What do you do?
I work as part of a team, but I also work by myself
on the things I have to do. But sometimes I have to
work with artists who have to get mesh models created,
or final textures created for the effects. It depends
on the type of an effect how I do it. For instance,
if it’s a trail for a weapon, then the artist
would need to place points on the character and I’d
set up some code that would generate a procedural piece
of geometry between those points.
How did you get to where you are today?
I first started programming in Pascal at high school.
After that I went to James Cook University and did a
Computer Science degree. But I didn’t finish that
though -- I did probably about three quarters of it.
I’d been interested in games since Grade 8. I
started programming games in Grade 11.
At the university, I didn’t focus too much on
the degree part of it because although I was doing computer
science, it was about 70 per cent science and 30 per
cent computing. So I failed a few of those subjects
- like I was doing Botany for a Computer Science degree!
So I instead spent a lot of time just doing research
for making games and game engines.
After Uni , I took a year off and just worked
on my games. Then I came to Brisbane because
of the QANTM course that was offered. I did that for
probably about nine months. Then I got offered a job
at Evolution Games. I worked there for almost two years.
I worked on Beach Bandits. And, just after that, in
March 2003 Evolution Games closed and I came here to
Krome Studios.
What skills are necessary for you
to do your job?
You have to be able to program in C and C++. My job
is a little bit different to what a normal programmer
would do. Most programmers would work in just C++ and
Visual Studio, and write code, but I also use Photoshop
to create textures.
For my particular position, you need to be able to
do the technical side and you also
need to be able to do the art side as well. Normally
people either specialise in art or they specialise in
programming, but I do both.
I did art in high school. But when I started, there
wasn’t a whole lot of information on how to make
games, so I had to do everything myself. I had to learn
how to use 3D Studio Max and how to use PhotoShop –
although at the time I was using Paint Shop Pro.
How important was your education/training?
Uni was not particularly pivotal in my education. I
did learn some good things with the data structures
course, and probably the project management course,
but apart from that I didn’t really get a great
deal out of it. The majority of things that I learnt
came out of books.
Where do you see your career going?
Just stay here at Krome. I don’t have any reason
to leave. I don’t really want to become a manager
or anything. I like doing exactly what I’m doing
now.
What advice would you give to someone
wanting to enter the games industry?
Do a lot research. Don’t just
limit yourself to doing one particular thing. Try lots
and lots of different things. For example,
if you wanted to make a particular type of game, look
at different ways of doing it rather than just one thing
and going with that. If you only do one thing, then
you only really know how to do one thing. Whereas if
you diversify and try one thing and
say ‘yeah that works well, I’ll try another
thing and that will work better’, it’s just
a way of thinking differently.
I got my foot in the door probably because of QANTM.
In Townsville, there was no games community at all so
QANTM was pretty pivotal to me getting a job. It got
me really close to the industry.
You really have to work hard and get a decent demo
created. Before I came to Evolution, I applied at Auran
in 1998 – that was while I was still at university
– and I had a pretty good demo back then but the
problem with that was that I had limited programming
ability and limited artistic ability. If you work at
it, you gradually get better and better. |
