Life In The Rain

In three weeks time a small horde of games developers in and around the Irish games community shall converge at the the Science Gallery in Trinity. This is a cool spot on Pearse street that runs interesting events tied into some aspect of research in the sciences. It’s often an electic gathering of visual and audio demo’s suitable for a family or couples on an idle afternoon. I took a walk around yesterday and they have the “Infectious” exhibit happening, a look into microbiology with some cool demo’s happening, plenty of it arty farty and others more direct like examining your DNA for malaria resistence. Anyway, we’ve got the studio room booked for 2 hours of speaker presentations and demo’s from some of the games community. I’ve been helping to run this with assistance from Dr Aphra Kerr and others. There are more details on an info page I setup here, www.theshindig.org

This is the first time that I’ve done anything like this and I hope to god I don’t mess it all up. I reckon it’s going to be 50% preparation and 50% “on the night”. We’ve already dealt with a date change and some trickiness in getting through to the correct people at our host location. That probably didn’t endear me to the speakers either. You need a thick skin too, there’s an element of cold calling involved. In general I’m noticing, like games publishers, no-one ever says no, they just stop replying (or take longer to do so). Right now the main concerns are tickets, they’ve already sold out in a day and I’m not sure many in our community got a chance to get them! Also, since the tickets were free and easily got online, I’m not sure how many will show up. We do have a guest list, but that will have to be managed carefully. A nice problem to have though, the bigger fear is that only 10 people would show up.

The high demand is most likely due to the suggested “recession proof” nature of the games industry (take away food, off-licenses and games, very popular as a cheap night out) and the large availability of idle talented people who haven’t gotten jobs since they graduated or have been laid off. Also games development has never had a lower barrier to entry. For example consider the I-Phone, 30 million sold, the vast majority of applications available for download are games, very popular games use and scaring the competition, 1 billion apps sold. For the developer you can pretty much add an application directly, no publisher, no huge console owner licence fees etc. Actually for my money I’d keep an eye out for google’s Android, there will be money to be made for early developers on the iPhone competing platform.

Now the down side here is that it’s a gold rush, with arguably a harsher market than the closed in home console markets where publisher, console and marketing fees provide a glass ceiling to protect the existing players. The choice here for iPhone developers is to cut prices or spend money on marketing – once you are outside the chart lists on the app store your sales plummet. It may not be long before we see a new tiered system on the itunes app store that puts publisher games in a special “high quality” section. Also calling the games industry recession proof is a little like saying the sea is waterproof. Most people in the games industry don’t stay in the one job more than a few years before layoffs or switching jobs with an average career reportedly lasting 5 years and companies go all the time… but then also those same employees either quickly go into new jobs or leave for other industries that pay better and the dead companies often spin out a new one or two. Recession like happenings are every day, but overall the industry is still growing.

There are also various other open platforms out there, Microsofts XNA and Silverlight platforms, Flash on browsers, some exiting 3d browser stuff from Unity, google’s o3d and good old native windows games downloaded online, and 10’s of others I’ve not remembered or noticed. There’s alot to be said for any game that you can make work only by visiting a web url; accessibility is everything in introducing new customers. I particularly think there’s going to be some interesting future stuff coming out from small independent developers which uses cloud computing (automatically purchasing more computing power from amazon / google as needed and sending the results back across the internet) to help with art and games graphics or a.i. Also anything to do with machine learning and statistics is a match made in heaven for computing. We’ve started to see games use it for playability testing, but I think we might see games use it more directly in the gameplay in synthesing a.i. and content.

In further non-games related news I’m tasked with doing a few tutorials for this years IET students working on the Cell (Playstation 3 like) architecture within the next few weeks. Honestly, I’m mid way through this learning myself, but that isn’t a terrible thing; I’m able to empathise with their needs and the best order in which they should try consume this info. Weirdly for me I’m not fretting about this set of talks, what needs to be said is very clear. We are also aiming to produce a journal paper at some stage on the work I’m doing right now day to day which would be nice.

Finally, my funding for the phd didn’t come through from Ircset. The competition was intense (2 out of 25 from Trinty Computer Science and Statistics). There are further options there for the taking, but the conditions are slightly different. In some way a part of me is relieved that I don’t have to decide yet, I can see advantages either way. If I were to put my main plus on pushing on towards the phd it would have to be the options and opportunities it might provide (colleges are a good cross roads of new people and startup opportunities), the main against, is the low pay and 3 years (almost 34 when finishing!) it would take to do and that I’m not actually too interested in persuing a career long term in either research or lecturing. Skipping the phd provides me with freedom to move jobs and location at a good time imo, October 2010, and get back into the games / software industry, hopefully in something with potential. The downsides are missing out on another good year or two of learning data mining techniques. A decision for later if I’m lucky.

Probably my next post will be after the event and discussing how it went. Until next time.

Well that’s the title of my new job of this last six months. I’ve stayed in Trinity but moved into the GV2 (Graphics and Visualisation) lab, working under Michael Manzke and Rozenn Dahyot. So what does the title actually refer to. I’m sort of figuring it out myself, but it mostly comes under assisting at a programming, research (reading lots of white papers, books on obscure maths and ideas – learning and taking notes), experimentation etc level for any projects or research happening. Specifically I’m working on an exciting project in relation to the STI Cell processor (the same one found in a Sony Playstation 3). While the work isn’t entirely secret I’m not exactly sure which bits are and aren’t so I’ll report very little to be on the safe side. It would bore the reader silly I’m sure; not exactly girls, games, travelling and football. If I do feel the urge to get technical in future (as it is sometimes nice to do, and there is a big audience for that sort of thing), I’ll make it clear that the post is of a technical nature first.

In other news I took a trip to London with some friends, Brian, Daitaigh, Derek, James and Oige as well as meeting my sister, her boyfriend and friends for my 30′th birthday. Thanks guys for showing me a good time, hope you enjoyed it, definitely a big weekend! This isn’t my first time to London, but apart from a brief day trip when coming back via Hong Kong and a few trips to ECTs (and old games trade show) I’ve not really been there for entertainment. It’s a big town with plenty of culture but you would need to be bankrolled by the treasury and have a year or two to really get a handle on things. Maybe that’s why it works so well, it’s big enough to give all the sub-cultures the critical mass they need to survive. E.g. One of the nights we ended up in a Rock-a-Billy and northen soul nightclub. Extreme tiredness aside that was a cool spot to end up in, even if Rock-a-Billy music doesn’t really get my blood going.

So what does turning 30 mean to me? It’s cool, although it does mean in my mind that there’s no room for feeling too irresponsible or frightened for trying things out. This is the height of manhood apparently, many of my cousins are married and as parents and lots of younger people are happily getting on with things like running companies, events and the like. I don’t think the man-child phenomenen exactly what I am, but I am aware I’m half my life expectancy and things won’t happen without a bit of conscious effort. Plus it’s never easier than around about now, young enough to have time, old enough to be taken seriously. I reckon if I’d not gone travelling I’d feel pretty pissed off about things right now; so I’m really glad I took to that challenge and enjoyed it. I have a lifetimes worth of memories in that year alone.

The future. Hopefully get a few more posts in this blog. There’s a games developer event I’m helping to run and organise happening soon, I’ll probably post more on that when the details are out. I will also hopefully have the nice decision of whether to do a phd or not, but this will depend on the funding bodies. And finally and most importantly I have to get the tomato sauce I’m cooking off the gas, I think it’s starting to burn.

I’ve gone to ground to do work on my dissertation. I reckon research suits me pretty well, although that remains to be seen. I like getting dug into an area of knowledge that is still new and possibly up for grabs. After two weeks of reading up on the area that I’m to be working on I have started to program. The program Matlab, a programming script language built around the experimentation and processing of matrices ((Mat)rix (Lab)oratory), along with many mathematical functions, code snippets and visualisation tools is a bit of a revelation. It shall be used more-so in future. It’s no substitute for a proper mathematical understanding, but it sure makes applying the learning that bit easier. The research area is in the compression of motion capture databases and quick querying of the databases by example motions. I’m supposed to contribute something along those lines.

So that’s where my head is at. As you can see, by studying the stunted sentence formation, the lack of any story or structure to the post nor the lack of anything of interest to any sane human being that I’m in full “nerd” mode. It’s an unfortunate side effect of too much programming, deep concentration and maths. I’m afraid I can’t do anything about this until my dissertation is done, I’m aiming to have it in 3 weeks early so I can go to Electric Picnic (again) and my sister’s wedding. Damn sight different from this time last year when I was getting fitted for a suit in Bangkok, drinking with strangers and discussing the state of all things prostitution wise. I love how the mind adapts.

About four weeks ago we were tasked with developing a game. The key idea was to create a fairly realistic project environment and get us the students to experience real-world issues: such as a customer, process management, team management, technical interest and of course the end game. Our customer was CRANN, an institute focusing on Nano-technology research at Trinity and it was around this area of the small-scale that we needed to base the game. In return we would get a small budget to spend on art. Split up into teams of about four we were told to make use of the ever more popular SCRUM methodology and start speaking to our customer. At the end of the project last week I would have to say I’m proud of what the team achieved and I have to thank those who helped us out, Dermy, Pete, Stephen, Alan B, David M and Keelin and a few other people who offered some very useful advice. The project went about as smooth as they can, a real mixture of conflicting, ever changing realities, needs and issues solved and continually fixed by some very proactive team members in a very short amount of time. I feel very lucky in the group of people I worked with, and each new project is always unique and a special education of its own. The only regret I have is that the art help we got in sound and art wasn’t utilised to its fullest (sorry guys) and there is little chance that we will get any time to revisit it again. Anyway the game, demonstrated above in very low res, may go live for PC at some stage in the near future so you might get a go and the IP now rests with Trinity.

All the projects are due at once and that means I’m a zombie working weird hours, eating weird food and going through weird emotions (especially the must eat other peoples’ brains emotion). Through the haze a little team of three, Belinda, David and myself just about managed to kick this Augmented Reality project over the line yesterday and get a youtube link up. Here you go:

One of the more silly assignments I’ve done over the last while.

Another one of those quick posts just to tide things over between proper posts (the Japan post clearly long over due). Since getting back from Japan I’ve been doing some contract work and I just spent the last week or two moving down the country and getting settled into College. It’s clear that I will have to devote all my energies to the course, there’s plenty to do. Particularly tricky will be the maths elements, giving presentations and learning proper systematic researching technique. I suppose none of it sounds sexy in comparison to world travel blogging, but well we all have to have a career and this stuff keeps me entertained.

Trinity is an interesting college. First up, I’d forgotten how bureaucratic colleges can be. I would not be the first person to have been surprised by the rudeness of some of the admins. Curt but polite is fine, even mildly incompetent and polite is fine but rude has no place. I’ve also seen lots of the different offices in a very short amount of time trying to get a basic D.O.B. error fixed. The negatives end there though. The college has an extra sense of academic push that I didn’t see in my time at UCD. Maybe that’s because I’m currently surrounded by some very talented people, but it also seems like they like to live this life and want to push for more credibility if possible, for both them and the college. Everyone is aware of the more talented previous scholars at the college like William Hamilton (of Quaternion fame), Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker. The college is also pleasant to be in and I often forget how close I am to Dublin just outside the walls. Being perhaps more aware of the extra privileges that students get (having lost them after finishing my degree six years ago) I’m taking the time to hunt out those in Trinity such as cheap meals, transport discounts, a cheap gym, access to almost all written papers and books and finally not least, student banking.

Now that I’m settling into a more normal life I can start to appreciate how exotic and alternative my last 11 months have been. That is, if you don’t consider going back to college as too left field. Typically my brain has started to forget the long bus journeys, the lonely days, the boring tours, the early mornings, tiredness and occasional bad weather. Thankfully these lows were relatively small in comparison to the highs. And the highs are now popping into my head all the time (usually accompanied with their own melancholic soundtrack and slow motion play back,.. fantastic). I try not to focus on them too much, as hard as that is (talk to anyone who’s met me in the last two weeks and they’ll confirm I’m having trouble here), because to sit on past victories is some sort of acceptance that the future is bleaker. I’m with Roy Keane on this one, if you aren’t going forward it’s because you are going backwards. Or in the words of the Mr Scruff song, “you’ve got to keep moving or you’ll be left behind”.