An interesting book Taming the Tiger: The Struggle to Control Technology by Witold Rybczynski, is not a programming or art book, but rather an interesting reflection of technology throughout history. The book brings up some intersting concepts, man as the prostetic god (able to extend his reach, life, travel and abilities far beyond natural levels […]
A great book by Edward Yourdon, Death March: The Complete Software Developer’s Guide to Surviving ‘Mission Impossible’ Projects. Being part of a crunch turned to death march projects, this book speaks volumes on the subject and is a worthwhile read (hopefully before you start on a project). For a death march project to occur, one […]
Well, the day still starts at 7:00 AM, but the timeline is a bit different in a crunch. See my original post for comparison: http://gameprogrammertechnicalartist.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-in-life-of-game-programmer-team.html
How do projects succeed or fail? One day at a time. What is your focus during the day, do you always work on the most important aspects first, or do you get swept up in the tiny details each time. Too often it is these tiny details that become death by a thousand cuts. Sure […]
I was asked by a friend an colleague: “why do people crunch”? This is not an easy one to answer. I suppose for everyone it is a little different, and is often based on the person themself, their attitude, personality and history. For me, I usually enjoy the work, and like the challenge and the […]
Code reviews are important (yes, really). If you have a code review tool like Rietveld, Crucible or CodeStriker it is nice to have a central place to do code reviews, especially for a large team. But how often to do the code reviews and is there time?
First off, I want to say I love Star Trek, especially The Next Generation, and still consider it one of my all time favorite shows. Here is a great scene from Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) and Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton). Season 6, Espisode 4 “Relics”
Deadlines are like dominos. If you miss one, it can cascade to all the other following deadlines making it very difficult to catch up. You need to stop this from happening, immediately. If you do not catch up, it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to get on track, and you can end up […]
So, you have a new project, lots of shiny new game engines abound, but which one to choose? Forget the marketing, forget the bells and whistles, forget the hype. Instead get down to the basics.
Short and to the point,Focus on 3D Terrain Programming by Trent Polack is a good introduction to some of the algorithms used for 3D terrains. The book works well in introducing the simplest forms and growing more and more complex. Starting with a simple brute force algorithm, it covers terrain generation of fractal terrain, geo-mipmapping […]