Erik Larsson | Inhumanize

Well it’s been almost a year and a lot has changed. Went to GDC last year and talked to a boat load of companies. Had a bunch of interviews and finally took a position ay Pandemic as an FX Artist on a new game called Saboteur. I moved down to Los Angeles in may and got a place over in Westwood, I love it :) Been working extra hard the last 8months and have come up with a bunch of stuff that I need to post. Happy New Year!!!

I finally got around to starting the high res mesh for the king model. He’s almost starting to look like something :)

Whee!

I’d love it if syntax highlighting was taken a bit further so you could customize how your blocks of code were coloured.  I believe it would allow for easier reading and navigating through your code. especially in deep structures.  Maybe it has even been done before.  I’m not how hard it be to create a visual studio plugin to do something like this.  I’ll have to check into it later.

During meetings today I learned a lot about ramping difficulty and features. Even with simple games it is important to dole out goodies and gameplay to the player.  Analyze all the different elements in the game and then break it down to its core. Then when that is working tightly add in the new features and make a grid of the elements and how they can work together.

Possible Maya tool that allows any regular user to automate tasks easily.  This will be done using a custom ui that lets you setup loop blocks and code blocks.  The loop block will loop through any number of types of object/components and the code blocks will run mel/python scripts.  Some sort of command recorder would be needed so it will be easy for non-coders to use.  This could be used many things like cleaning geometry, performing transformations, or whatever else.

Loop Types

• Object types
• Components types
• Set number
• Selection
• Name match

Workflow 

• some sort of recorder
• open window
• select code block
• hit record
• edit code if needed
• Run

Ideas

• savable
• nested loops
• per block counters can be used
• extra variables if needed
• any other mel/python code can work inside a code block
• mel export or code view
• block view like gamemaker

I’ve been thinking about the idea of an open source mind.  A mind that shares everything it has with everyone else with no strings attached.  I could write down everything in my mind that may be useful to others.  This information may be used in any way possible, to build upon or use as is.  What I want to do is find others that share the same philosophy so we can share and grow together and hopefully at a much higher rate than we would be able to accomplish alone.  Is this way of thinking the future?  I’m not sure, but it may be worth trying out.  Several hurdles to this idea seem to come up when I think about it.  What I need to do is tackle these possible problems and see if they actually hold water or are just old conditionings of mine.  Everyone has great ideas, this would provide a place for everyone to voice them.  This needs more thought.

Possible Problems

• No financial gain from sharing all ideas and work
• People stealing your ideas

Possible Benefits

• Faster learning
• Better ideas
• Stronger community
• Provides a place for free information to flow, from this the best ideas will rise to the top and be brought to reality.
• Community enthusiasm will be bolstered by project visibility

I ran across this really cool website today [ www.onlinecomputerbooks.com ] while looking for some xna info. It has a tonne of free legal online books, most of them are downloadable too.
Here are a just a couple of the cools ones I found …

Version Control with Subversion
Sams Teach Yourself C# in 24 Hours

Dive Into Python: Python from novice to pro

Essential XML Quick Reference

Essential Skills for Agile Development

MayaSpy: Mel debugger for maya that allows you to watch any global viarable as well as a debuf print funtion that allows you to stacktrace and output to a seperate output window so it doesnt get cluttered up by other mel ouput.  It also allows you to add breakpoints to scripts which can be very handy.  Available Soon

Here is a first look a program I started building last week.  It is a fully customizable system tray menu application that allows you to create your own hierchy of menu items to give you access to your most commonly used tools.  You can change the background, icon, and font to get the look you are after.  The following menu types are available: basic, url which downloads site icons automatically, and folder which lists files in a given directory and can show image thumbnails or the associated file icon.  Available Soon

Last week at the massive Leipzig Games Convention, Monster Labs was announced and shown off to the media for the first time.  Monster Lab is a game I’ve been working on for the past year at Backbone Entertainment.  Everyone seemed to like it and the screenshots that were released look pretty slick :)

Here is the character I’ve been working on at our company art nights which we do every thursday night. I am going to finish off the low-res version then bring him into mudbox and go crazy. He is the ruthless king of a powerful race bent on destroying humanity. Expect something kickass soon.

Quick idea about breaking up all weekly tasks/goals into logical blocks.  Have them written down, on the computer or whatever.  Grab different ones for each day.  They could be 30 or 60 minute blocks.  Try it  out and see if anything happens.

Business Plan 

What if we created a business plan for our lives.  What if we kept building upon this plan, adding in all the things we want to achieve and describing in detail the person that we want to become.  A plan which contains all of the things that your basic business plan would have like…

• Executive Summary
• Vision
• Team
• Operations
• Finances 
• Exit Strategy?
• Pie charts and graphs gallore! 

Operations Manual

Another important part of a business is the operations manual.  We can follow suit with our business and create systems for all the different areas of out lives using action lists etc.  We can probably use a bunch of NLP techniques to help us create states of mind for our different systems to maximize productivity.

Style Guide 

When creating a game the first thing the artists do is create a style guide, why not have one for ourselves. 

Schedule/Milestones

We need schedules with milestones so we can ship on time, on budget.

Blat

• values
• beliefs
• vision
• Rituals
• Dreamlines
• NLP Techniques
• power working state
• social power state
• brand myself
• selling features
• experiences
• document how i accomplished things so others can follow and do exactly the same thing
• get others to do the same so we can all grow faster

So I was thinking today about a wiki presentation that I read yesterday at TWiki.org. They mentioned something that really hit home with me and something that has been floating around in my mind since reading the book E-Myth by Michael Gerber.

The basic idea is that to move forward with anything there needs to be some sort of system in place to improve upon. Without this system there is utter chaos. I have really noticed this at work lately. At work we don’t have any systems in place, no operations manual of any kind, and things get crazy far more often than I would like. The more I see of this the more it makes sense to me and makes me feel that I need to start getting serious about it.

When I got home I looked down at my floor and saw scattered clothes everywhere. It was beautiful O.o I cleaned everything up and sat down to think and came to the conclusion that I am going to start testing out systems in every area of my life so that I can eliminate any of that chaos that starts to creeeep in.

to be continued…….

This blog is a new experiment in my life. I am going to start writing in it daily any of the random ideas that fly through my brain. Usually this will consist of game and tool related ideas, but there will also be a good dose of life content. Things like how to achieve goals faster, reviews of books i’ve read and any other mind ramblings. Thanks for reading