running around in circles, thinking that I should just ‘clone’ something that is out there.  Or remix it somehow.  I have one unique idea that would be feasible, but it needs a lot more thought put into it.

I’ve thought about doing a 3D Bomberman that would get me introduced to the world of 3D.  In addition, I also thought about doing a 2D clone type game of Harvest Moon (a favorite of mine).  I also thought about taking a board game, and developing a computer game based off of it –  Khet, Ticket to Ride.  The interesting aspect of porting a board game is that I could code a networked portion of the game.  That is purely for fun.  These games would definitely be better implemented online and distributed through something like Facebook.  That is, if you could avoid getting sued (see: scrabulous)…  I also thought about doing a casual game, like Bejeweled.

GDC is a little more than 4 weeks away! Woofa, time is flying. O_O! *bites nails*

I did find somebody to stay with.  So that should help a lot on the finance side of things.

I’ve selected the business card that I will be distributing, and it’s off to the printing presses now.  I’m getting 250 cards, which will be way more than enough, but I don’t need to risk NOT having any since I’ll be there the entire week. Thanks Darius, and all the other individuals whom gave me feedback on my card designs.

How about the Stock Market? Cup of Recession, anyone?

*equips -The Ak’na Plate of Recession- armor* Hope I can heal myself from this one.  Good luck, if you are in the market.  The market is already down 9%, and it’s only been 17 days… ;|

I couldn’t forget to blog about the wedding.  We have our location booked, and our photographer booked.  We have set the date of July 25th, 2009.  Yes… That’s right… 18 months from now.  We have this ball rolling already.  That does mean that I might be moving to California alone while she gets everything ready.  Oh well, at least I’ll be able to give full attention to my new job.

So, I’m trying to come up with a business card… *pulls hair out…*  Here’s what I have.  These are just concepts, I haven’t chosen one yet.

This will be on the back of whatever card I choose

programmer->drink(caffeine->aquiredEnergy(1000))

Just something that shows different projects I’ve worked on

Very Simple.  Easy Name-Face recognition here.

A spin off of the first card.  I was going for a page flipping effect. The top was try 1, and the bottom was try 2.

And my first idea.  The idea revolved around ‘what is coming next’ with a game theme.

Ever since I joined the Marine Corps, I started to have a huge interest in watching news and following what is going on in the world.  The biggest reason is, as a leader, you really want to try to stay away from complete and utter surprises.   For example, imagine if you were in the Military, like me, and never followed the news and really didn’t pay attention to much that was going on around you (though, it was hard to notice).  All of a sudden, you’re told you are going to war, and the plane leaves in 4 hours. Ugh..

Anyway, I admit that I am not a very huge fan of the policies of this current administration and I am really wanting complete change.  That change, I believe, shines  in the eyes of Barack Obama.   Apparently, the people of Iowa believes that too.  Obama took first (38%) with Edward (30%)  and Clinton (29%) following behind him.  That speaks huge for his campaign and I hope it leads the way for the rest of the caucuses.

In other news…

I’m in the process of coming up with a game design idea for an independent study project for next semester.  Talk about tough.  I’ve got a lot of idea ‘pieces,’ but putting them together into a semi-unique game experience is proving to be a little tough.  Tomorrow I want to sit down and set in stone what I want to do.  At the beginning, I thought that doing a 3D game, like a 3D bomberman game, would be a great way to start learning 3D. While that is true and works, I really want to try to find something of my own this time.  Anyway, I’ll begin writing about the project when the semester starts.

I fully anticipate and expect a challenging course for an intersession course, but this class that I was going to take just blew me away.   The course only lasts 15 days (actually 12).

Just a few points:

1. Class goes from M-F from 1:00pm to 5:30pm including 1 Saturday.
2. Daily Quizes
3. Daily Assignments (Including Readings, etc…)
4. Research Presentation that includes collaborating with about 4 other people, writing a proposal, writing a report, and then creating the actual presentation.
5. A final writing that revolves around a book

So, essentially, you’d spend 4 1/2 hours in class, collaborate with your peers for 1-2+ hours, read for the daily assignments, and complete a quiz every day for 12 days (3 days are omitted, because those last three days are presentation time).

I understand that it’s an intersession course, but dang!  This class is incredibly interesting, and the professor is amazing, but that is just an incredible amount of work for 12 days and I don’t feel like going into hibernation to get what was supposed to be a ‘fun and interesting course’ to take during intersession.

Ah, well.  Things happen for a reason.

I found a Marketing class that revolves around marketing on the internet.  I’ve been involved and have witnessed independent projects go from design->development->release,  and the most critical problem that I see is the failure to get their name/branding OUT there!  Independent developers do not have any space for lack-luster effort if they expect to get at least a little compensation for their time and future projects.  Face it, you might not think that you care about making any money, but if you spend 3 to 4 years developing a project and crunch many, many hours, while spending your own money on the project for art assets, music, or other things, you are going to need some sort of motivation to continue pushing yourself to develop another independent project.  Likely, you will want to create a better game, so that money will only help you progress toward your dreams.

Now that I have another couple weeks before the semester starts, I plan on finishing the snowball fight, pending that I can get a distribution package to work.  ;\