Develop - Issue 76

G A M E D E S I G N | C O D I N G | A R T | S O U N D | B U S I N E S S

SEPTEMBER 2007 | #76 | £4 / e7 / $13

inside foundation 9’s expansion • game engine spotlight • ea graduate recruitment

WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM

PLAY MAKERSMeet the team coaching NaturalMotion’s game development offensive

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DEVELOPMAG.COM

ALPHA05 – 12 > dev news from around the globeNokia confirms N-Gage roll out plans; Foundation 9 mounts global expansion;Dare to be Digital report; the latest news from around the globe, plus ourmonthly events calendar

15 > stats & studio sales chartThe past month’s deals and details, plus an exclusive sales chart listed by studio

19 > opinion & analysisOwain Bennallack looks at the games and youth crime furore, while Nick Gibsoncontinues his monthly look at games industry mergers and acquisitions

BETA26 - 29 > team sportsCOVER STORY: NaturalMotion discusses its move into full game development

30 > quality controlEA’s Chris Ambler urges the industry to take quality assurance more seriously

33 - 34 > casual and effectBlack Rock Studio looks at making games for diverse demographics

35 - 38 > ea graduate recruitment SPECIAL FOCUS: Electronic Arts outlines how graduate recruits can make adifference in game development

BUILD40 - 41> tools newsThe latest releases from Softimage, OpenGL, and Allegoritmic, amongst others

42 > guide: 3d card sWhat’s available from Nvidia, Ageia, ATI, Matrox and Alseek

44 > key release: emergent elementsA look at what’s new for Emergent’s suite of tools – including its online push

49 > heard about: harry potterBehind the scenes on the audio production of the latest Harry Potter game

50 > life in the engine roomSPECIAL REPORT: A special report into engine creation and licensing

GOLD78 > byronicman & features listSimon Byron tries learning the secret of Monkey Island’s backward compatibility PLUS: The months ahead in the Develop forward features planner

ContentsDEVELOP ISSUE 76 SEPTEMBER 2007

66-77studios, tools, services and courses

26

33

05 12

50 49

SEPTEMBER 2007 | 03

Develop Magazine. Saxon House, 6a St. Andrew Street.Hertford, Hertfordshire. SG14 1JAISSN: 1365-7240 Copyright 2007Printed by Pensord Press, NP12 2YA

Tel: 01992 535646 Fax: 01992 535648www.developmag.com

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UK: £35 Europe: £50 Rest of World: £70

SubscriptionIntent Media is a member of thePeriodical Publishers Associations

EditorMichael [email protected]

Staff WriterEd [email protected]

Technology EditorJon [email protected]

Features EditorJoão Diniz [email protected]

DesignerDan [email protected]

Executive EditorOwain [email protected]

Group AdvertisingManagerChris [email protected]

Advertising ManagerKatie [email protected]

Production EditorSamantha [email protected]

Production ManagerSuzanne [email protected]

PublisherStuart [email protected]

Managing EditorLisa [email protected]

Contributors Chris Ambler, JohnBroomhall, Simon Byron, TimCloss, Nick Gibson, SerkanHassan, Mark Rein, MattRubin, and The Alpenwolf

For all enquiries, please email:[email protected] cover 11 issues and 1st class postageor airmail dispatch for overseas subscribers.Develop is published 11 times a year,reaching 8,000 readers throughout the UKand international market.

the international monthly forgames programmers, artists,musicians and producers

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Are Your CharactersDeveloping a ‘Tude?

Havok Behavior Gives You Complete Character Control

Author Behaviors Interactively

Plug in custom procedural nodes

Leverage the full power of

Havok Physics and Animation

Stay Ahead of the Game!TM

Tools Provider2007

04 Dev75_final 30/7/07 17:36 Page 1

DEVELOPMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2007 | 05

N-Gagement partyNovember launch for Nokia’s N-Gage service – but will hardware acceleration crash the celebrations?

After over a year and ahalf of R&D, Nokia hasfinally confirmed the

launch for its revamped N-Gage – now a cross-platformdigital distribution servicerather than a single hardwaresolution – promising that onceit rolls out in Novemberdevelopers will have access to“the largest mobile gamingplatform in the market by far”.

Sure, we’ve heard this allbefore - not least of all backwhen the first N-Gage arrivedin 2003, and ever since Nokiaunveiled its new approach togames at GDC 06 – but withkey companies giving thehandset manufacturer asecond chance it seems thatthis time the Finnish phonefirm’s plans may finallysucceed in the way it intends.

ONE DOOR OPENS…The games push is just onepart of the company’s newstrategy called ‘Ovi’ (whichmeans ‘door’ in Finnish) whichadds a number of service-driven elements to its phones,covering games, music andmaps. Nokia is aiming todrastically change its businessfrom one focused on devicesto one that addresses howmobile and social webapplications can work together.

The N-Gage application willbe available to all Nokia’s N-

series devices - which havealready sold 40 million units in total. Such “instantbackwards compatibility” willprovide a “huge marketattractive to publishers” saidAnssi Janjoki, executive vicepresident and generalmanager of multimedia atNokia, who has headed upthe company’s new web-centric service strategies.

Plus, users will be able totry and buy games both via

their handsets upgraded tothe N-Gage platform or via anapplication available to PCs.

…ANOTHER CLOSES?However, providing a unifiedplatform to completelyprovide a single-SKU/mutli-handset solution is alreadybeing counteracted a little byNokia’s own handset interests.

Devices such as the N95and N93 support hardwareaccelerated – and arguably

more powerful – games, butto utilise this developers willhave to create a separateversion of their title to takeadvantage of it, Nokia says.

It’s not clear how importantthis point may be, in truth, butit’s one that Nokia will want toaddress, to stop any of thecustomary N-Gage grumbling.

An SDK is in the workswhich may emerge to stopthis becoming a requirement– but in the meantime, it will

be up to developers and theirpublishers to decide if it’sworth devising such high-endgames at the moment.

That said, while creatinggames for hardwareacceleration instantlyundermines the idea of makinga single game for a pre-installed user base, with casualgames so highly regarded itmight just end up a mootpoint rather than a sore one.www.nokia.com

WORLDVIEW GLOBAL NEWS > p08

ADVENTURES IN GAMES DEVELOPMENT: NEWS, VIEWS & MORE

“The willingness of non-games media

to pay a premium for communities

has not diminished…” p20

Foundation9’s European

expansionNews, p06

Dare awardwinnersnamedEvents, p12

Power List:Exclusive

studio rankingChart, p15

05 Dev76_final 3/9/07 13:27 Page 1

06 | SEPTEMBER 2007

ALPHA | NEWS

With interest from all over, the recent Epic vs SiliconKnights court case has been one of the biggestgames development stories of recent months.

If you can call it a story, that is – if anything it is afairly sad tale, especially when the punchline is thattwo developers have resorted to suing each other.It probably doesn’t help that consumer sites whichdon’t really understand the matter just egg on thespewing of hot air.

Looking at the case at hand, I can’t help but feelthat it’s a non-issue – or at least, the umbragebetween the outspoken figureheads on each side,Mark Rein and Denis Dyack, is just a red herring.

Surely UE3’s success is hinged not just on that itpromises an amazing next-gen engine, but thatEpic Games goes through the various TRCs leadingup to release ahead of all its licensees, proving thatthere is viable tech to aid new games?

After all, the company has probably chosen tolose money by tying Unreal Tournament 3 to timedPS3 exclusivity, using that as an excuse to optimisethe engine for Sony’s format. Of course, the game’sproximity to Halo 3 may disprove any real altruism,but the possibility the company is losing out in theshort-term in order to help its licensees in the long-term is worth remembering.

Fact is, engines are just a part of the story forevery game they power – the game itself is ofcourse where the real power lies. Proof of this isthat Epic has the entire Gears of War source codeavailable to licensees to read and copy if they needto in order to join the dots between game contentand engine code.

Whichever side of the legal fight you sympathisewith most, all the lawsuit really serves to underlineis one of games development middleware’s dirtysecrets: that no engine is ever finished.

As we learn this month, in both our dedicatedgame engine feature (p50) and talk with cover starsNaturalMotion (p26), the technology is only half thestory. And it’s when and how you fill in the gaps thatis most important.

As hinted at in thepages of Develop justover a year ago,

American superstudioFoundation 9 Entertainmenthas spread to the UK.

Last month, the companyannounced its acquisition ofSheffield’s Sumo Digital – butthe company’s growth won’tstop there, according to CEOJon Goldman.

“We’ll continue to look atopportunities that addsomething to the company,”Goldman told Develop,although he added that “ourstudios are poised to growquite well organically.”

“Right now, at 850 or sopeople, we’re plenty largeand our goal is not to pursuea traditional financial roll-upscheme.”

Instead, F9E wants tospread its wings by improvingfacilities and capabilitiesacross a network of studiosthat includes Amaze,Backbone, The Collective,Digital Eclipse, InginEngine,Pipepworks and ShinyEntertainment – and nowSumo, too.

While the swoop for Sumois intended to strengthenFoundation 9’s developmentcapacity across multipleplatforms, according toGoldman (recent projects forthe UK firm include VirtuaTennis 3 for 360 and SuperRub ‘a’ Dub for PlayStationNetwork), perhaps moreimportant is the fact the movegives the American superstudio offices in two countrie– the Sheffield developmentcentre and its recentlyopened office in Pune, India,granting access to localmarkets its North Americanempire couldn’t reach.

“Foundation 9 wanted a presence in Europe, both to tap the immense talentpool there, as well as tointeract directly with European publishing contactsin their own time soon,”explained Goldman.

Meanwhile India, he said,“makes sense from a talent,cost and demographicperspective.”

Foundation Fresh from its acquisition of Sheffield-based studio Sumo Digital, US

Editorial

Michael [email protected]

Engine troubles?

ImagineEngine, Boston, USA

F9E’S GROWING GLOBAL GRIP

Foundation 9 CEO Jon Goldman

Circle of Confusion, New York, USA

Shiny, California, USADigital Eclipse, California, USABackbone, California, USAThe Collective, California, USACircle of Confusion, California, USA

Amaze, Washington, USA

Pipeworks, Oregon, USA

06-07 Dev76_final 3/9/07 14:28 Page 1

“On that last point, Indiaisn’t just a low cost centre,”he explained.

“The economy will continueto boom, there is already avibrant media industry, andwe’ll need Indian talent tohelp us develop games forthe Indian market in future.”

At home as well,Foundation 9 Entertainment isinvesting in its consumertesting facilities at its Kirkland,Washington studio, and ispushing forward withimplementing bettermanagement which “actuallybenefits from our size andresources, as opposed to usjust being large and therebeing no real difference inhow we deliver products.”

He added: “On a morenuanced level, our business isvery straightforward; we need

to hone the service aspect ofour business so that we aredelivering a high qualityexperience.

“We’re aiming not only torespond to what publishersneed but to improve ourunderstanding of whatcustomers want most.”

Which neatly leads into thefact that Foundation 9 willalso be looking to see how itcan move beyond the workfor hire model to thinking upconcepts tailored forconsumers.

“We’re busily examiningways to invest incrementallymore of our resources in self-funded projects, when itmakes sound business sense,”said Goldman. “Only a verysmall number of our projectsfall into this category rightnow, but this will become avaluable engine of growth forthe company.”

The first is alreadyannounced, however, withBackbone working on thePokemon-esque Wii and DSgame Monster Labs, to bepublished by Eidos next year.www.F9E.com

of an empire firm Foundation 9 Entertainment reveals further plans for global growth

“We’re busilyexamining

ways to investincrementallymore of ourresources inself-fundedprojects…”


NEWS | ALPHA

70%The number of ‘family gamers’

who believe casual gamesprovide educational benefits to

their children and grandchildren.

Source: PopCap and InformationSolutions Group

23The number of differentcountries with delegates

attending or speaking at 2007’sDevelop conference.

Source: Tandem Events

DEVELOPMAG.COM BUILDS MOMENTUMJust a quick reminder to point you towards ourrecently relaunched Develop site. Along withnews updates throughout the day – supported byour popular email Daily Digest and Newsflashservices – we’re posting up interviews, featuresstudio profiles and tutorials all throughout theworking week. Head to www.developmag.com

DATABYTES

In the next fiveyears you can

become a billionairejust developing for

PS2…

David Reeves, president and CEO of

SCEE, reminds everyone that Sony is a

multiplatform format-holder

Sumo Digital, Pune, India

Sumo Digital, Sheffield, UK

06-07 Dev76_final 3/9/07 14:29 Page 2

08 | SEPTEMBER 2007

ALPHA | WORLDVIEW

WorldViewOur regular round up of development stories from across the globe…

DARMSTADT, GERMANYIndependent developer 10tacle continues to grow, recentlyreporting a record rise in revenues – and the acquisition of a29 per cent stake in UK developer Climax.

The Climax deal, dubbed a “strategic partnership” by the two, could foreshadow afull acquisition, as 10tacle has admitted that it is “seriously auditing” the possibility ofintegrating the UK independent into its business further.

The company has around 400 employees at different studios across Europe, includingLondon-based racing team Blimey Games and GTR-maker Simbin. It also recentlyacquired Budapest’s Stormregion.

Together, Climax and 10tacle will be working on two action and fantasy titles and alsowork on a new online world commissioned by MTV Europe.

The MTV deal and a €14m contract with Asia Games & Media Private Equity Fundhave in turn helped the company’s revenues rise significantly: for the first half of 2007cash generated came in at €19.4m, a jump over last year’s figure of €12.71m, with EBITup 45 per cent to €3.37m.www.10tacle.de

SEATTLE, USAAt its Gamefest event lastmonth Microsoft announcedit has decided to merge its prosumer and professionalXNA Game Studio apps into one fully-featuredpackage, XNA Game Studio 2.0, which is due tolaunch later this year.

Developers who wish to make Xbox Live Arcadetitles and who are licenced XNA developers will haveaccess to extra libraries that will plug into the GameStudio 2.0 software. Most impressive of the newfeatures in 2.0 is the ability for all developers makingtitles for 360 to gain access Xbox Live, complete withsupport for the matchmaking and voice-chat facilitiesthat such access provides.

Alongside an increase in performance, version 2.0will no longer be limited to the free Visual C# Expresssoftware and will instead work with every version ofVisual Studio, enabling developers to use time-savingVS plug-ins with the software.

XNA general manager Chris Satchell also revealedthat the company had made an “unprecedented”move to allow consumers direct, legal access to gamecontent from a number of Microsoft-owned IPs.

The licence, similar to the Creative Commonsagreement that some writers and artists use to givetheir works free and open copyright to the public,gives users access to any game published by MicrosoftGame Studios (but not any third-party brands). Usersdon’t get rights to share the games themselves, butcan share creations that use game content.creators.xna.com

LONDON, UKUK-based FinBlade has effectively emergedfrom the ashes of IOMO, which was acquiredby Infospace in December 2004, but recentlywound down following the latter’s withdrawalfrom the content sector.

The new company reckons it has spotted agap in the development market whereby recentconsolidation means there aren’t enoughindependent studios in the market to satisfy theincreasing ‘work for hire’ needs of publishers.

As such, it is offering publishers an end-to-end solution, from concept through toreference builds, with in-house porting and QAif required.

FinBlade president John Chasey said: “Wehad many enquiries at IOMO to developprojects for third-parties, but that approach didnot align with our situation as a publisher-owned studio. With FinBlade’s independentdeveloper status we will be perfectly positionedto fulfil those requests.”www.finblade.com

For global games development news as itbreaks head to WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM

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WORLDVIEW | ALPHA

GLOBALREPORTS

FRANCE: LYON RAMP UPOrganisers of the upcominginaugural Lyon GDC have putout a call for papers, invitingthe industry to submitproposals for sessions. Theconference takes place onDecember 3rd and 4th andfocuses on two themes: next-gen games and multiplatformdevelopment. GameConnection Europe takesplace alongside the event,running from December 4thto December 6th.www.lyongdc.comwww.game-connection.com

LONDON: CASH FOR KILLSKwari, a London-baseddeveloper and publisher, hasannounced its newmultiplayer online gamingservice: a first-person shooterwhere players win and losemoney with every shot. Thegame, also called Kwari, issubscription-free and a no-cost download, but asksplayers to put down a ‘stake’when they enter an arena.“Money changes everything,”said Eddie Gill, founder andcreator of Kwari. “I wanted tocreate something that hadmore of a buzz than atraditional FPS.”www.kwari.com

AUSTRALIA: IR BOUGHTMelbourne, Australia’s IRGurus is to be acquired by UScompany Red MileEntertainment. IR’s 100-strongstudio is currently working onthe latest installment in RedMile’s Heroes franchise havingcreated the first game in theseries – Heroes of the Pacific.redmileentertainment.com

USA: GAMECOCK GROWSIndie newcomer publisherGamecock continues to signnew deals with independentdevelopers, this month takingon Pirates vs Ninjas fromCanadian team Blazing Lizardsand Sabotage from Germanoutfit Replay Studios.www.gamecockmedia.com

USA: EPIC COUNTER SUESEpic Games has filed acounterclaim against SiliconKnight following legalaccusations about the viabilityof Unreal Engine 3. Epic saysSK wants to “unlawfully enrichitself” at the studio’s expensein a motion to dismiss its legalrival’s lawsuit. “The plainlanguage of the SiliconKnights’ Complaint makesclear that Silicon Knightswants to take Epic’s LicensedTechnology, pay nothing for it,and use it any way it pleases,”said a statement from Epic.www.epicgames.com

WELLINGTON,NEW ZEALANDThis year’s SIGGRAPH (which actually took place in San Diego)was packed with new product announcements for thoseworking in the computer graphics industry. Autodesk,Softimage, NaturalMotion, Nvidia and plenty of others hadplenty to say – and we’ve got a full event report and plenty ofnews bytes over at developmag.com.

Biggest news of the event, however, in a ‘movers andshakers’ sense, was Autodesk’s acquisition of Skymatter, a company spun out of effectshouse Weta and creator of the Mudbox 3D sculpting software. The brush-based package isused by studios such as Epic and Pandemic as well as film studios including Weta. Itsassimilation into the Autodesk line of games industry-facing products fills a slot in the firm’soffering, according to company reps that spoke to Develop, with the company that alreadycounts itself as top dog in the games graphics world as vendor of Max and Maya now ableto offer an ultra high-end high-poly modeling package as well.www.mudbox3d.com

“I do get the distinct feeling thatbecause of the Wii, people all over the world are finally taking noticeof video games again, when they

haven’t for a while…”

Shigeru Miyamoto talks up how Nintendo hasmade the industry an exciting topic for the masses

HYDERABAD, INDIAGames outsource services providerGameshastra Solutions is to expandits presence in India – CEO PrakashAhuja says he is looking for a newlocation in Hyderabad that could helptake the staff roster 1,000 employees.The firm already has a facility in thelocation which hosts 160 staff.

The company is already starting toramp up work on content tailoredspecifically for local tastes via gamesbased on Bollywood characters.

“We recently signed agreementswith two production houses fordeveloping games based on Bollywood characters forconsole, online and PC platforms. Development of thesegames are currently on in tow with Hindi script writers. Weexpect the first game to be released in India by March nextyear, and the second in six months from then,” he toldBusiness Standard.www.gameshastra.com

WARSAW,POLANDEpic Games has acquired amajority interest in People CanFly, the Polish developmentstudio behind Painkiller.

The two companies firstdeveloped a relationship whenPeople Can Fly showed Epicprototypes of an Unreal Engine3-based multi-platform titlethey were working on, theresults of which Epic were soimpressed with that they hiredPeople Can Fly to help with thePC version of Gears of War.

The two companies are alsoworking together on a new IP,which is currently being shownto publishers.www.peoplecanfly.com

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TOKYO GAME SHOWSeptember 20th to September 23rdtgs.cesa.or.jpJapan’s big yearly industry trade show,this year’s iteration boasts the biggestever international showing and twobusiness-only days.

GAMECONNECTION ASIASeptember 20th andSeptember 21sttgs.cesa.or.jpThe developer and publisher meetingplace, popular at GDC and in itsdedicated Lyon event in December, thisyear is running a dedicated two day eventas part of the Tokyo Game Show, hopingto help Asian developers, publishers andservice companes do business.

SQSOctober 3rdQE2 Conference Centre, London, UKwww.sqs-conferences.comThe yearly QA/Testing event targets thegames industry for the first time with aone day exploration of QA and testing’sposition in the industry

E FOR ALL EXPOOctober 18th to October 20thLos Angeles Convention Center, USAwww.eforallexpo.comIDG’s take on E3 – but specifically this is a consumer show.

LONDON GAMESFESTIVALOctober 22nd toOctober 26thwww.londongamesfestival.co.ukA week-long series of events designed toraise the profile of the games industry.

BAFTA GAMESAWARDSOctober 23rdBattersea Evolution,London, UKwww.bafta.orgThe British Academy’stake on a gong show, with a move to abigger venue and renewed developerfocus for 2007.

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES CONTENTMARKETOctober 23rd to October 24thBAFTA, London, UKwww.tiga.orgA chance to meet potential collaboratorsand clients from other creative industriesduring the London Games Festival.

VIRTUALWORLDSFORUMOctober 23rdto October26thKings Cross Freight Depot, London, UKwww.virtualworldsforum.comThe first pan-European virtual worldsconference will provide a place for brandsand developers to meet and discuss thebusiness prospects in online spaces.

IGDA LEADERSHIPFORUMNovember 8th andNovember 9thAirport Marriott, San Francisco, USAwww.igda.org/leadershipThe IGDA and its Production SIG jointogether to host an event dedicated toadvancing the art of game productionand management, tackling topics such asscheduling, post-mortems and teammanagement techniques. Bioware’s RayMuzyka and Greg Zeschuk and DoubleFine’s Tim Schafer are among theconfirmed speakers.

LYON GDCDecember 3rd andDecember 4thwww.lyongdc.comGame Connectionand CMP team up to host 60 classes overa two-day period, running concurrentlywith the Game Connection ‘businessmatchmaking’ event in France (below).

GAMECONNECTIONEUROPEDecember 4th toDecember 6thLe Palais desCongrès de Lyon, Francewww.game-connection.comThe popular Game Connection eventreturns for another year of gamesindustry speed dating par excellence.

GDC 08February 18th to 22ndMoscone Centre, San Francisco, USAwww.gdconf.comThe call for papers is now open for bothGDC and GDC Mobile.

DEVELOP DIARY

october 2007

november 2007

YOUR COMPLETE GAMES DEVELOPMENTEVENT CALENDAR FOR THE MONTHS AHEAD…

february 2008

december 2007september 2007

DEVELOPMAG.COM10 | SEPTEMBER 2007

ALPHA | EVENTS

Salaries on all our jobs are dependent on experience, as are benefits.For more information or a confidential discussion of your career options, please callFran Mulhern on 0207 404 6383 or email [email protected]

Scotland – Concept Artist

AAA studio, major critical and commercialsuccess with its first release. Need we saymore? Looking for a concept artist to come onboard and assist in the development of theirMMO. You’ll have industry experience and anability to work with Photoshop and Illustrator,creating finely detailed concepts frommultiple viewpoints.

North East - Senior Games Designer

This multinational client is currently workingon a number of titles, and is looking for a topnotch games designer with at least 4 yearsexperience to come on board, join the teamand make great games. An opportunity to adda premier level developer to your CV!

Don’t just take our word for it…

“Making the right career move can bea difficult decision but with Prosperoyou can be sure they match you with

the company that fits your future.”Jonathan Kay, Producer,

Pivotal Games Ltd

North West - Games Programmer

This developer has a strong history ofproducing AAA games, and they’re looking foran experienced games programmer to jointhem. Ideally you’ll have at least two yearsexperience at a recognised studio, and you’llbe eager to build on your existing skill set inany areas ranging from AI or physics throughto graphics, audio or gameplay.

Europe – Senior AI Programmer

Working with the studio behind one of themost successful military themed franchisesin the history of games, you’ll work closely withdesigners on brand new military related IP.It’s an English speaking office, with agenerous salary and relocation package and afantastic range of ancillary benefits.

North America – Creative Director

This AAA developer is on the look out for anew Creative Director to work on the kind ofgames that hog the headlines at events likeE3. You’ll get to work with some of the mostcreative minds in more than just the gamesindustry – movie studios will play no smallpart in your career at this place.

South West - ProducerWorking with the studio behind one of themost highly regarded and hugely successfulmilitary franchises ever conceived, you’ll getto produce the nextgen version of this AAAseries. Ideally you’ll have worked on onepublished game as an internal producer, orworked across several titles as an externalproducer.

Midlands – Assistant Lead ArtistThis AAA studio is looking for an assistant leadartist to work on their next title in one of themost highly regarded racing series around.You’ll get to work alongside a hugely talentedcreative team in defining the look of its nextgeneration racer, with the opportunity forproject bonuses and flexible hours.

South East (Inc London) – PC ProgrammerThis studio has created some of the bestracing games ever made and will give yourCV a chance to really stand out. They’relooking for someone confident in all aspects ofPC programming to provide their skills in areassuch as graphics, gameplay, AI and physics.

10 Dev76_final 3/9/07 13:30 Page 1

© 2006 The Codemasters Software Company Limited ("Codemasters"). All rights reserved. "Codemasters"® is a registered trademark owned by Codemasters and the Codemasters logo is a trademark of Codemasters.

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12 | SEPTEMBER 2007

ALPHA | EVENT REPORT: DARE TO BE DIGITAL

The winners of this year’sDare to be Digitalcelebrated in style this

year – with the three finalistsnow battling it out for a BAFTA.

2007’s competition was themost geographically diverseso far, featuring one Chineseand one Indian team in its 12contending groups of five

‘Innovation and Creativity’winners Phoenix Seed werecomprised of one Dundonianand four Chinese students,and scooped the award forcasual title Bear Go Home.

Edinburgh University’sCarebox team won the ‘Useof Technology’ prize forClimbActic, while VoodooBoogy, five students fromAbertay University, won the‘Commercial Potential’ award.

Each team gets £2,500 andwill also be put forward as thesole nominees for the BAFTAOnes to Watch award,unveiled in October.

The 12 teams werenarrowed down to six finalistsduring the Dare ProtoPlayevent at the EdinburghInteractive Festival, whichgave the public the chance totry out the finalists and votefor the Audience Award prize,also won by Voodoo Boogy.

The six finalists then had topitch their games to a panelof industry professionals,which included RealtimeWorld’s Dave Jones and GeoffHeath of NCsoft.

“The judges wereincredibly impressed by thequality of the work. All theteams have demonstrated anextremely high level ofachievement in the ten weeksand have clearly benefitedfrom testing their games atDare ProtoPlay,” said Heath

DOUBLE DAREThe competition has grown areputation as being a goodroute for students to get intothe industry, with contestantsfrom last year’s contestcurrently working at studiossuch as Rockstar North, EAUK and BBC Scotland.

“Dare to be Digital was firstrun eight years ago and itsgrowth has beenphenomenal,” said Professor

Mike Swanston, vice-principalof academic development atevent co-coordinators AbertayUniversity. “But the ethos ofthe competition remainsconstant: students come inwith ideas, boundless energyand enthusiasm, and comeout confident and highlyskilled with much-sought-afterexperience under their belts.

“Dare is a particularly highprofile example of theapproach that Abertay seeksto adopt across all its learningand teaching activities –developing real-world skillsfor the real-world knowledgeeconomy. Modern universitieslike Abertay can have asignificant economic impacton the basis of their specialskills and links with industry,and we believe that Dare tobe Digital demonstrates onevery successful channel fordelivering this impact.”

Next year’s event is set togrow again, after Channel 4recently announced that itwould be backing the event.This year saw the competitionexpand to include Guildfordand Dublin alongside Abertayas host centre – with Channel4’s help it will widen toinclude Wales in 2008.www.daretobedigital.com

Winners cheered as student game design and development contest Dare to be Digital has its biggest year yet

Who Dared won

INNOVATION & CREATIVITY Bear Go Homeby Phoenix SeedA far-eastern styled casual game, BearGo Home requires players to guide thetitular Bear find his way home – butwithout directly controlling him.

USE OF TECHNOLOGYClimbacticby CareboxClimbactic sees players controlling twocharacters and using their distinctiveabilities to climb sheer rock faces anddeep chasms.

COMMERCIAL POTENTIALRagnarawkby Voodoo BoogyGenre-bender Ragnarawk impressed the judging panel with its blend offantasy role-playing and electric guitar-based battling.

DARE: THE WINNERS

12 Dev76_final 3/9/07 09:46 Page 1

11 Dev74_final 28/6/07 12:23 Page 1

409 Santa Monica BoulevardSanta MonicaCalifornia 90401+ 1 (310) 656 6565

1 Portland Street5th FloorManchester, M1 3BE+44 (0) 161 242 1800

www.image-metrics.com

In a demonstration reel created by Image Metrics to show off its video gamefacial animation performance capture, model building and rigging technology,Ilana Rogel, an actress, gives life to an avatar also named Ilana.

‘It’s also far easier on the actors. Instead ofbeing painted with a chemical or coveredin sensors, they need only do what theywould ordinarily do: act’

New York Times

‘Image Metrics’ technology gave us a 20-fold increase in productivity’

Sony Pictures Imageworks

‘I challenge anyone (else) to do thevolumes that I need in the time that I need, at this level of quality’

Rockstar

‘Technology even our own Walt Disneywould have envied’

ABC News

24 Dev71.final 27/3/07 1:23 pm Page 1


STATS | ALPHA

THEDEALS

THE BIG CHILEChilean independent gamestudio ACE Team has licencedValve’s Source engine forZeno Clash, a new third-person action game. Teammembers had previouslyworked on Xbox Live Arcadeand PC games.

PARALYMPICSThe Creative AssemblyAustralia will be usingParabuild for its upcomingprojects, citing its integrationwith Perforce as one of thereasons behind the choice.

PSYCHENAUTSGerman studio Replay Gameshas signed its latest game,psyche-set stealth actiongame Sabotage, toGamecock’s rapidly growingline-up of titles, for nextgeneration consoles and PCs.

VIT = 2D3 + 2, LOLWizards of the Coast’s latestDungeons and Dragons title,D&D Insider, will use Vivox’svoice-chat services to bringremote players together forcommunual dice rubbing,allowing public and privatevoice chat without aperformance hit.

BRANCHING OUTSpeedTree has sprouted fivenew licensees, with Pivotal,Gearbox, Ubisoft, CITYInteractive and Cyanidepicking the foliagemiddleware for future titles.

SONG FOR WHOEVERKorean MMO developer XL Games has licencedCryTek’s CryEngine 2 fordevelopment on their nextmassively multiplayer game.The company was founded byJake Song, creator ofLineage, which still ranks as one of the world’s mostpopular online role-playinggames.

NUDGE, NUDGEKeeping on the MMO theme,Emergent has bolstered itsChinese business dealings bysigning a deal with WinkingEntertainment, who will useEmergent’s technologies tocreate massively-multiplayergames for PCs and next-generation consoles.

ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEURCzech Republic-baseddeveloper Illusion Softworkshas signed a deal withJapanese publisher D3Entertainment to develop anew IP for Xbox 360,PlayStation 3 and PC. Thedeal is D3’s first with aEuropean developer.

THIS LAST STUDIO BEST SELLINGMONTH MONTH DETAILS GAME

CHART COMMENTThis month’s chart shows another solid monthfor Nintendo as it nudges up from second tofirst place buoyed by the sales success ofMore Brain Training.

This month also sees another strong displayby UK studios, with EA UK and Traveller’s Talesperforming well at second and third placerespectively with Harry Potter andTransformers.

The top performing games from three ofthe top five developers are from licensedproperties, tying in with the summerblockbuster movies attempting to keeppeople indoors this summer. Indictative of thisis Amaze’s rise from 14 to five thanks to hotproperty Shrek the Third.

Also, in terms of other Europeanindependents, Starbreeze is still riding highwith its licensed comic-book adaptation TheDarkness, but Eurocom has dropped 14 placesas the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s

End furore dies down following the film’srelease several months ago.

Extraordinary sales of Pokemon Diamondand Pearl have helped catapult Game Freak into number five in the chart, this month’shighest new entry. Similarly faring well onNintendo’s platforms is Office Create, whoseCooking Mama Wii and DS titles have helpedit move up five places to number 15.

The PS3 drought has helped propel Tecmo’sTeam Ninja into the top 20, despite NinjaGaiden Sigma being a high-resolution remakeof the original Xbox hit.

Highest climber of the month goes toHudson, though, which has leapt from 79th to20th thanks to the release of Mario Party 8.Given the game’s withdrawal from UK shelvesdue to a use of the word ‘spastic’, however, it’ssafe to assume that performance wasn’t quiteas high as it could have been – possiblypointing to a rise in next month’s chart as thegame becomes more widely available.

AUGUST 2007

DEVELOPER CHART OUR MONTHLY RANKING OF THE WORLD’S STUDIOS BASED ON UK GAMES SALES

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CHART KEY: � UP ON LAST MONTH � DOWN ON LAST MONTH � NO CHANGE IN POSITION NE NEW ENTRY INDEPENDENT STUDIO

1 2 NINTENDO MORE BRAIN TRAINING FROM DR KAWASHIMA (DS)

2 17 EA UK HARRY POTTER & THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (PS2,PS3,WII,XB360,PC)

3 35 TRAVELLER'S TALES TRANSFORMERS: THE GAME (PC, XBOX 360, PS3, PS2, WII)

4 NE GAME FREAK POKEMON DIAMOND (DS)

5 14 AMAZE ENTERTAINMENT SHREK THE THIRD (PS2, WII)

6 22 STARBREEZE THE DARKNESS (PS3, XB360)

7 8 MAXIS THE SIMS 2: PETS (PS2, WII, DS, PSP, PC, GC, GBA)

8 11 UBISOFT (MONTREAL) TOM CLANCY'S RAINBOW SIX: VEGAS (PS3, XB360, PC)

9 7 VICARIOUS VISIONS SHREK THE THIRD (DS, PSP)

10 6 EA CANADA NEED FOR SPEED: CARBON (PC, PS2, XBOX, GC, PSP, XB 360, WII, PS3)

11 18 CAPCOM RESIDENT EVIL 4 (WII, PS2, GC)

12 1 MICROSOFT FORZA MOTORSPORT 2 (XB360

13 15 EA REDWOOD SHORES TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 07 (PS3, XB360, WII, PSP, XB)

14 5 CODEMASTERS COLIN MCRAE: DIRT (PC, XB360)

15 20 OFFICE CREATE COOKING MAMA (DS, WII)

16 13 KONAMI DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 6 (PS2, PSP, XB360, DS, PC)

17 3 EUROCOM ENTERTAINMENT PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (PS2, PS3, PSP, WII, XB360)

18 NE TEAM NINJA NINJA GAIDEN: SIGMA (PS3)

19 10 EA LA COMMAND & CONQUER 3: TIBERIUM WARS (XB360, PC)

20 79 HUDSON MARIO PARTY 8 (WII)

15 Dev76_final 3/9/07 10:13 Page 1

18-19 Dev74_final 18/6/07 15:19 Page 1

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28 Dev76_final 22/8/07 15:04 Page 1


OPINION | ALPHA

by Owain Bennallack

Youth crime is not all fun and games

VARIABLE DECLARTIONS

LIKE A REASSURINGLY DRUNKand haggard uncle at a familywedding, violence in games hasagain stumbled into view, frighteningthe elders (but not the amusedchildren) and threatening mayhem(before passing out whilst waving acrudely realised fist).

Some things never change. Wemay no longer be debating themerits of the ST versus the Amiga,but we’re still worried that nasty(adult) games like Rockstar’sManhunt 2 could corrupt the kids.Never mind the fact that generationssurvived Mortal Kombat and Quakeunscathed, or the continuing lack ofevidence of a causal relationshipbetween virtual violence and real lifeunpleasantness.

There wasn’t much evidence thefirst (or second or third) times around,either; it’s the abstract nature of theargument that gives it legs.

You’d hope such stale fodderwouldn’t be so much a political hotpotato as yesterday’s cold chipswrapped in last week’s headlines.Alas, politicians are drawn towardsvictimless ‘crimes’ like inner citypolicemen handing out parkingtickets in the midst of a happyslapping spree. In a recent interview,the Tory leader David Cameronadmitted that his new anti-crimemanifesto would look at videogames. “We do need to think of thecontext in which people are growingup,” Cameron argued.

Games can’t be immune frompublic scrutiny, and we should waitto see what Cameron’s proposingbefore finally judging his interest ininteractive entertainment. Maybe hewants to give young hooligans moreaccess to games? After all, if the kidsare inside wielding firearms in afantasy Canterbury Cathedral, atleast it keeps them off the streets.Thatcher is remembered for givingpeople the Right To Buy councilhomes and smashing the miners –perhaps Dave will give everyone theright to buy violent games and getmore minors mashing?

Sadly, his track record as the MrPotato Head of adopt-an-opinionpolitics suggests a less inventiveoutcome. Indeed, it’s ratherdepressing that the first primeministerial hopeful young enough tobe acquainted with games evinces

no experience of them. I stand to becorrected – perhaps it was Pong thatinspired his entry into Parliament –but it seems more likely that whenthe rest of his generation weregetting into colour clashes on the ZXSpectrum, Cameron was clashingwith his Eton buddies over on thecroquet field.

Incidentally, for hundreds of yearsthe British public school systeminstitutionalised violence (the realkind, that gives people bleedingnoses and the emotional callousnessrequired to run an Empire) but don’texpect a pledge to close them fromthe Tory leader. Why pick on realworld targets when there are fantasyworlds to prohibit?

Increasing casual violence on thestreets? It’s easier to blame gamesthan our excessive drinking, our

extended and aimless modern‘adultescence’ or the shift inwomen’s behaviour from restrainingvoice of disapproval to Magners-toting eggers-on. Knife and gun useresulting in stupidly pointlessteenage deaths? It’s a deadlyserious, heart-breaking issue that asegment of youth swaggers abouttown destroying lives (including theirown), but it can only be theintractability of the obviouscorrelations – relative poverty, a lackof male role models, pooreducational attainment and a disdainfor authority – that makes politiciansand press turn to castigating gamesas a solution.

This isn’t a one-sided argument.There is certainly a debate to be hadabout how far simulated violenceshould go – if only so we canunderstand better the nature ofgames.

At the time of writing, the ESRBhas refused to say what Rockstar cutfrom Manhunt 2 to secure an M-rating in the US, but it’s hard toimagine anything structurallysignificant was altered. A nastymovie might be made more

palatable by removing some iffyscenes, but in a game you explicitlyassume a role and perform actions,and any gamer should acknowledgethat’s a different moral problem frompassively watching a movie. Ifanything needed to be changed, itshould probably run deeper thanediting out a finishing move with aplastic bag: to deny that interactivedifference is to deny what makesgames great.

Our industry should be alert tosuch legitimate lines of enquiry, butthe reality is they lie outside theterms of a tabloid witch hunt.

The truth is any human being hasthe capacity to do good or bad,depending on the context. Ill-considered wars, abusive homes,Lord of the Flies-style streets devoidof authority – all demonstrably bringout the worst in people. Violentvideo games are so far proven togive you sore thumbs, and to makeyou feel a bit silly ten years laterwhen you look back at their shoddy‘life-like’ graphics.

Gamers can tell the differencebetween reality and fantasy.Politicians should do the same.

“Any humanbeing has thecapacity to do

good or bad…”

Owain Bennallack is executive editor of Develop. He edited the magazine from its launch until its February 2006 issue. He has also worked at MCV and Edge, and has providedconsultancy and evaluation services to several leading developers and publishers. He is also chairman of the Develop conference advisory board.

19-20 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:36 Page 1

20 | SEPTEMBER 2007

ALPHA | OPINION

CONTINUING OUR EXTREME M&Aseries, this month I want to examineanother of the most conspicuousgames company transactions withinour M&A database, that of IGNEntertainment by News Corp. Thisparticular acquisition appears to havebeen driven by a single motive,buying a ready-made onlinecommunity. Although the acquisitionwas of a community rather than adeveloper, it makes the valuations ofmost other games companytransactions look like fire-sales.

In October 2005, a newlyestablished Fox Interactive Media Inc(a division of News Corp.) acquiredIGN Entertainment for an astonishing$650m in cash. IGN comprised some20 major and 1,500 affiliate web sites(most games-focused), the web andmiddleware company GameSpy,premium and free download servicesDirect2Drive and FilePlanet, andreview aggregation site RottenTomatoes. In total, IGN and itsnetwork attracted 28m unique usersper month, a community dominatedby males aged 18 to 35. It representednot only one of the largest English-speaking online communities of youngmen but also one of the mostinfluential for purchasing decisions andestablishing trend.

IGN was originally the web arm ofImagine Publishing (the US division ofFuture PLC) but was spun off in 1999,raising $68.5m in private equityfollowed by a further $70m when itIPOed on NASDAQ in 2000.Unfortunately IGN during this periodunderwent a protracted identity crisischanging its name four times anddisastrously trying to diversify outsideof its core games content. Less than ayear later, IGN’s share price hadplummeted 97 per cent and thecompany was forced to refocus ongames again. In 2003, with theinternet bubble showing no signs ofbeing re-inflated, IGN was takenprivate (its shares were acquired andthe company de-listed fromNASDAQ) by private equity firmGreat Hill Partners for $29.8m.

It was a highly astute but extremelyrisky move by GHP; IGN was loss-making and was set to recordturnover of less than $18m in 2003but still had its colossal community, acommunity that GHP firmly believedwas fundamentally under-exploited

and undervalued. Along with twoprivate equity partners, GHP investedheavily in IGN, growing its sales to$43m in 2004 but seeing its losseswiden to $19m. With the marketsregaining their buoyancy, IGN filed tore-list on NASDAQ in 2005 and raisea bold $200m (including $120mearmarked to pay off the debt usedby GHP and its partners).

Despite significant preparatorycosts, the second IPO never

happened, in part because GHP hadcraftily initiated disposal discussionswith News Corp in parallel. WhetherIGN would have ever achieved itslisting is unclear and it is possible thatthe NASDAQ listing could simplyhave been a clever attempt to forceNews Corp’s hand. Intentional or not,the strategy worked and workedbrilliantly. News Corp not only made

its move before IGN could list but alsopaid a $650m consideration,comprising $620m in up-front cashpayments and only $30m inconditional payment (most gamestransactions comprise at least 15 percent conditional payment with a higherproportion for the riskier acquisitions).Furthermore, based on its anticipated2005 revenues, IGN was acquired for amultiple of nearly 10x forecast sales;somewhat ironic considering that

News Corp had publicly lamented howovervalued games publishers were justa year earlier.

This transaction was a triumph forGHP in particular who, in less thantwo years, managed to generate a$500m profit on $150m of debt andequity investment. It also seeminglyrepresented a return to the nebulousvaluation methodologies of late ‘90s

which were often based more on thesize of community than thefundamental economic returns it wasgenerating.

The acquisition of NeoPets ($160m)earlier in 2005 and the subsequentacquisitions of Xfire ($102m), AtomEntertainment ($200m) and ClubPenguin creator New HorizonsInteractive ($700m) suggest that thewillingness of non-games mediacompanies in particular to pay asignificant premium for establishedgames communities has notdiminished and represents anincreasingly stark contrast to pricespaid for more traditional gamescompanies.

Interestingly, despite the boomingdemand for virtual worlds and socialgaming, most new launches in thesemarkets are coming from outside ofthe established games developmentindustry. If you haven’t alreadyconsidered how to make communitycreation and retention a core part ofyour games and companydevelopment strategy, it’s probablytime now, given the considerablecommercial, as well as potential exitvaluation, incentives.

by Nick Gibson

Extreme M&A Part Three

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

Nick Gibson is a director at Games Investor Consulting, providing corporate finance services to the games, media and finance industries www.gamesinvestor.com

“IGN Entertainment was acquiredfor a multiple of nearly ten times

forecast sales…”

19-20 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:36 Page 2

XX Dev76_final 10/8/07 11:17 Page 1

Develop in Brighton wasan invigoratingexperience. It’s been a

long time since I draggedmyself out of my snow-coveredcave to mingle with thegamerati; I’d forgotten what apleasure it can be to discussthe various aspects of gamedesign and development withsmart people who actually careabout the state of the art inelectronic entertainment.

Richard Garriott’s keynoteaddress was arguably the bestkeynote I’ve ever heard in anyindustry. Drawing fully upon his28 years of experiencedeveloping games, he not onlydescribed some of the futurechallenges faced by gamedevelopers, but outlined thereasons underlying some of thetraps into which we havehistorically fallen. His theory ofhardware cycles limiting designcreativity was particularlyastute; although Nick Burton ofRare’s explanation of thedevelopment process ofJetpack for Xbox Live Arcadewas a thoroughly entertainingtale of what turned out to be avery nice little game, it wasalso a near-flawless example ofthe cyclical problem that LordBritish had described earlier.

The problem, as Garriottexplained it, is that with newhardware coming out on aregular basis every three to fiveyears, the technologicaladvancement has effectivelyserved as a substitute forimproved gameplay with eachnew generation of games. Formost of their history, electronicgames have been effectivelygraphics-driven. This graphics-driven cycle isn’t a newprocess, beginning with thePlayStation or even the MegaDrive, as MCGA’s 320 by 200resolution with 256 colors was ahuge leap forward comparedto IBM EGA and the Apple II.

While some of theseimprovements created new

design opportunities – themove from 2D sidescrollers to3D first-person shooters beingthe most obvious – in mostcases developers have beencontent to basically recreatethe games of the recent pastwith better graphics andsound. It is striking to see theway Garriott’s Akalabethdungeons visually presagedQuake and other enclosed 3Dfirst-person games, even if itstwo iridescent colors wererendered in seconds per framerather than frames per second.

And Garriott made aconvincing case about how thegameplay in current MMOstends to either imitate that ofUltima Online or Everquest; hecould have easily taken thatcase even further and pointedout how little the level-upgrind has changed from thepre-internet role-playinggames of the distant past.

However, there are someencouraging signs that thisgameplay-retarding cycle may

be coming to an end. Becausethey are already so spectacular,improvements in graphics offeran increasingly marginal utilityand the success of theNintendo Wii at the expenseof the more graphicallycapable PS3 appears to be thefirst serious ramification of thislaw of diminishing returns.Game reviews no longerconsist of little more thancredulous awe of the pretty,pretty pictures and occasionallyeven border on beingsubstantive. And the advent ofthe casual games market

seems to be stimulating eventhe hardest of the hard coretechnology freaks, like JohnCarmack of id Software, tomove beyond the simple faster= more = better formula.

Having been a longtimeadvocate of better artificialintelligence, I was very excitedto hear Garriott speak abouthis belief that AI was the nextfrontier for games. I amabsolutely confident that he iscorrect. However, I don’t thinkhe is taking the concept farenough, because the conceptof attacking environmentalspaces in the absence oftriggering player-characters isreally only a baby step in thetransition from TacAI to StratAI.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s adefinite step forward and Icommend Garriott for taking itwith Tabula Rasa, but it’s farfrom the revolution in artificialintelligence required to solveThe Problem of the Player ofwhich I wrote in the Marchissue of Develop.

I don’t know if it is atestimony to the gamesindustry or a condemnation ofit that after nearly threedecades, one of its earliest andmost important figures shouldstill be one of its major drivingforces. Regardless, we arefortunate that such anextraordinary mind is stillinterested in using his talentsto create games and it’s clearthat Richard Garriott willcontinue to set an example forfuture designers in the gameahead.

The Game AheadOur pseudonymous design expert discusses the continued evloution of games development…

22 | SEPTEMBER 2007

ALPHA | DESIGN DOC

The Alpenwolf is aprofessional gamedesigner who has beenactive in the industry for17 years and designedgames for some of thelargest American andJapanese publishers. Hehas been known to visitIronforge in the companyof a large white [email protected].

“Technicaladvancement

has served as asubstitute for

improvedgameplay…”

Richard Garriot’s Tabula Rasa aimsto innovate in the MMO space

22-23 Dev76_final 3/9/07 12:22 Page 1

SEPTEMBER 2007 | 23

DESIGN DOC | ALPHA

DEVELOPMAG.COM

Q&A: Jonas Eneroth, Games BizDev

You have a uniqueperspective, operating inbetween the developersand the publishers. Whatare some of the things thatyou advise developers towatch out for?They need to look out fornon-standard, non-trivialissues. It’s really incumbenton the developer to find agood partner, because youare in essence entering amarriage of sorts.

You need to have goodproducers on the publisher’sside and know that thepublisher has a goodunderstanding of yourproject. Spending the timenecessary to make sure thatit’s a good fit all the waythrough, from developmentto sales and marketing, that’sreally important.

Have you seen problemscaused by developersleaping at the firstpublisher to show aninterest in them?Development is very cyclicalunless you’re moving directlyonto the next game in anexisting franchise.

There can always besituations where you are alittle bit too hungry.

From time to time,developers run into situationswhere that comes back tohaunt them. I’ve seen thatfirst hand from adevelopment perspectiveand I’ve also seen it from apublisher’s perspective in therealm of what we do atGames BizDev. It’s somethingwe strive to guard against.

How do you help thepublishers avoid problemswith developers?We want everyone to havetheir eyes wide open and weencourage them to do theirfull due diligence. We assistthem in dealing withlanguage barriers and culturalbarriers, which are problemsthat we’ve come across on anumber of occasions. Wewant both parties to be ashappy as possible, but there’sno point in doing a dealwhere one party is simplylooking at how much theycan squeeze the other party.That sort of deal normallyleads to disaster and sub-pargames. There really is nopoint to it.

More projects are beingcreated with the variouspieces of the puzzle beingoutsourced. Do you see thisscattered studio modelbecoming more popular inthe future?There is definitely anincreased degree ofspecialisation taking place.

If you can put togetherdisparate groups that arelords and emperors of theirone area, you can bringtogether finance, AI, coreengine technology, contentgeneration, and then you’relooking at much more viableprojects. The projectsbecome more interesting onthe publishing and the salesside, which then obviouslyhelps them become a reality.

So, yes, we’re definitelygoing to see more gamesbased on this sort ofstructure, although it’s still alearning process. The projectmanagement component ofgames development is reallycoming into focus now withthe challenges posed bydifferent teams with differentcost structures spread outacross different time zones.

But we’re seeing reallyexciting projects that arecoming together becausethese separate componentscan be added together into awhole package that makessense. The publishers seethat it makes sense, the

various developers involvedsee that it makes sense andthe result is better gamesthat are more likely to seeretail results.

Do you see an end to thehardware-driven cycle thatRichard Garriott describedin his keynote speech?From a historical perspective,I’m in my fourth cycle andI’ve seen there are a numberof issues that tend to comeup in terms of the technologyand the gameplay.

But we’re now reaching apoint that the moneyrequired to move to a newhardware generation with thenecessary content fidelity hasthe potential to outstrip whatthe market will finance.

If you look at what retailwill support, especially wheresome of the more favoredgenres like action-adventuregames are heading, theamount of gameplay time iscoming in between ten to 14hours; that’s radically lowerthan what was seen just a fewyears ago.

I’m still very excited on thehardware side about whatcan actually be done and I’mreally looking forward toseeing some of the newideas coming to fruition whenit comes to AI and some ofthe other aspects. Theposition that we’re in now isthat we’ve reached a verysolid visual element andwe’re going to start seeingmore innovative gameplay,because that’s where there isthe most room forimprovement.

Jonas Eneroth is the chief operating officer at Games BizDev, which provides services to help match the variousneeds of game developers and game publishers. Formerly with Bungie and Eidos, he has been involved in thedevelopment of a number of respected games, including the Marathon trilogy, Myth: The Fallen Lords, Thief:The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age, Hitman and Deus Ex.

“The projectmanagementcomponent of

gamesdevelopment isreally coming

into focusnow…”

22-23 Dev76_final 3/9/07 12:22 Page 2

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65 Dev75_final 31/7/07 13:12 Page 1


Isn’t it time totake QA more

seriously? p30

Developingfor casualplayers

p33

Special Focus:EA Graduaterecruitment

p35

DEVELOPMENT FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, ESSAYS & MORE

“Procedural content is thefuture of the industry…”

Torsten Reil, CEO, NaturalMotion, p28

Tackling a newchallenge

Why NaturalMotion has gone into full games development, p26

25 Dev76_final 3/9/07 12:34 Page 1

26 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BETA | NATURALMOTION

The Backbreaker dev team. Clockwise from the bottomleft: lead designer Ant Lewis, head of games ToddGibbs, head of games technology Dave Proctor,developer Ubaka Onyechi an lead designer Ant Lewis

26-29 Dev76_final 31/8/07 11:36 Page 1

Michael French speaks to NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil about the company’s decision to move into full gameproduction and how procedural content is helping its small development team build a new IP…

It’s not often at Develop that we can fit aphoto of an entire game productionteam on our cover. Team sizes having

jumped so significantly in recent years, it’seven more surprising that we’ve managed itthis month with the staff dressed in bulkyAmerican football outfits, to boot.

Then again, this is no ordinarydevelopment studio, but actually a new teamof coders and artists put together by toolsfirm NaturalMotion to drive the company’smove into full games development.

Much like the atypical nature of the team,their first title – a new IP-based Americanfootball game called Backbreaker – is notwhat you might instantly expect from atechnology company spun out of OxfordUniversity. Nor is the story behind itsproduction – just a small team of sixworking on the game – what you’d expectfrom that same company that is supportingthe release of upcoming next-gen epics likeGTA IV and Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

It’s a move that raises eyebrows andquestions – how did the game come about?Can a tools company take on developers attheir own game? And how does a technologyfirm make the transition to full gamesdevelopment without impacting its status asa popular vendor of animation solutions?

KICKOFFBackbreaker’s roots stretch as far back towhen NaturalMotion and its animationtechnology debuted in 2001.

Known for creating tools that letdevelopers create dynamic charactermovements (either canned animations madewithout mocap data using endorphin, at run-time with euphoria, or with new engine andauthoring tool morpheme), CEO Torsten Reilsays that the game came about as a way to testthe software and see how far it could be usedto support the production of a sports game.

“Initially it started as an experiment – canwe make a top class football game that looksgreat with our technology, but also can wekeep the team small using the most advancedtechnology possible?”

Early demos of its dynamic motionsynthesis technology featured, by way ofexample, American football players

performing tackles as a way to prove itworked in creating unique moments ofunpredictable character behaviour.

“People said at the time ‘it would be sogood to get that at runtime’ and to havedifferent outcomes every time you played asports game. We combined that with the toolswe had been developing to find out what we’dneed to do to make a triple-A game.”

Perhaps inadvertently, the NaturalMotionteam stumbled upon the lynchpin conceptfor an entirely new sports game for 360 andPS3, one that places emphasis on theunpredictability of action on the field ratherthan licensing accuracy, and doesn’t use pre-baked (and arguably half-baked) animations.

The next step was to build the team itself,but the number of staff is no where near asyour usual next-gen development team, norbig as the 46 men in a typical Americanfootball team and barely half the 11 on thefield at any one time during a game.

Backbreaker’s development team consists offive staff working at the Oxford, UK office,plus an ex-American football coach based inSan Francisco who is making sure the team ofBrits – already NFL and Madden nuts – gettheir gridiron game details correct. The secretto the tiny team size is procedural content,

with the main component beingNaturalMotion’s euphoria, which debutedlast year in demonstrations of LucasArts newIndiana Jones and Star Wars games and willbe seen in Rockstar North’s upcoming GrandTheft Auto IV.

“In theory euphoria can give an infinitenumber of character animations and tacklesfor the football players,” says Reil. “There’snot a single key frame of tackling animation.

“We do use motion capture, but obviouslythe morpheme system is in there too, and thathas helped with that angle,” Reil adds. Hesays that the game’s art team has focused onthe locomotive animation of the on-screenplayers, with the rest procedurally generated byNaturalMotion’s already-established softwareand the processors of the target next-genplatforms instead of the traditional team of20 animators and 20 coders suchproductions would usually demand.

Meanwhile the on-screen environment, alarger than life football arena packed withwhooping fans, is built with the team’s own‘stadium renderer’, boasting close to 90,000characters rendered procedurally in realtime.

Says Reil: “The guys have done such agood job so we don’t have to create so many assets.”


NATURALMOTION | BETA

“Can we make atop class footballgame that looks

great, but also canwe keep the team

small using themost advanced tech available?”

Main: NaturalMotion’s first game,American football game Backbreaker.Inset: NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil

26-29 Dev76_final 31/8/07 11:36 Page 2

28 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BETA | NATURALMOTION

All of which has a great knock-on effect forthe game itself – the file size is currently just100MB uncompressed, and is already at anadvanced playable state. The game debuted toa good reception from the consumer press latein August with a video shown atbackbreakergame.com – all of which wasrecorded from gameplay straight from thegame and not pre-canned animation.

PROCEDURAL INVESTIGATIONWhile it’s clear to see Backbreaker as just ademonstration of what NaturalMotion’stechnology can do, Reil says its also astatement of intent for what the industry as awhole is capable of as procedural contentspecifically finds its place in gamesdevelopment.

“Procedural content really is the future ofthe industry,” says Reil. “There is so muchyou can do procedural now it’s amazing.”

In fact, he argues that it’s the secret tofuture success for UK games developmentcompanies and next-gen formats overall:“The question that interests us, and thatwe’re trying to answer, is ‘can you have sucha small team and create a new IP?’ I thinkthere’s such a great opportunity on next-genconsoles for smaller teams to create greatcontent using good tools. UK developers arereally good at that kind of strategic thinking –and I think we’ll see more and more of that.”

Developers will then be able to handbenefits on to consumers in a gameplaysense, he adds: “People have what areeffectively these really powerful computers intheir living rooms but they don’t really yetknow how powerful they are. The raw powerin PS3 and 360 is great. So we wanted to dosomething that took advantage of that andalso offered the kind of things people haven’tseen before in this kind of game. Whether

people take us seriously or not, I don’t care –I just want to make something that perfectlysuits next-gen.”

He also thinks procedural content is agreat way to buck the conventional wisdomrelated to next-gen development: “What Idon’t want to do is create a huge team for anew game – that’s not interesting. From whatwe’ve seen when you get to 20 and 30 peopleon a game team you’re probably at yourlimit. Once you get to 50 you need plenty ofgood project management. But on a smallerteam there’s much more ownership and thatis good for motivation

“Of course, for something like GTA there’sno way you could make those kind of gameswith a smaller team - they need that scale. Butthere is a place for smaller, more focused teamsworking on other kinds of games. So if we cancreate a really focused team and a brand newexperience, then it’s worth taking the risk.”

SPORTING CHANCEIn terms of the game experience, by focusingon the wince-worthy crunch of player-collisions on the field, Reil describesBackbreaker as akin to the way Burnoutrelishes the carnage of car crashes, with amore visceral edge akin to Gears of War’s overthe shoulder camera work.

There’s a striking coincidence that hisframes of reference are titles devised by twocompanies – Criterion and Epic Games –notorious for their dual lives as bothmiddleware provider and games developer,which is of course also NaturalMotion’s latestaspiration. Unlike them, however, Reil’scompany has already proven itself on atechnology front via its tools, with the gamecoming second. How does the company planto juggle that transition, especially when it’stargeting a category – American football

games – that is both narrow and fiercelydominated by Electronic Arts and itsMadden franchise?

“We’re not trying to compete withMadden or EA because they know whatthey’re doing – and our guys play Madden allthe time, we’re big fans of the game. It wouldbe foolish to think that we’d even take asingle game from Madden,” he explains.

Backbreaker is intended to succeed via itsstark difference to Madden, focused on thebigger picture of American football tactics,by providing its own game changer to thegames industry playing field: “What we dohope is that there is an experience in AmericanFootball that we can capture, different toMadden, which people will enjoy playing.”

It’s potentially something, shouldBackbreaker prove a success, which can beproven in other sports genres too. If the gameand its interactive tackles can be a goodalternative or companion to Madden, whatabout a treatment of the other kind of football,or another sport? “In theory, yes, it’ssomething we could do. Although right nowwe’re focused purely on Backbreaker – inmany respects it’s still just an experimentbecause we’re doing things so differently andthings are so small.”

Either way, the key will be to “dosomething about the same subject butapproach it differently,” adds Reil. After all,he says, car game fans buy both Burnout andGran Turismo, as do FPS players.

And on the subject of buyingBackbreaker, a smaller file size obviouslylends itself to Xbox Live Arcade andPlayStation Network direct-to-consumerdistribution – although Reil says it’s too earlyto call on what may happen between nowand the 2008 arrival of the game. “Yes,procedural content lends itself to digital

Ubaka OnyechiDeveloper

Dave Proctor

Head of Games Tech

Todd GibbsHead of Games

Dave Lomas

Lead Developer

Ant LewisLead Designer

It may be a British firm, but Americanfootball is in NatualMotion’s blood –it was used as an example in itsearlier tech demos (pictured)

The Backbreaker dev team

26-29 Dev76_final 31/8/07 11:36 Page 3


NATURALMOTION | BETA

distribution but it’s probably too early to sayat the moment where it ends up,” he says,but adds that whatever option the companychooses, he expects that “we will publish thegame ourselves.

“We have a very well funded technologybusiness so I think we have lots of differentopportunities on what we can do – I willkeep an open mind.”

It’s a shrewd move, perhaps, because forall the talk of smaller teams, it’s clearNaturalMotion has paid attention to thebigger studios as well, especially those – suchas Traveller’s Tales, Harmonix andBioware/Pandemic – that are now seeingtraditional publishers as just a means to anend for distribution and some marketing.

TACKLING TECHNOLOGYBut publishing and development, however, isstill a far cry from what NaturalMotion isknown and has a proven reputation for (andwon a Develop Award for in 2006, even) – sohow is that going to effect the company?

It isn’t, says Reil. On the software front,current and potential customers shouldn’tworry, he says, downplaying the newexpansion a little when the subject firstcomes up: “We are a games technologycompany that is growing and growing, sowe’re now just a content creator as well.”When the subject of the comparable

Criterion comes up again, whose acquisitionby EA eventually put paid to its widely-usedRenderware tool, Reil says that Backbreakerisn’t part of an ‘expand and sell’ plan to cash-in with, either.

“We made a decision about two or threeyears ago to remain independent,” he says.“The thing we want to do is build a strongcompany. We’re not in the business ofbuilding the company only to be acquired.”

And Reil’s happy to address the allegationsfloated about other studios with middlewareor tool interests head on, stressing that thecompany has been particularly keen andcareful to make sure that Backbreaker’sdevelopment team is treated like a separatecompany within NaturalMotion.

“What we’ve been quite careful in doing –because obviously the main business of thecompany is technology – is to ring the gameteam off from the guys working on euphoriaand morpheme,” he says.

So when there’s a support issue ortechnical request the five-strong Backbreakerteam are “treated liked like just anothercustomer” and their query is placed in thequeue along with those fromNaturalMotion’s games and movie partners.

Of course, having a game team in the roomnext door has meant “really good, quickfeedback” on the technology speedily benefitsthe company’s customers, but the emotional

distance during work hours meansBackbreaker hasn’t put any kind of drain onthe technology team. “We’re hypersensitiveto that. Technology is still our core business.”

TOUCHDOWNUltimately, however, it seems that technology– while a great enabler for what Backbreaker isdesigned to do – isn’t the only driving forcethat NaturalMotion wants to share with therest of the industry, it’s proving that new, bigtriple-A-aspiring ideas that break againstconventional thinking can make it to market,from teams that may be viewed as unfeasiblysmall. It’s a message he seems to genuinelywant the rest of the industry to take heed of.

“There are plenty of ideas around andpassion to do this,” says Reil. “A lot ofpeople say with a new IP and securinginvestment you have to make your gamewith an online component or it has to be anMMO – I don’t think that’s true. Investors,particularly in the UK and the US, arepretty clued up on what they want.

“So the more UK start-ups the better.There is so much talent in the country andgreat opportunities. It’s great that there arebig publishers in games development in theUK, but it’s incredibly important to have anecosystem of good companies that hopefullygrow and become much stronger.”www.naturalmotion.com

Every spectator is procedurally generated– there are 90,000 on screen in total

“If we can create areally focused team

and a brand new experiencethen it’s worth

taking the risk…”

26-29 Dev76_final 31/8/07 11:36 Page 4

30 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BETA | TESTING AND DESIGN

It’s safe to say that making quality software hasalways been a paramount priority for thegames industry.

Having been involved in testing many things inmany industries, games are certainly the hardest Ihave come across. But what’s most obvious to meis that when it comes to QA we need to make surethat both the overall ‘quality’ of the game and theusual process of debugging via ‘assurance’ is dealtwith. Assurance shouldn’t be about ‘bug detection’but more about ‘bug prevention’.

To some, quality is about removing bugs and toothers it is about gameplay experience. As a QAfunction, we need to support both. We shouldn’tlose focus in bug finding and smart testingprocesses and obviously need to stay on top of thecertification needs of the platforms, but as we getbetter at this, games teams will be keen to utilise us

more around the qualitative side of the products. However, QA still has – and this is in any

organisation, in any industry – a bit of a‘perception’ problem, often seen as the bottom ofthe pile. Traditionally in the games industry, themix of people in QA consists of some careertesting folk, some people looking for temporarywork and a large amount of ‘industry hopefuls’who are looking for a way on up to the widerdevelopment and production world. This doesfoster a perception that QA is not important and isfull of people who don’t know what they aretalking about; just providing a games coverageservice and putting a tick in a box.

And this has a habit of becoming a self-fulfillingprophecy – why hire the best designers in theindustry, develop the best code, use the creamof the development industry and the latestproduction techniques and practices, but thenQuality Assure the products using students andtemporary staff?

TESTING TIMESInstead, designers should stop looking at testing astheir poor cousin. Quality is an important facet ofour products and needs to be taken seriouslythroughout the whole design, development andproduction lifecycle. QA can offer lots of skills andunderstanding in these areas, as testers tend to begamers with a wide repertoire of experiences, aswell as having bug finding skills. Having people‘focused’ on quality (both qualitative andquantitative) from the start allows the creativepeople to concentrate on being creative, knowing that someone is ‘watching their backs’from a quality perspective.

We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that quality iseveryone’s responsibility, and one of the majorroles of a good QA department is to keep re-enforcing that message.

A QA department may have up to 1,000 yearsworth of cumulative games experience, and mosttesters understand what works and what doesn’t. Irealise it’s not feasible for producers to listen toindividuals about detail, but there are ways tocapitalise on the collective experience of the testingdepartment. It is our job as QA professionals tomake ourselves heard.

At the same time, there is much to be done toimprove QA practices across the industry. We canwork both as individual departments and as anindustry to create a professional career for thepeople within QA. Also, standardising our

processes (as much as we can – staying away fromthe competitive edge) would help us all to developstronger product and allow us to create standardsfor which we can train our people to create aworld class QA industry. Bringing some rigour towhat we do, and benchmarking our skills andabilities utilising an industry group, would benefitboth the people within testing and the gamesteams we support. I am currently working on thisconcept with other industry QA leaders andintend to launch a group by the end of this year. Itis imperative though that these initiatives aresupported (and funded) by the studio leaders andthe games teams who should rely on our support.

QUALITY STREETI am a pragmatist and I know that the road aheadfor QA to face these issues will be tough.Developing these ideas has been done before. Inmy past experiences in the more ‘traditional’testing arenas like banking and telecoms we facedthe same challenges ten to 15 years ago and to acertain extent conquered them. We should learnfrom those experiences and not go through thesame pain again.

Chris Ambler has been in the testingindustry for over 20 years, and iscurrently QA Director of Electronic Arts Europe and a member of the EAWorld Wide QA Council. In hisprevious roles Chris has managed andconsulted on many testing projectsacross fields as diverse as defence,finance, telecoms and government.

controlQUALITY

QA teams across the industry need to focus on professionalism,says Electronic Arts UK’s testing boss Chris Ambler…

“We mustn’t lose sight of the fact thatquality is everyone’s

responsibility…”

30 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:02 Page 1

31 Dev76_final 30/8/07 09:51 Page 1

You’ve got the looks.

We’ve gotthe brains.

www.kynogon.comFrance United Kingdom Canada

Kynogon’s A.I. middleware, Kynapse, is the brains behind the work of some of the leading game developers out there. In fact, 6 of the top 10 game publishers use Kynapse in developing their best-selling titles.

Kynapse A.I. Middleware

32 Dev76_final 30/8/07 09:52 Page 1

and effectCASUAL

As a design manager at Black Rock Studio,I’ve been working in the driving andracing genre for seven years. However, one

of the most significant challenges I’ve faced hasbeen in the development of MotoGP’07, the latestin our award winning series of motorcycle racinggames on the Xbox 360 and PC.

The rise of the casual gamer has led to a changeof tactics by many publishers, as we all now look atways in which to develop and market titles thatappeal to the most rapidly growing demographicof games player. Naturally this is of interest to usbut the challenge with MotoGP’07 was taking aseries of games that are renowned for difficulty andmaking them appealing to new players.

But of course, things are never that simple. Ourgames are generally considered to cater for a nichemarket. Whilst this may seem like a disadvantage,the critical and commercial success of the MotoGPfranchise suggests otherwise, with each new title inthe series selling more than the last. This is largelydown to our hardcore fans, gamers who have beenplaying our games since their original release onthe Xbox – the kind of players who make us looklike amateurs when we race them online.

This was the challenge that we at Black RockStudio faced. How do you broaden the appeal of aseries without betraying your existing audience?How do we take a motor sport that’s among themost exhilarating, dangerous and unforgiving inthe world and make it a compelling game for bothbike rookies and experts?

CRITICAL MASSOne of the first things I wanted to assess was themedia’s perception of our games. This brought upa range of interesting issues. Read any review ofone our titles and the word “simulation” isfrequently used, with repeated reference to howthe game is for the “hardcore” gamer.

It’s the use of phrase “simulation” that botheredme the most. Too often in my opinion, this term isincorrectly used, more often an indication of agame’s difficulty level than actual gameplay. In myopinion, our MotoGP titles have never been what Iwould call simulations. In many respects they arearcade in nature, albeit with plenty of challenge.

Let me explain my reasoning. In my opinion,simulations capture both the positives and

negatives that come from racing. It’s because ofthis that I don’t consider our titles to besimulations. For example, licensing restrictionsmean that should you crash; neither the rider norbike will suffer any damage (terminal or cosmetic).In fact, as soon as the dust has settled you’ll beback on the road with a fresh bike and rider.Engines never fail and bones never break. Withoutthe consequences, players are free to race in a moreaggressive, flamboyant, dare I say it arcade-likemanner. For some people, it’s the skill required tocontrol the bike that makes the game a simulation,a factor that in my opinion is regrettably beingstripped away from gamesdeveloped by many of ourcompetitors.

So, in order to attract awider audience, our efforts should be focused onadjusting thegame’sdifficultylevel,ratherthanshifting itsperceivedfocus on

simulation. There were a number of ways in whichwe’ve achieved this, whilst simultaneouslypreserving the core values of the game that all ourhardcore fans desire.

First of all, we looked at the role of the game’sExtreme Mode. For the uninitiated, this modewas introduced earlier in the series in an attemptto give newer, more casual players a moreforgiving bike handling model and tracks thatwere simpler to learn. Set entirely on fictionaltracks and with original bikes, this mode wasintended to be the perfect accompaniment to themore challenging MotoGP modes. However, in

previous games in the series, the licensoralways insisted on this mode taking a back

seat to the MotoGP mode (as onewould expect them to). This meantthat in order to access the easiergame mode, players


GAME DESIGN | BETA

Black Rock Studio’s Serkan Hassan provides an invaluable glimpse into how the team behind critically-praisedfranchise MotoGP recently aimed to please both casual and hardcore players with its latest release…

33-34 Dev76_final 31/8/07 12:42 Page 1

would have to complete a championship in theharder, real life mode. For MotoGP’07, wemanaged to convince the licensor that allowingplayers to access Extreme mode from the startwould be hugely beneficial to the enjoyment thatnew players would get.

INTELLIGENT DESIGNThe next challenge for us was tackling each of thegame’s difficulty settings. In MotoGP’07, difficultyis measured purely by the AI rider’s capabilities.With four difficulty levels in the game, we have allthe range required to make the game sympatheticto the novice whilst uncompromising for experts.

Using our in house tool, Nipple (pictured above),the design team at Black Rock had the power toadjust a vast range of AI attributes in real timeduring gameplay. For the easier difficulty settings,limits could be applied to AI riders in order toprevent them rider at their best. Attributes likerider aggression, spatial awareness and riding formcould be tweaked in order to get a range of effects.

At the lower difficulty levels, AI riders will behappier to follow in another bike’s wake, makinglittle use of the track around them. At the higherdifficulty levels, Nipple enabled us to completelychange AI behaviour, the result seeing four orfive AI riders all diving into a corner at the sametime, missing each other by a fraction. Thedifference in AI behaviours achieved by our toolsreally is quite breathtaking.

Our focus on AI was because we have alwaysbelieved that the handling model should notchange as a result of changing a difficultysetting. MotoGP’07 is a racing game, plain andsimple. If you dumb down the handling, whathave you got left? Nothing irritates me morethan when I play a racing game and find thatthere’s nothing beneath the surface. When thatinitial thrill from racing has passed, the lack ofdepth or challenge is something I always find ahuge disappointment. Too many gamessubstitute this for a more asset driven approach,

bombarding the player with new vehicles andtracks to race. If the core gameplay is shallow,where is the motivation for repeat play?

In terms of judging our difficulty levels, weencouraged play testing, in particular from aswide a range of players as possible. We hadcomplete newcomers to the series testing our‘Rookie’ difficulty level, whilst the mostexperienced members of the team took on thechallenge of our ‘Legend’ difficulty. The

flexibility of our toolset was pushed as we foundthat difficulty had to be tweaked on a per trackbasis. Faster tracks are more challenging whenracing AI whereas on slower tracks, playerscould make up more time under braking.

REGAINING CONTROL Having addressed the AI difficulty level, welooked at other aspects of the game, such asMotoGP’07’s unique controls and game settings.Many questions were asked. Was the defaultcamera view ideal for new players? Was thedefault bike setup easy to ride?

As a result of this review, we made a range ofchanges designed to make things more accessible.Most notably, we changed the default bike set upto be as easy to ride as possible. Tyres, brakebalance, suspension settings and wheelbase were allsetup to make for the most forgiving ride. It wasobvious that new players were not going to be able(or willing) to tune a bike for more forgivingperformance so we took the step of doing that forthem. In contrast, we knew that our existing

audience were overwhelmingly familiar with the tuning options, so whatever default setup was available, expert players would tinker with it anyway.

We next looked at what we could do to giveinexperienced players as much feedback as possibleduring racing. We designed a simple to usetelemetry system that would break each trackspline up into segments and time the playerthrough each one. Each spline segment wouldthen be colour coded and displayed on the HUDtrack map during gameplay. At a glance, playerscould see how their lap was shaping up, wherethey had made gains and where they had mademistakes. It’s a very simple system but one which isbeneficial to players of all skill levels. It also acts asa good reward system for players, who can takepositives from a race even if they don’t win it.

With the changes made to accommodate newplayers, we then turned our attention to ourreturning players.

One of the greatest things about having anonline community is the wealth of feedbackthey are always willing to give you. We lookedat every review, checked every communityforum and message board and compiled acomprehensive list of feature requests.

A significant thing to come from this was thedemand to make the game more challenging.With the structure of the game we knew wecould achieve this without impacting on thegame’s accessibility (once again, the benefit ofplayer scalable difficulty settings). As a result, allnew simulation settings were introduced,designed to compliment the existing handlingmodel. Off track handling was made lessforgiving, collisions more punishing and tractionlevels reduced, all designed to provide a greaterchallenge for the most experienced players.

REAR VIEW MIRRORLooking back now, I feel confident that ourteam at Black Rock Studios has achieved ourobjective. MotoGP’07 is without doubt the mostaccessible game in the series to date, whilstsimultaneously enhancing its feature set for the benefit of the most experienced players. Withmotorcycle racing games so often beingconsidered a niche market, we believe that ourfinal game in the series is perfectly suited to all racing fans and gamers in general, casual or hardcore.

The MotoGP series will always be one that welook back on with great affection, as it has beensynonymous with our studio for so many years.However there’s a bright new future at BlackRock Studios, with great excitement at theoriginal games we are now busy at work on.www.blackrockstudio.com

34 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BETA | GAME DESIGN

Serkan Hassan is a designmanager at Black Rock Studio,located in Brighton. He wasworked in the games industry forten years on a wide range ofgames for consoles, in particularracing titles.

“The rise of the casualgamer has led to achange in tactics bymany publishers...”

33-34 Dev76_final 31/8/07 12:42 Page 2

SEPTEMBER 2007 | 35

HOW GRADUATES MAKE A DIFFERENCE AT ELECTRONIC ARTS...

If you ask me, graduates are the saviour of thegames industry.

Currently, there are not enough experienced gamedevelopers to feed the current recruitment demandfor gaming. And all forms of entertainment – be itgames, film, TV, toys, music, advertising or evensectors as diverse as IT, mobile, and banking – are allfishing in the same talent pool.

All too often in games graduate entrants havebeen perceived as cheap labour. However, EA seesgraduates as the very engine of creativity.

Plus, many companies are scared to hire graduatesin any volume because they need quick results ontheir current game which ships in a small period oftime. However in our experience it’s great to see theeffect graduates have on the culture of the businessas experienced staff feel the graduates snapping attheir heels, making them raise the bar of their work,which engages and then ignites a healthy internalpromotion culture.

We cherish the natural hunger, zest and passionthat graduates possess that make a real difference toa business. Graduates challenge the status quo andconstantly seek to learn, relishing the pace of ourfast moving industry.

Across the next three pages, we've outlined ourgraduate strategy and spoken to some of our latesthires to show how newcomers can make adifference in the games industry.

Matthew JefferyHead of European Studio Recruitment

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Control

ELECTRONIC ARTS GRADUATE RECRUITMENT FOCUS

35-38 Dev76_final 31/8/07 15:46 Page 1

36 | SEPTEMBER 2007


Our approach to graduate recruitment isanchored on targeting selected preferreduniversities to partner with, where we haveexperience of hiring high quality graduatesthat are not only taught strong traditionaltechnical skills, but also have strong softskills. These include communication skills,presentation skills, leadership skills andvitally, since games are not made by oneindividual, team working ability.

Experience has shown that studentsbenefit from the extra focus and resourceswe can provide, and of course EA gets acloser appreciation of high performingstudents on particular courses andhopefully attract them to help us continuecreating world class games.

But this does not mean that because agraduate is not in one of the EA PartnerUniversities that they won’t get into EA. Aslong as they apply via jobs.ea.com and getthemselves known, their chances are stillhigh to work at EA.

GRADUATE ENTRY POINTSGiven our commitment to hiring graduateswe provide several entry points, mostnotably internships and permanent roles.

INTERN SCHEMEEach summer we run a three-month internscheme, which neatly fits into student’ssummer vacation. We generally offerstudents who are one year away fromgraduating an insight into real life work ona game team. This is a serious investmentfor EA to run with 20/25 interns each yearand therefore a structured program is putin place. There is no room for menial taskslike filing or photocopying.

Each intern is set a project which will bein the final game. The intern is assignedboth a manager to steer them in theirthree months and also a mentor, (whosupports the intern throughout theexperience like a confidant or buddy).

After the three months the intern isreviewed and often receives an offer of ajob for when they finish their exams.

Internships are a great way to giveinsight into development at EA and areeffective in attracting people scepticalabout a career in games into trying it outfor themselves for three months. Allinternships are fully paid, as they are

completing valuable work and their namesare included in the credits for the gamethey worked on.

PERMANENT ROLESKey for building a healthy workforce isattracting graduates into permanent roles.We provide a competitive remunerationpackage which includes a host of benefits.

But money is not everything andgraduates need to feel that they not onlyhave a good job but a long career withinEA. That's why when they first join they

partner with their manager and work onsetting goals, objectives and achievements.These are reviewed every three monthsand built into an effective way to ensuregraduates have the best support network.

EA ensures that graduates benefit from adedicated in-house art and graphics trainerand a programming trainer. Graduates alsolearn from EA Knowledge, EA's worldwideintranet of training material where anymember of staff can post and share bestpractices.

WHAT ROLES ARE AVAILABLE?The biggest need in the industry is forprogrammers. Programmers can be splitdown into a variety of disciplines includingAI, physics, audio programmers, gameplayand tools, to name but a few. A talentedprogrammer can cherry pick the role withany company in the games industry.

In art we look to recruit concept artists,animators, both world and charactermodellers, texture artists, technical artists,CG and VFX artists.

Games designers are a lot harder toidentify and assess. We look at those whoare successful modders and, of course,those that can provide game designdocuments. A common misconception isthat, just because you play games, you’d

make a great game designer. Design is avery natural skill as it involves creativity butalso a logical thought process, to ensurethat a game and a story has real cohesionand consistency.

HOW DO I APPLY?Graduates should check out ourweb site: www.jobs.ea.com. All live vacancies are postedimmediately and CVs can then belogged to apply for jobs. The site sends anemail alert the moment a role fitting yourneeds is posted and open to apply for.

Secondly, graduates should be proactiveand get themselves known to EA staff andget champions within the business. Beproactive and go to trade shows like theGame Developers Conference, the Developconference, Leipzig, London Games Festivaland get yourself in front of EA staff.

It's your career and you have to stand outfrom the traditional run of the mill sheep.

ASSESSMENT PROCESSThe interview process is very thorough.

Programmers have to sit a toughassessment test, which is a mix of maths,physics, programming and general logic,and then face a technical interview with alead programmer or tech director. Thegraduate will then meet the senior team.

Artists will be reviewed against the qualityof their showreel and be interviewed by ArtDirectors about how they haveachieved particular effects andthen, again, senior leaders on theteam will interview for team fit.Showreels need to demonstrate a range ofdifferent styles and because we receive somany we encourage artists to consider this: ifwe view your showreel for 20 seconds, does ithook us and show your best work?

Game designers will be set apresentation task to firstly play an existingEA game and then give their views on itand how they would improve it. Theywould then be expected to give a gamepitch of a new idea or pitch what is theirfavourite film and why. This allowing usinsight into their thought process, gamesknowledge and ability to be creative.

Only the best graduates get to work atEA. That is pivotal to our selection processand the success of our games.

“Graduates should beproactive. It’s your career

and you have to standout from the traditionalrun of the mill sheep…”

ELECTRONIC ARTS – GRADUATE STRATEGY

35-38 Dev76_final 31/8/07 15:46 Page 2

ADVERTISING FEATURE SEPTEMBER 2007 | 37


TOOLS PROGRAMMER

NAME: CIARA WILLISAGE: 26

Currently working on: A phenomenally exciting new IP.

What course did you study?I did a BSc in Computer Science at University College Dublin(UCD). After UCD I did my MSc in Informatics in the University ofEdinburgh, specialising in Intelligent Robotics and MachineLearning.

Did it equip you for a career in games development?I have always loved playing video games, but I never really knewanything about how to make them. Before I started university Ihad no knowledge of programming at all. My undergraduatedegree was invaluable as it taught me the basics in a wide rangeof topics, in addition to allowing me to specialise in AI. I feel thatstudying in a general computing course rather than a gamesspecific course was very worthwhile, as many of the basicprinciples that I learnt are applied to my work almost every day.In particular the focus on maths and different programmingmethods (and languages), has been essential.

What attracted you to working at EA?I initially joined EA to work on Harry Potter and the Gobet of Fire. Ihave always wanted to work in games and I am a huge HarryPotter fan, so this was the ideal job for me really. In addition tothis I liked the fact that working for a company like EA means thatyou have the opportunity to work on a large variety of games, in anumber of locations around the world.

What advice would you give to students about to joinuniversity and those graduating?Do not be put off applying for jobs in the industry if your degreeis not games specific, as many general degrees, such as computerscience, teach you the foundations and more than equip you totake on a job in the industry.

Also, take the time to keep up to date on what is going on inthe games industry. If you have a passion for games and know what is going on in the gaming world then this will show

in an interview.

Since joining EA, how have you made adifference on the game you are

working on?When I first joined EA I was working as a

gameplay programmer and I wasresponsible for creating many of thein-game interactive items. On the lastHarry Potter project I was thepipeline owner for all of the in-gamecutscenes. I integrated a tool thathad been developed in Electronic

Arts Redwood Shores, andimplemented the runtime for this tool.

I was responsible for the integration ofevery cut scene in the game, which in a

movie franchise is key.

NAME: GARRY CASEYAGE: 26

Currently working on: Burnout Paradise

What course did you study?I actually attended several courses at the University of Teessidefrom 2000 to 2005 which included a HND in SoftwareDevelopment, a BSc in Computer Science (2:1) and an MSc inGraphical Programming (Distinction).

Did it equip you for your career in games?I always had a long standing interest in video games,

but before university, I knew nothing about creatingthem (this also included no formal background in softwaredevelopment). During my time at Teesside I was happy to findthat each course provided me with a foundation in a wide rangeof subject matters (many of which applied the use of differentprogramming and scripting languages).

My final course focused this into the computer graphics arenawhich eventually led to me creating a video game of my own forone of my modules.

What attracted you to working at EA?I initially sent an application form into Criterion Games who arenow owned by EA. I have always been a huge admirer of thegames they make and loved the idea of working for a team thatalways strives to go the extra yard in terms of quality. EA Criterionhas some of the best people in the industry from all disciplinesand as a result, I always find that I’m learning from my peers on aday to day basis. Also, it helped that I’m a huge Burnout fan!

Since joining EA, how have you made a difference on thegame/project you are working on?When I initially joined Criterion I was a tools programmer foraround nine months. This was a challenging role due to thedynamic nature of the job: one day I could be using C# within ourcontent aggregation tool, the next I could be using MEL script to

help the artists for a given task. After that I was asked to join the gameplay team.

I’ve done a number of different things includingcreating game modes, implementing parts of

the progression and being instrumental in creatingthe new Burnout Paradise boost system.

What advice would you give tostudents about to join university andthose graduating?Be proactive when trying to find a jobin the industry. If you are finding ithard to get interviews, try to get asolid game demo together thatshowcases a number of differenttalents. I created a complete game forthe PC that used DirectX. It was asimple tribute to a popular spaceshooting game and showed that I hadthe commitment and passion to finishsuch a project in my own time.

GAMEPLAY PROGRAMER

35-38 Dev76_final 31/8/07 15:46 Page 3


NAME: AMRITA BHARIJAGE: 23

Currently working as: An artist on the Harry Potter franchise.

What course did you study?I graduated in 2006 from Abertay University where I studied a BA(Hons) in Computer Arts. The course covered different areas from2D to 3D animation, video art, interactive art and web design,allowing freedom to choose the area of study in the last year.

Did it equip you for a career in games development?I was given opportunities that I may not have had otherwise. Oneof which was a three-month scholarship working with ScottishTelevision. The other was the competition Dare to be Digital,where teams of five come up with ideas and develop demos inthe space of ten weeks. I took on the role of character animatorand interface artist for my team, and getting advice from industryexperts, working to tight schedules and, most importantly, makingproducts which people enjoy playing was awesome. The contestwas an enjoyable experience and a great link between universityand the working life – that’s when I decided games were for me.

What kind of training have you had since joining EA?After being here for eight months, I have learnt quite a lot. Thereare courses available for artists and engineers to better their skills.I ‘ve also learnt from the art director on the project, as well asexperienced artists. Soon I’ll be taking some classes in the EAUniversity, too.

Do you feel you’ve made a difference on your first project? I do feel like I’ve achieved much in the short time I have been here. I feel lucky to have worked on a successful game that is sought after, and have my name on the credits so soon after graduating.

I also feel a great sense of achievement by helping out in theSouth East centre for this year’s Dare competition, which washosted at EA’s studio in Guildford. As I participating in it last year,being a mentor and helping the new Dare students with theirinterfaces was an honour.

What advice would you give to students aboutto join university and those graduating?For all the students and graduates who havea passion for games and wish to break inthe industry, based on my experience sofar, I recommend researching exactlywhat leading games companies arelooking for. Think of a particular areato get into and really perfect that onearea, and work up a top portfolioeven if it means giving up your sociallife for a while.

I’ve found that competitions such asDare to be Digital are great ways ofdemonstrating skills when applying forgames jobs, just by having a game or ademo ready to present.

INTERFACE DESIGNER

NAME: SANDY LOCKIEAGE: 23

Currently working on: Exciting new IP.

What course did you study? I chose to study Contemporary and Creative Writing (with a sidehelping of Film and Television Studies) at the University of Derbywhich I really enjoyed.

Did it equip you for a career in games?Creative writing for me was a very feedback heavycourse, both from tutors and peers alike, and that wasdefinitely the most useful aspect I took out of my time atDerby. The self-motivation of coursework and the melting pot ofideas that circulates around your social group are both incrediblyuseful, but the ability to both give and receive constructivefeedback is invaluable because you soon learn to pre-empt theusual criticism and start really polishing areas of your work.

What attracted you to working at EA?I actually came into contact with EA when I was researching formy dissertation, a study into how effective computer games canbe as a storytelling medium. What was initially set to be a quickone hour chat turned into a whole morning of tours andpresentations; it was the flexibility, friendliness and passion of allthe people I spoke to that morning that really got me interestedin EA as a company.

What kind of training have you had since joining EA?I originally came to EA as a graduate Development Manager,however after a month or so I was approached by a couple of theleads and offered the opportunity to become a Junior Designer,presumably because I didn’t shut up in brain-storming meetings!

I leapt at the chance and haven’t regretted it for a second –but those early few weeks really helped me with theorganisational side of things. I became familiar with creatingand updating trackers and using Visio to create flowcharts.

Then, once I started as a designer, I could build onthis knowledge and become acquainted with a varietyof other tools and programs such as SketchUp and

dabbling in Blitz Basic. Plus, I’ve had ongoing trainingfrom peers and my lead in how to become a

better designer, present well, and to thinkideas through. I see my job as ensuring the

game is as fun as possible; the training I’vereceived has allowed me to realise this.

Since joining do you feel you’vemade a difference on the projectyou are working on?I’ve spent my first year here justsoaking up as much information as Ican about all areas of game

production, not just my discipline. I feelthat now, around a year after I started,

I’m getting to the stage where I can takeownership of areas and become the go-to

guy on any issue related to it.

DESIGNER

ADVERTISING FEATURE38 | SEPTEMBER 2007

35-38 Dev76_final 31/8/07 15:46 Page 4


TOOLS: The latestreleases

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THE LATEST TOOLS NEWS, TECH UPDATES & TUTORIALS

“It would be massively difficult andexpensive to create a competentengine from scratch now…” p52

Start yourengines

SPECIAL REPORT: Game Engines, p50

WILL OPENKODE SAVE MOBILE DEVELOPMENT? > P54

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SOUND:Harry Pottergame audio

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39 Dev76_final 3/9/07 11:39 Page 1

40 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BUILD | TOOLS

Softimage, Valve and Microsoft combine to offer a completemodding pipeline…

THE COMBINATION OF VALVE’SHalf-Life 2 gaming technology and Softimage’sart tools have prior form when it comes tooffering the modding community theopportunity to get all creative.

It was back at the tail-end of 2004 that theoriginal XSI Mod Tool was released. LikeAutodesk’s similarly-conceived Gmax approach,it didn’t get much traction, though, because inorder to use the technology modders had tobe able get down and dirty within Valve’sSource engine SDK; something many full-timedevelopers have struggled with.

Moving on a couple of years though and the emergence of Microsoft’s XNA platform has narrowed the gap between professionals,prosumers and gamers, at least for any of the latter interesting in spending some timehacking around to find out what makes games work.

That, combined with the imminent arrival ofValve’s latest Half-Life 2-based release, TheOrange Box, should give Softimage’sannouncement of its XSI 6 Mod Tool moresignificance.

The free 3D modelling and animationsoftware, which is locked down for non-commercial use, integrates natively with theXNA Framework Content Pipeline so you canexport seamlessly to the XNA Creators Clubfor both PC and Xbox 360 deployment.

The XSI 6 Mod Tool comes with anenhanced user interface designed for first timeusers, and is supported by bespoke trainingvideos from Noesis Interactive. Thesesimultaneously load into the XSI Net viewport,while sample models are brought intointeractive workspaces so you can see what’s

being taught. Topics include simple 3Dmodelling, object integration into a game, andhow to use XNA.

Various plug-ins and tools for Valve’s Sourceengine are also included in the mix, as aresample assets such as characters, vehicles,props and weapons from Half-Life 2 that canbe customised and exported for use in Half-Life 2 or Half-Life 2-based mods. A layer-basedfractal terrain generator, the GeographicElevation Mixer, is bundled too.

As for those commercial restrictions, themain one is that Mod Tool files can’t beopened using a full version of XSI 6, while therendering features have been stripped out andmesh export is limited to models consisting of64,000 triangles.www.softimage.com/products/modtool

Blender support

Price: FreeCompany: 3Dconnexion Contact: +44 1952 243629www.3Dconnexion.com

The latest art package to join the likes of Maya, 3ds Max andSketchUp with support for 3Dconnexion’s family of navigationdevices such as the SpaceNavigator 3D mouse is the open-source suite Blender. The plug-in supports Windows (XP andVista), Linux and Mac OS X versions of Blender. In a separateannouncement, support for using the devices with the Macversion of Acrobat, so you can simultaneously pan and zoom2D PDF documents, has also been added to the existingWindows support. The 3Dconnexion product line of 6 degreeof freedom devices ranges from the highend SpacePilot(£271) to SpaceNavigator (from £39).

DOUBLE UP ON HALF-LIFE

ProFX 2.6/MaPZone 2.6

Price: Available on requestCompany: Allegorithmic Contact: +33 4 73 40 79 84www.allegorithmic.com

There’s a big push when it comes to procedural artprocesses and French provider Allegorithmic seems to bepicking up momentum with its advanced texture authoringmiddleware, ProFX. The latest point release sees theaddition of a new optimised core which brings compatibilitywith Pixel Shader 2.0 to maximise the performance benefitsof running ProFX under GPU acceleration. The version alsolinks into the 2.6 release of Allegorithmic’s free textureediting software MaPZone. This include a new bitmapimage input node to enable you to mix bitmaps andprocedural noises making it easier to add details texture.

IF EXPERIENCE TEACHES US anything, it’sthat the most useful analytic skill is seeing thetrees for the wood. Detail is all well and good,but despite those purveyors of alternativehistory – what if Winston Churchill had beenproperly run over by that New York cab in 1931,etc.? – in the final summation, it’s rarely thecrucial factor.

Cunningly, this philosophy also allows us to avoidsecondary ligitation when it comes to the swirlinglegal malaise that promises to be the SiliconKnights/Unreal Engine 3 suit and counter suit.

Instead, we can skate away untouched, purelynoting that the significant detail (whichever waythe gavel falls) is that middleware’s status withinthe game making process is now consideredsignificant enough to be cited in a multi-millionlawsuit. After all these years, surely that has tobe seen as some sort of coming-of-age symbol,even if it’s a somewhat brutal Bar mitzvah?

But it also strikes me there’s something deeplyironic about the situation. All the time I’ve beenwriting about technology, I never met anypurchaser of external middleware who’s beeneven lukewarm, let alone enthusiastic about thetechnology they’ve been offered: and that prettymuch includes every game engine that’s everbeen offered, whether RenderWare, Gamebryo,Quake, Source, Instinct or Unreal. There’s alwayssomething some coder think they could havedone better.

Of course, that’s not to say that the legalesethat presumably forms the basis of anymiddleware licensing agreement is worthless.Only that the lines are much greyer in this casethan comparable industries. Personally, I feelsorry for the judge who has to cut the GordianKnot concerning how many SPUs code needs torun over to count as being functional.

The wisdomof Solomon

Jon [email protected]

Price: Free (400 MB download)Company: SoftimageContact: +1 514 845 1636

XSI 6 Mod Tool

< art >

40-41 Dev76_final 31/8/07 12:45 Page 1


TOOLS | BUILD

< coding >

Proving that anything DirectX has problemsdealing with isn't only limited to Microsoft,cross platform graphics API OpenGL is alsoreaching the point of transition.

The OpenGL 3.0 specification, which wasannounced at Siggraph, marks a major revision.Backwards compatibility will be maintainedthrough the current 2.x API, but this will belocked away from the future functionality to bedeveloped in the new 3.x release. This marks afundamental break in terms of how thetechnology will progress with a programmableshader-only approach.

Yet, thanks to its cross platform flexibility, thetransition should be much easier to deal with,both for developers (and consumers), than thecurrent DirectX 9-Windows XP, DirectX 10-Windows Vista bottleneck.

One of the main changes is to the objectmodel, which switches from a state-basedsystem to an object-based system.

This makes the API much more streamlined,as objects, once created, are immutable andonly require a single function call to create afully formed object. Similarly, object sharingacross rendering contexts is now specified atthe per-object level, enabling thread-safefunction calls.

And in keeping with this future-proofing,additional point releases within the OpenGL3.x timeline are also already being planned.Respectively codenamed Longs Peak Reloadedand Mt Evans, these will add general usabilityfeatures as well as support for hardware featuresuch as geometry shaders, texture arrays, andinstanced rendering.www.opengl.org

Falcon 3D TouchDevice SDK

Price: FreeCompany: Novint Contact: +01 866 298 4420http://home.novint.com

It's not going to win many designawards for aesthetics, but based on the company's experience in themedical, dental, architectural andindustrial fields, Novint's $240 USBFalcon 3D Touch Device does bringsomething new to gaming in terms of3D haptic devices. Grab hold of its grip and you're handling a three

degrees of freedom, 1 kilohertzforce-feedback, device. Usefully then,the company has released a free (ifnon-commercial) SDK to enable you tocreate supporting PC applications that enables users to feel weight,shape, texture, dimension, dynamicsand force effects when playing enabled games.

xait-Enginev2

Price: Available on requestCompany: xaitment Contact: +49 681 9593 140www.x-aitment.net

The world might need another artificialintelligence middleware company likethe short list for London mayor needsanother maverick, but German providerxaitment reckons it's got a winningpolicy with version two of itsbehaviourally-based xait-Engine. Usinga goal-oriented finite state machine todefine transitions between AI events,

logic, probability and conditions, youcan set up the behaviour system (which works in terms of team-basedand autonomous configurations) using the FSM editor. The integratedNavMesh Generator also enables youto enter specifications about theenvironment which feed into theagents' world view.

Structure

Price: $499Company: Digidesign Contact: +44 1753 655 999www.digidesign.com

The latest Real Time AudioSuite virtualinstrument from Digidesign's AdvancedInstrument Research group, Structure is areal-time professional samplerworkstation for use with Pro Tools. Youcan drag-and-drop samples directly fromPro Tools while Structure's resizable in-built Sample Editor enables fast and easywaveform editing and sample mapping.

It also boasts a 128-level multitimbralsound engine, integrated multi-effectsprocessing engine, including convolutionreverb, and supports an unlimitednumber of nestable patches and up to 8-channel interleaved samples. It comesbundled with 20GB of sound librariesincluding Quantum Leap OrchestralElements.

Live 6 LE

Price: €129 (download)/€169 (boxed)

Company: Ableton Contact: +49 30 288 763 0www.ableton.com

Ableton has just released the cheaper, slightly cut-down LE version ofits Live 6 music production andperformance package. Limited totwelve simultaneous built-in audioeffects, eight built-in instruments, twoAU/VST effects and two AU/VSTinstruments per project, Live 6 LE stilloffers you the ability to use 64 audio

tracks and unlimited MIDI tracks perproject, with quality up to 32-bit/192kHz. More than 20 audio effects,including delays, filters, distortion andEQs are in-built, and the packagesupports VST and AU effects. Theboxed versions come bundled withSONiVOX and Puremagnetik samplesand loops.

OPENGL'S BREAK WITH THE PAST

The new release of Wwise takes it completely cross-platform,as well as offering more flexible licensing…

THE SECOND OF THE three promisedreleases this year sees a mixture of technicaland business changes come to Audiokinetic'sinteractive audio pipeline solution, Wwise.

With an explosion in the development ofsmaller games designed for digital distribution,the licensing model has been made moreflexible. You can now either choose a fixed, per-game fee, or pay royalties on a per-transactionbasis for games released on Xbox Live Arcade,PlayStation Network and WiiWare. A similarlymodified support programme is also available.

In terms of the technical additions, theheadline sees support for Wii, includingplatform-specific elements such as Wiihardware effects, integrated within the WwiseAuthoring application.

The Wwise Reverb system has been updatedtoo, with increased flexibility and parametercontrol provided so you can achieve theoptimal balance between audio quality,runtime CPU and memory use.

Other enhancements have been added tothe 3D mixing system, with the Game ObjectProfiler now including a 3D Viewer so you canprofile the real-time positioning and orientationof game objects and listeners.

Finally, Wwise 2007.2 sees the introductionof the Dynamic Dialogue system. A lightweightand efficient schema of user-defined rules forbuilding and managing dynamic dialogueaudio, it enables you to use sample-accuratedialogue stitching to create a wide range ofdialogue, including play-by-play commentary.www.audiokinetic.com

OLDER, WWISER

Wwise 2007.2

Price: Not applicableCompany: Khronos GroupContact: Not applicable

OpenGL 3.0

< audio >

OpenGL 3.0 sees the cross-platform graphics API lookingto the future…

Price: Available on requestCompany: AudiokineticContact: [email protected],+01 514 499 9100

40-41 Dev76_final 31/8/07 12:45 Page 2

42 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BUILD | GUIDE

Well shuffledThe pace of technology may have reduced the numberof companies offering workstation graphics cards, butit’s only increased the competition, says Jon Jordan

The 3D graphics card market is agreat example of howcompetition can create

oligopolistic conditions.Where there used to be half a dozen

vendors, each succeeding year hasseen companies falling by the wayside.Some, such as ImaginationTechnologies, 3Dlabs and S3, haveshifted their attentions to theembedded graphics space.

Similarly, Matrox now focuses oncommercial displays for enterprise,industrial, and government customers.Which just leaves Nvidia and ATI(AMD) offering cutting-edgeworkstation graphics cards.

The ironic thing is that with only twocompanies in the space, thecompetition has become even morefierce, as each furiously reacts to

counter the other. That’s one reasonwhy each now offers a much largerrange of products, from prosumerboards more akin to gaming cards (butwith better input/output options), upto processing servers such as Nvidia’sQuadro Plex visual computing system,which combine multiple highendgraphics boards.

Also feeding into this is the widerpush to programmability, which isblurring the line between graphics andgeneral processing.

Still, as Sony found out whenattempting to build PlayStation 3 justusing Cell-processors, there arefundamental difference between CPUsand GPUs.

Whether there’s any space forphysics and AI processors remains lessclear, though.

GRAPHICSCARDS

Claimed as the first workstationproduct to be backed with 2GB of GDDR4 memory, the FireGLV8650 is ATI’s DX10, Shader Model4.0 product.

Memory bandwidth is 128GB/sec, while the memory

interface is 512-bit. It can process700 million triangles per second andhas a fill rate of 44.8 billion texels persecond.

And with two DVI-I outputs, it cansupport two monitors up toresolutions of 3840 by 2400 pixels.

www.ati.amd.com

TECHNOLOGYFireGL V8650HOST PLATFORMSWindows VistaPRICE$2,799CONTACT+01 905 882 2600

ATI

Games development isn’t a priorityfor Matrox, which accounts for its topproduct being the ageing ParheliaPCI 256MB. Where Matrox graphicscards still impress, however, is theflexibility of their outputs, with twoscreen DualHead up to 2048 by 1536

resolution per display, and Dual-DVIup to 1920 by 1200 resolution perdisplay supported.

Other options include theTripleHead Desktop mode, where youcan stretch a 3840 by 1024 resolutionimage across three monitors.

www.matrox.com

TECHNOLOGYParhelia PCI 256MBHOST PLATFORMSWindows (2K, XP, Vista)PRICE$699CONTACT+44 1895 827301

MATROX

Taking the number one spot inNvidia’s workstation performancefamily comes the DX10, ShaderModel 4.0-supporting Quadro FX 5600.

Boasting 1.5GB of GDDR3 framebuffer memory, 384-bit memory

interface and graphics memorybandwidth of 76.8GB/sec, it canprocess 300 million triangles persecond and has a fill rate of 19.2billion texels per second. The resultis it can output to two 3840 by 2400resolution digital panels.

www.nvidia.co.uk

TECHNOLOGYQuadro FX 5600HOST PLATFORMSWindows VistaPRICE$2,999CONTACT+44 118 903 3000

NVIDIA

The Parhelia offers many display optionsThe V8650 has 2GB of RAM

The Quadro FX 5600 is designed for Vista

42-43 Dev76_final 3/9/07 09:53 Page 1

pack


TECH ADVICE | BUILD

VisibilityCullingADVANCED HIDDEN-SURFACE REMOVAL is an often overlooked task.

The default approach of view-frustum culling in software followed by z-buffering in hardware is easy to understand and straightforward to implement.But this approach does not scale well in practice, and performance tends todegrade as the number of draw calls in the view-frustum increase.

Thankfully there is room for improvement, and visibility algorithms havebeen developed to identify occluded objects at runtime for a given cameraview. Since these occluded objects do not contribute to the final frame bufferthey can be safely discarded without impacting the final rendered scene. Aswe evaluated different optimization strategies on MotoGP, we realized wecould significantly improve our runtime performance using visibility culling.

Visibility algorithms are often based on camera sampling techniques withdifferent levels of automation. In the early days at our studio, there was a visi-box system that required manual placement of visibility boxes into theenvironments. The designers would then specify which boxes were occludedfrom view when the camera entered each box. Although this could be a bitinaccurate and labor intensive, it got the job done.

The approach taken for MotoGP was more robust, and we were able tocapitalize on the hardware occlusion query support in DX9 to develop a fully-automated image-space visibility culling algorithm. The system runs offlineduring our nightly build and generates visibility data for each track byprocedurally animating the camera along the track spline at different positionsand orientations and capturing visibility ‘snapshots’.

For visibility sampling, the track spline is subdivided into 100 discrete sections.Each section has a visibility map (implemented as a simple bitmask) that recordsthe visibility of every renderable object in the scene. We render the scene in twopasses, laying down the z-buffer during first pass, and then issuing occlusionqueries to the GPU during a second pass and recording the result of each drawcall (in terms of number of visible pixels) to the visibility map.

At runtime, the system uses this ‘a priori’ information by mapping the in-game camera position onto the track spline to lookup to the visibility map forthe current track section. Armed with the visibility map, we can perform asimple bit-test to cull scene objects that are fully occluded (and subsequentlyskip their draw call). The system disables visibility culling in cases where thecamera strays too far from the track and falls back to basic view-frustum culling.

We were really impressed with the results of our visibility system. Track sectionsthat previously had thousands of scene objects were significantly reduced (by 50per cent or more), without any impact on the final rendered scene, or any reworkof the original art assets. The system also helped us streamline our productionpipeline as visibility data was automatically regenerated during the nightly buildafter an environment was modified and checked-in.

Setting up an effective hidden surface removal strategy can be a challenge,but by designing the system to be both accurate and efficient, the potentialbenefits (for performance and production) can easily justify the effort.

David Jefferies is away.

There’s not been much news recentlyfrom Israel company AIseek,althought it’s still making the roundsof game development shows todrum up support and, presumably,cash too. Its proposed Intiaprocessor is designed to accelerate

low-level artificial intelligence taskssuch as perception and pathfindingmovement and uses what thecompany calls a Graph ProcessingCore to handle search-intensivegraphs which have a high degree ofbranching.

www.aiseek.com

TECHNOLOGYIntiaHOST PLATFORMSWindowsPRICETBCCONTACT+972 3 612 0306

AISEEK

The ETA in Intia remains uncertain

The jury still seems to be out on the long term commercial future of Ageia’s PhysX’s physics-basedgraphic card.

But with the company launchingits first laptop-based card, the AGEIAPhysX 100M, the long term aim of

eventually shrinking it down ontomotherboards remains thecomapny’s goal.

And thanks to support within tech such as Unreal, Gamebryo andVision, the SDK is being usedextensively within development.

www.ageia.com

TECHNOLOGYPhysXHOST PLATFORMSWindows XP/VistaPRICE$200CONTACT+01 650 210 3753

AGEIA

PhysX card is getting smaller

by Matt Rubin

Senior Programmer,Black Rock Studio,Disney InteractiveStudios

42-43 Dev76_final 3/9/07 09:53 Page 2


BUILD | SOFTWARE

Emergent emergesThe final pieces of Emergent’s online game technology puzzle are soon to beannounced, but that’s not all...

An office in every continent?Since its 2005 merger, Emergent quickly branched out ofits North American homeland, opening a UK office toencourage European sales. In turn, this activity has beenstrengthened with the opening of an Eastern Europeanand Russia sales office in Wroclaw, Poland this summer.

“Our emerging markets are Eastern Europe, China andwe’re doing a hell of a lot of business in the SeriousGames space too,” VP John Goodale says.

But despite the company’s explosive sales growth inChina – Goodale claims revenues have risen more thanthreefold in the past 18 months – Emergent still doesn’thave a permanent presence in the country.

“Our Chinese sales are headed by David Brame who’sbased in North Carolina, while our Chinese fieldapplication engineer is based out of our Californian HQ,”Goodale says. “Having been involved in setting upcompanies in Asia, we’re dealing with the usual issue ofrisk versus reward in terms of whether you try to start yourown office or look for local partners.”

The dilemma should be concluded before the end ofthe year. Before then, however, Emergent expects toannounce a joint venture to handle sales in Japan, which isthe approach it’s already employed with considerablesuccess in Korea.

And that will leave Africa, Australasia and Antarctica.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for acompany that’s just raised $12million in new funding, there’splenty of activity going on behindthe scenes at US middlewareprovider Emergent.

The result of a merger betweenlongtime rendering specialist NDLand ambitious online servicescompany Emergent two years ago,the combined entity is now almostat the stage of unveiling the suite ofonline game development anddeployment tools it hopes willshake up the MMOG market.

“We’ll start talking about ouronline platform at the Austin Game Developers Conference,”confirms John Goodale, himself arecent change, coming onboard asvice president of marketing andbusiness development in early2007, after spending six months ofexternal consulting concerningEmergent’s expansion into China,Korea and Japan.

“Essentially, we’re partnering withbest-of-breed solution providers tooffer services such as billing,customer relations, provisioning,and boxes and bandwidth to enabledevelopers to launch onlinegames,” Goodale says.

“It’s something we’re interestedin selfishly as a company becauseit’s a scalable business, but becausewe also believe we can change theonline landscape. We’ll not onlymake it easier to release an onlinegame by providing the tools,services and solutions, but we’llenable developers and publishersto focus on what they do best –creating innovative games.”

In turn, these partnerships withthird party companies will bebacked up by new proprietary toolssuch as an online game serverengine that will slot into Emergent’sexisting line-up alongside productssuch as its Metrics, Automation andGamebryo technologies.

A number of early licensing dealshave already been announced withAustin-based MMOG developerOnline Alchemy signing up to useGamebryo and the Metrics, servermanagement and Automation tools,while Chinese outfit WinkingEntertainment is standardising itsfuture development around

Emergent’s technologies. UScompanies TimeGate and TrionWorld Network have also signed upto use the tech for their forthcomingonline games.

But with full details of the onlineproducts being held back for thetime being, Goodale is instead keento talk about the future ofGamebryo, both in terms of itsvalue to Emergent as well as thewider development community.

“Our Gamebryo business issuccessful and solid. If that was allwe were doing, we could beprofitable,” he reveals.

Indeed, the market for enginesthat can offer full cross-platformabilities, especially includingPlayStation 3, remains strong. It’s anarea Emergent is looking to pushfurther with its Floodgatetechnology.

A data streaming API that canoptimise the performance ofapplications running on anymulticore architecture, it’s beingheavily focused to make the mostuse of PlayStation 3’s SPUs.

“We’ve shown it to Sony andseveral large publishers andeveryone’s been very impressed,”Goodale says. “It’s currently pre-Alpha but we’re working hard to get it baked for a Q1 2008 release.”

This would see Floodgatereleased alongside Gamebryo v2.4,which will include new tools includinga fully featured terrain editor.

As for the issue of whetherFloodgate could be released as astandalone blackbox for integrationinto other engines, Goodale saysthe question remains up for debate.

“Right now it’s closely tied to

Gamebryo but it could beseparated out,” he muses.

And with the majority of that $12million investment earmarked forfurther research and developmentwork, the location for which hasbeen centralised in the company’sChapel Hill North Carolina office, itwill be interesting to see what otherproducts Emergent comes up withas it looks to further expand itstechnology offerings over thecoming months.

Top: Gamebryo 2.3,the current version,includes a scenedesigner

Middle: Roughlydisplayed,Floodgateoptimises dataprocessing acrossSPUs

Bottom: JohnGoodale, VP,marketing andbusinessdevelopment,Emergent

“We’ll not only make it easy to releaseonline games, but enable developers to

focus on innovation…”John Goodale, Emergent

KEYRELEASEPRODUCT: Emergent ElementsCOMPANY: Emergent Game TechnologiesPRICE: Available on requestCONTACT: +01 818 222 5355,[email protected]: www.emergent.net

44 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:00 Page 1

XX Dev74_final 18/6/07 17:33 Page 1

THE RESULTS FOR THE E3 Critics Choice Awards are inand two Unreal Engine-powered games combined to winthree of these most prestigious awards.

Congratulations to 2K Games Boston (formerly IrrationalGames) on winning Best Action/Adventure Game forBioshock. A demo of Bioshock is now available Xbox LiveMarketplace and the title should be in stores by the timeyou read this. In addition Bioshock is winning incrediblereviews. Game Informer and IGN.com both gave Bioshock10/10 scores and PC Gamer UK awarded Bioshock astunning 95 per cent.

Congratulations also to Bioware who won Best RolePlaying Game and Best Console Game for Mass Effect.This is the second year in a row Mass Effect has won forBest Role Playing Game and we’re anxiously lookingforward to its release soon.

Chair Entertainment also deserves our heartlycongratulations for walking away with IGN’s Best XboxLive Arcade Game for Undertow. According to IGN: “It’soriginal, perfect for short or long gaming sessions, and is

built around the multiplayer online experience. Plus itlooks gorgeous for a game that is only 50MB in size, likelythanks to the fact that the game is running on the UnrealEngine 3.”


BUILD | EPIC DIARIES

To discuss anything raised in this column or general licensingopportunities for Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, contact:[email protected]

FOR RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITIES PLEASE VISIT:www.epicgames.com/epic_jobs.html

Canadian-born Mark Rein is Vice President and Co-Founder of EpicGames based in Cary, North Carolina. Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 has wonGame Developer Magazine’s Frontline Award for Best Game Enginefor the past three years and Epic was recently awarded Best Studioat the Spike TV Video Game Awards. Epic recently shipped Gears ofWar, which broke Xbox 360 sales records. The studio is currentlyworking on Unreal Tournament 3 for publisher Midway.

MALLOCA, SPAIN-BASED TRAGNARIONStudios has licensed Unreal Engine 3 for theirupcoming game known as The Scourge Project.

According to the official announcement, “CarlJones, head of Tragnarion Studios, made thedecision to use Unreal Engine 3 after finding thatthe technology lived up to the high ambitions ofthe Tragnarion team” and that “Every singlefeature we want is easily implemented in Unreal -for all the major high-end platforms.”

Swedish game developer Star Vault haschosen to license Unreal Engine 3 for thecreation of their upcoming MMO game andaccording to their CEO they are takingMMORPGs “to the next level both in playerfeatures and in visual contents by using the mostpowerful game engine, Unreal Engine 3.”

Mark Rein looks back at the past month of Unreal activity… TRAGNARION ANDSTAR VAULT ARE NEWUE3 LICENSEES

upcoming epicattended events:TOKYO GAME SHOWMakuhari Messe, JapanSeptember 20th to 22nd, 2007

LYON GDC GAME CONNECTIONLe Palais des Congrès de LyonDecember 4th to 6th, 2007

GDC 2008San Francisco, CAFebruary 18th to 22nd, 2008

Please email:[email protected] appointments.

IGN ENTERTAINMENT’S GAMESPY has joined Epic’sIntegrated Partners Program and will incorporate theirsuite of industry leading online technologies into Epic’sUnreal Engine 3. GameSpy’s technology will beimmediately available to any publishers or developersthat license Unreal Engine 3.

By incorporating GameSpy’sonline technology into UnrealEngine 3, the two companies havecreated an integrated one-stopsolution for game developerslooking to leverage the world’s mostadvanced multi-player technologyand game engine in one package.The partnership will span both thePC and PlayStation 3 platformswithin Unreal Engine 3, enablingseamless PlayStation 3 and PConline functionality. Functionalityavailable to Unreal Engine 3licensees via GameSpy will include cross-platformgameplay, communication tools and competitionapplications.

“Epic and the Unreal Engine 3 are on the leadingedge of next-generation and multi-platform gaming,

and we are very pleased to join the Integrated PartnersProgram. GameSpy is committed to working togetherwith Epic to address a broad range of needs for theconnected gamer, including multiplayer matchmaking,in-game and out-of-game messaging, persistent player

communities, and competitionsystems,” said Jamie Berger, seniorvice president of consumerproducts and technology for IGNEntertainment.

“Over the past months we havefully integrated a broad suite ofGameSpy online technology inUnreal Engine 3 and have built afantastic working relationship withEpic. We look forward to extendingthat relationship with a number ofnew technologies customized forUnreal Engine 3 to be introducedover the next 12 months.”

By making available many leading community toolsand technologies, GameSpy will provide gamedevelopers with the opportunity to have PlayStation 3and PC users play, communicate and competetogether as a single community.

GAMESPY JOINS IPP

MORE E3 SUCCESS GREETSUNREAL LICENSEES

46 Dev76_final 3/9/07 12:03 Page 1

Rebellion Way

We have a certain way of making our games which is taking us in the direction we want.

We have our own engine Asura, our own tools, four award-winning studios and a myriad of

talent which we draw upon for every hardware format. Everyone who works for us has the

opportunity to voice their ideas and add value to our games to help with our continual

drive for innovation and quality.

To that end, we need two Producers with proven track records to work on our new global

franchised projects. They need good negotiation skills, a team-building mentality and a

desire to push the boundaries. In short, we need them to help us continue on our way,

so please follow the directions and get in touch.

VVaaccaanncciieess@@rreebbeelllliioonn..ccoo..uukk - Please provide a CV only.

For portfolios/showreels, please provide a link for download.

TIGA 2006 Award for ‘Best Developer’ & ‘Best Handheld/Console Game’,

BAFTA 2006 nominated and DEVELOP 2006 Award for ‘Most Improved Studio’.

JOIN THE REBELLION

51 Dev76_final 22/8/07 15:09 Page 1

48 Dev76_final 30/8/07 10:04 Page 1


AUDIO | BUILD

HEARDABOUT

When Adele Cutting tookthe role of audio directorfor the latest Harry Potter

game in which players can fullyexplore Hogwarts and ‘play the filmof the book’, her immediate focuswas dialogue, she explains:“Speech quality was a priority andso we really took control – includingthe script. A great script is thefoundation of great final speechassets and therefore we agreed tohave a specialist writer workingwithin the audio team – a first forthe series. I wanted the whole teamto be really aware of the dialoguebeing recorded for the game andthe potential for wastage andadditional pick-ups through scriptchanges. Naturally, these areinevitable but controlling thatchange is vital.”

Cutting’s approach was toconduct script read-throughs notonly with the direction and audioteam, but with the designers andprogrammers – and even key cutscene animators. She reflects:“Initially, there was some reticenceand of course, shyness from teammembers who’d rather die thanread a part out loud. However, itwas such a valuable (and enjoyable)experience that eventually peoplewere fighting over the parts! Anongoing, centrally co-ordinatedprocess resulted in everyone beingintimately familiar with the dialogue

– ultimately leading to enhancedquality. Walking around Hogwarts as Harry, you overhear otherpeoples’ conversations. Pupilsacknowledge you and even have a(convincing) chat.”

Another first for the erstwhileHarry Potter audio team was the useof ‘walla’. As well as general crowdmaterial embedded in the gameambiences, Cutting’s team recordedspecific walla groups – for instancethree to four people, so that movingclose to a group of conversingbystanders yields a natural sonicreality. Cutting: “After experimentalwork with the audio team, Campbelland Barney recorded groups of kidsusing a gibberish script, each childrandomly using one of 20 lines ofnonsense. It’s vital, especiallyworking with kids, to actually havesomething for them to say eventhough it’s not proper words. Thenyou direct their expression –cheerful or anxious or conspiratorialwhispering.”

A variety of walla moods enabledan implementation following thegame’s emotional contour –Hogwarts is being taken over by astrict and oppressive regime whicheventually gives way to a positiveatmosphere.

Another of Cutting’s priorities wasthe application of music, workingclosely with leading composer,James Hannigan, especially chosen

to write original score. Cutting: “Weconsciously avoided doubling upmusic and sound conveying thesame message and definitelysteered away from any sense ofmusical wallpaper. For me, this addsto the realism of the overallsoundscape. I’m delighted that, forthe first time, we had rights to useHedwig’s theme. It’s amazing howthat music says ‘Harry Potter’ and aswell as the plethora of wonderfuloriginal themes and cues he wrote,James did a great job of re-arranging Williams’ music to bedeployed interactively to thegreatest effect – again, following thecontour of the game’s narrative.”

According to Cutting, this stampof authenticity was heavilyunderpinned by the use of ‘off-screen sound FX and audiovignettes’. “Graphically, the worldof Hogwarts looks identical to themovie – the art guys evenphotographed the film sets. Butwhen it comes to making it feelalive, sound adds so much. A primeexample is when you’re in the greathall hearing the unseen world of thechildren in neighbouring corridors –for instance, letting off fireworksand laughing – it gives Hogwarts itspersonality.”

With recent chart ratingstestament to the game’s continuingsuccess, the audio team have onceagain raised the bar.

Harry Potter and theOrder of the Phoenix

FORMATS: PS2, Wii, PS3, Xbox, 360, Nintendo DS, PSPDEVELOPER: Electronic ArtsPUBLISHER: Electronic ArtsAUDIO TEAM:Adele Cutting (audio director), CampbellAskew (second audio director, coveringmaternity leave), James Hannigan (composer),James Slavin (audio lead), David Bond andDave Newby (sound design), Andy Walsh(script writer), Sam Turner (speech co-ordinator), Barney Pratt (in-house speecheditor) Gregor O’Hare (assistant in-housespeech editor), Jeremy Taylor (external speecheditor), Dom Smart (music editor/integrator);Andy Morris, Chris Adams, Tim Green, AdamCherbetji (audio programmers), Allan Wilson(orchestrator/conductor),Music Recording: Air Studios (LondonPhilharmonic/Pinewood Singers), Bratislava (Bratislava Concert Orchestra); GeoffFoster (engineer, London), Peter Fuchs(engineer, Bratislava), Donal Phillips (audiotester)

THE NUMBERS:Approximately 70 minutes of original music;1,750 sound effects; 7,200 lines of dialoguespoken by 103 actors, 25 from the originalmovie, playing 156 characters

John Broomhall is anindependent audiodirector, consultant andcontent [email protected]

www.johnbroomhall.co.uk

John Broomhall talks to Electronic Arts UK’s Adele Cutting about the audioproduction for Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix…

49 Dev76_final 3/9/07 09:55 Page 1

50 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BUILD | GAME ENGINES

engine roomLife in the

More and more studios are looking towards licensing existing technology to help them produce their game. But,asks Ed Fear, how do you choose which engine, and is it really the panacea it may seem?

As technology progresses andexpectations similarly increase,the barrier to creating

impressive titles becomes ever moredaunting. If you’re a developer withoutmuch of a technological framework tospeak of, licensing a third-party enginecan appear the best way to developyour game in time and on budget.

It’s a decision that comes with itsown perks and pitfalls. Usually theperceived greatest benefit that a pre-built engine brings is that of cost: it’scheaper to buy a solution that hasalready been written than to spend thetime doing so yourself. If you’ve beengiven a certain amount of money tomake a game, how happy will yourpublisher be to learn that you’re usingtheir time and money on thedevelopment of your in-housetechnology? No matter which way youlook at it, time and resources are beingdiverted from other areas that mayneed it more.

ENGINE TROUBLESAnd it’s a timely issue to discuss, giventhe on-going lawsuit between SiliconKnights and Epic, where the former issuing the latter over perceived lack ofsupport for Unreal Engine 3 thatresulted in SK building a bespokeengine for its new game Too Human.

John O’Neill, business director atVicious, the developers of the ViciousEngine, boils down the decision to twochoices: you either invest in yourtechnology or you invest in your game– and it’s clear which he thinks is moreimportant. “Given current gamedevelopment requirements, if acompany is founded on the businessgoals of making games – any type ofgames – then they should be focusingon building the game content itself.”

For Epic VP Mark Rein, though, it’simportant that developers realise thebenefits of having pre-built tools.While your art teams may have Maxand Maya to work with, if they’re doingso while your toolchain is still in a stateof flux, the pipeline for getting that

content into the engine is either ablocking point – or could, with just asimple change of functionality, forcechanges that require assets to be re-worked and re-exported.

“However, if you licence an engine,”he says, “you have the ability to get upand running early in the project. You’llprobably still need to spend sometime modifying the engine to suit thespecifics of your game, but you shouldat least be able to start to buildcontent and test your ideas.”

Gameplay programmers can beworking on scripts and level designerscan be working in the mapping toolsfrom day one. And it’s this saving oftime that can make all the difference,says Rein: “Being able to start earlierleaves more time for polishing and fine-tuning – the stuff that distinguishes agood game from a great one.”

DECISION TREEOf course, even if you decide to lookto external technology, there’s still thechoice of which engine to use. How doyou cut through the marketing andensure that you pick the engine thatbest fits your company?

“My main piece of advice would beto undertake thorough evaluations ofseveral competing technologies towork out which would be best suitedfor the project in hand,” says MikeGamble, business developmentdirector at Instinct, creators of theInstinct Studio engine.

“Don’t just try out the technologyitself – include a wider trawl of theinternet forums and ask other users totry and get a clear picture of theengine’s real capabilities.”

Using the free trial to accuratelydetermine actual performance issomething Rebellion CTO ChrisKingsley is adamant studios should do.

“Make sure you do your homework.Don’t just believe what people tell youabout their middleware – demand tosee it running on the platforms youneed it to run on, and get hands onwith the code.”

“If you licence anengine, you have

the ability to get upand running early in

the project…”Mark Rein, Epic

Unreal Engine 3 is rapidly gathering momentum

50-52 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:06 Page 1

While it’s important to keep in mindthe requirements of your game whileevaluating engines, it’s also importantto evaluate the company behind it.

“Choosing your middlewareprovider is more like choosing adevelopment partner – one that isresponsible for a sizeable portion ofyour code,” says Gavin Longhurst,director of business management atMMO engine company Bigworld.“Studios should also look closely attraining, documentation anddeveloper support.”

Support, of course, is a large issue: ifyou’re banking a big part (or even allof) your company on someone else’stechnology, you need to be sure thatthere’s someone on the other end tofix any problems that might crop up.

“If people have a question about aspecific engine feature, they don’twant to wait a day or two for theanswer - they want to call or email theirmiddleware partner and receive ananswer almost immediately,” explainsTrinigy’s Richard Radmacher.“Responsive feedback and immediatebug fixes are crucial for a smoothdevelopment process without delays.”

Many of the technology companieswe spoke to were in agreement on oneparticular point: it’s extremelyimportant that you know exactly whatyou want from an engine before yougo looking. And as Emergent CEOGeoffrey Selzer tells us, it’s importantto not only be thinking of what you

want from the engine now but yourfuture plans for your company.

“I think it really depends on whetheryou’re building a company or a singlegame. If you’re looking to make agame that’s similar to somethingalready out there – if you want to makea jungle-based FPS and you want toship it in 12 months – well, maybelicensing an engine like CryEngine 2would be the best idea.

“However, if you’re building acompany, you need a solid technologybase, a flexible framework that you canevolve upon. In that case, you need tolook at an engine that’s architected tobe more general-purpose.”

MIDDLEWARYFor those developers that largely usetheir own in-house engines, however,this last point – the future – issomething that they feel studiosshould be aware of. While middlewaremay seem the cheaper option at themoment of your decision, it’s importantto think how that choice might affectyour studio’s future.

If you build your own engine, youcan keep building on that technologybase as your studio progresses fromproject to project. However, if thattechnology base is interlinked withsomeone else’s engine, reusing thatbase will is likely to involve re-licensing– which can make that initial ‘cheaper’decision of licensing middleware costmore money in the long run.


GAME ENGINES | BUILD

“If you’re looking tomake a game

that’s similar tosomething already

out there, thenmaybe licensing

that engine is thebest idea…”

Geoffrey Selzer, Emergent

Monumental’s engine eases MMO development

Instinct Studio is a newcomerto the engine market

50-52 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:06 Page 2

52 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BUILD | GAME ENGINES

This cost is something Codemasterssaw as it began developing its new in-house engine, Neon, which itrecently debuted in DiRT. “By usingthe technology across more products we begin to see bigger and biggercost savings, as opposed to having tolicence middleware technologyfor more and more titles,” says GavinCheshire, VP of Codemasters Studios.“You actually do save developmenttime and hence costs by maintainingstrong support for your own tech.”

Also important to factor into thecost equation is how much of themiddleware is relevant to your game.

“Be realistic about how long itwould take you to write what youneed,” explains Andrew Oliver, chieftechnical officer at Blitz, which has

been using its in-house developedBlitzWare platform for over sevenyears.

“If you want a physics engine, thenit’s not a case of saying how long itwould take to write Havok – it’s howlong it would take to write what yourgame requires.”

The other problem with using anexternally built engine is one ofcontrol: the code you get is writtenand maintained by someone else.

“We’ve used middleware before, butfor us it was a sudden loss of control wecouldn’t stand. We’d always been in aposition to fix our bugs, but now therewere fixes that we had to wait for otherpeople to do,” says Oliver.

It’s a concern Rebellion’s CTO ChrisKingsley shares: “If we promise apublisher to deliver a game on time andto a high standard, it’s essential we canmeet our promises. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories of bugs in somemiddleware tripping up milestonedelivery and even submissions.”

MIDDLEGROUNDHaving an in-house technologyplatform is certainly a noble goal, butit’s also one that many are aware isunfeasible in certain situations.

“The benefit is huge, but so is theinvestment. If you’re a new start-upstudio, it’s a really tricky decision,” saysFrontier’s David Braben.

Oliver agrees: “Things havechanged a lot over the years. It wouldbe massively difficult and expensive tocreate a competent engine fromscratch now. If we were just startingout in business, I’d find myself forcedto buy an engine.”

It’s important to realise, though, that while you need to consider thefuture implications of your decision, itdoesn’t necessarily mean you’redoomed to keep following the path you’ve chosen.

When Valve had just started up andwas deciding whether or not todevelop its own technology, itevaluated its internal capabilities andrealised that no-one on the team hadexperience on building an engine.

“When we did that analysis,”marketing director Doug Lombardisays, “it was fairly obvious thatlicensing the Quake technology wasthe best choice – we could make Half-Life by adding some animation and AIcode and release our first product in areasonable amount of time.”

When it came to Half-Life 2,however, Valve found itself in a morefortunate position and was able tobuild its own engine, Source, which itnow licences out to other developers.

There is a comfortable halfwayhouse though: so-called modularmiddleware, which allows you todevelop the parts you feel capable ofdoing and licensing the others.

“Modular middleware givesdevelopers more options,” explainsVicious’ O’Neill. “They can now licensea full package and use everything thatis included by default, they can buy apre-built engine and enhance it withmodular solutions from other vendors,or they can build the core enginethemselves and include modularpieces as needed. It’s a great situation for developers.”

The answer to the dilemma may liein modular middleware, but one thingis clear: the decision is not one to betaken lightly. “Not all middleware iscreated equal: some is great and someis fatally flawed,” concludes Kingsley.“The history of middleware is litteredwith promises – so beware of the hotair, and do your due diligence beforeyou make your final decision.”

For more on this issue, plus extendedQ&As with the industry figures quotedin this article, head towww.developmag.com

“Things havechanged a lot – it

would be massivelydifficult andexpensive to

create a competentengine from

scratch now…”Andrew Oliver, Blitz

Emergent’s Gamebryo features in high-profile titles such as Civilization 4 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

UnrealEd has evolved significantly since its introduction in 1998

Hammer, the Source engine level editor, was a tool designed for Quake before it was acquired by Valve

Animation systems can be in-engine or modular

50-52 Dev76_final 31/8/07 13:06 Page 3

64 Dev76_final 22/8/07 15:07 Page 1

54 | SEPTEMBER 2007

BUILD | MOBILE

OpenKODEThe door is

Mobile developers now have a way to sidestep tricky platform fragmentation, says Ideaworks3D’s Tim Closs…

In the July issue (Develop 74) JonWee's article ‘The technologicalevolution of mobile games’ gave a

good summary of the ‘platformfragmentation’ challenges whichcurrently plague native mobile gamedevelopers.

In this response, I would like toexpand on Jon’s points, and alsohighlight that the industry has finallyagreed a solution to this problem byway of the OpenKODE initiative.

Platform fragmentation for nativemobile game developers amounts tothe following; how do I create a singleC/C++ codebase which can target allof the native deploymentopportunities (Symbian7/8/9/Series60/UIQ3, Brew, WindowsMobile 5/6, Mobile Linux, WIPI)? Someof these operating systems do noteven have full support for the Cstandard libraries.

For example, even a simpleoperation like checking for a keypressdiffers considerably between operatingsystems. The code in each case mightlook something like that shown inFigure 1 (far right). The brute-forceapproach to such differences is to writethe game to a single OS and then portthe entire codebase, ideally using low-cost outsourced labour. This is highlyinefficient, and does not solve one ofthe main challenges, which is toprovide simultaneous release across allplatforms (eg. to best leverage anymarketing spend).

A better solution istechnology based;devise a source-levelabstraction layer whichthe developer writes to,which is implemented(either by thedeveloper, or a 3rdparty) for each nativeOS. The operatingsystem services whichneed to be abstractedinclude input (eg.keyboard, stylus), fileaccess, memorymanagement, querying ofdevice properties (eg.screen size) and others.

Devising a source-level abstractionlayer whichcan be

“The industry has finally agreed to a fragmentation

solution by way of theOpenKODE initiative…”

54-55 Dev76_final 3/9/07 09:57 Page 1

implemented reliably and consistentlyacross all native operating systems is aconsiderable challenge. Operatingsystems vary considerably in theirapproaches to event handling,threading, usage of static data, andmore. However, as Jon suggests, ifsuccessful this approach would be ofenormous benefit to the industry,enabling publishers and developers tomaximise deployment to nativeenvironments.

Thankfully, after much hard work, theindustry has agreed such a solution inthe form of the OpenKODE initiative(www.khronos.org/openkode).OpenKODE is a standard which hasbeen put together by the Khronosgroup, and thus has industry-widesupport. To quote the Khronoswebsite: “The OpenKODE Core APIabstracts operating system resourcesto minimize source changes whenporting games and applicationsbetween native operating systems.”

The final specification is almostcomplete, and is almost certain to beratified before the end of 2007, as atleast two companies already claim tohave conformant solutions across allthe major native operating systems.

In the world of OpenKODE, thekeypress example above reduces tothe that shown in Figure 2.

It is highly likely that networkoperators will begin to mandateOpenKODE as embedded software, toenable the uptake of rich mediaapplications, thus driving datarevenues. Softbank Mobile (the thirdlargest operator in Japan) has recentlyannounced a partnership to bring anOpenKODE platform to their service(www.khronos.org/news/press/releases/rel41.html).

Ideaworks3D has over five years’experience in OS abstraction, and assuch we were chosen to be the editorof the OpenKODE OS abstractionAPIs. In our Airplay solution we havethe first commercially-availableOpenKODE solution. Uniquely, Airplaygoes beyond the source-levelcompatibility of OpenKODE toproviding full binary compatibilityacross all native operating systems.This means the same game binary(which is pure ARM code, not a virtualmachine instruction set) can be linkedand executed on Symbian7/8/9/Series60/UIQ3, Brew, WindowsMobile 5/6 and Linux Mobile. An x86version of the binary will also run onthe desktop or as an Active-X plug-in.Airplay also provides a full desktopARM binary simulator, courtesy ofARM’s RTSM tool.

Publishers including EA, Glu andSquare Enix have already used Airplayto bring native games to market,delivering a single game binary across

multiple operating systems. Publishersrecognise the enormous cost savingsin terms of porting, QA andcertification which the unique binarysolution brings.

In summary – native operatingsystems offer enormous opportunitiesfor rich media applications, includinggames. Until now, fragmentation in theunderlying operating systems has

limited the ability of developers totarget all of these platforms.

TheOpenKODE initiative, togetherwith implementations including Airplay,have finally brought a commercially-viable solution to the table. Now at lastthere is a cost-effective route to marketfor rich, console-quality native gamesacross a widerange of mobile devices.www.ideaworks3d.com


MOBILE | BUILD

// Symbian (assume main game class derived from required base class)TKeyResponse CMyAppCnt::OfferKeyEventL(const TKeyEvent& aKeyEvent, TEventCode aType){

if (aType == EEventKey && aKeyEvent.iCode == SYMBIAN_KEY_CODE){

// Do whatever}

}

// Brew (assume main game class derived from required base class)void GameMainCanvas::keyPress(uint16 key){

if (key == BREW_KEY_CODE){

// Do whatever}

}

// Windows Mobile - standard window message handlerLRESULT CALLBACK s3eWndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT uMsg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam){

if (uMsg == case WM_KEYDOWN && wParam == WINMOBILE_KEY_CODE){

// Do whatever}

}

#include "KD/kd.h"int kdMain(KDint argc, const KDchar* argv[]){

while(1){

// Update events, including keyboard.kdPumpEvents();

// Poll the state of 'Game key A' and put the result in// res. Game key A should be mapped onto whatever is the// device's normal fire button, so the game developer doesn't// have to worry about what that is.int res = 0;kdInputPollb(KD_IO_GAMEKEYS_A, 1, &res);

// Now see if our key is pressed.if (res){

// Do whatever.kdAssert(("It's been pressed", 0));

}}

}

Figure 1

Figure 2

54-55 Dev76_final 3/9/07 09:57 Page 2

56 Dev76_final 30/8/07 10:06 Page 1

STUDIOSAtomic Planet +44 (0) 1642 871 100Blitz Games +44 (0) 1926 880 000Beriah [email protected] Water [email protected] Games [email protected] Worlds +44 (0) 1382 202 821Rebellion +44 (0) 1865 792 201Stainless Games [email protected] Studios +44 (0) 1332 258 862Venom [email protected]

TOOLSbluegfx +44 (0) 1483 467 200 Epic Games +1-919-870-1516Instinct +353 (0) 9368 603Kynogon www.kynogon.comNatural Motion +44 (0)1865 250575Perforce +44 (0) 845 345 0116

SERVICES3D Creation Studio +44 (0) 151 703 0111Air Studios +44 (0) 207 794 0660Army of Geeks +44 (0) 7915 044 459Big Bean Audio +44 (0) 1482 874 885Fonic +44 (0) 207 729 1200Gamesure +44 (0) 845 890 1350Localsoft +34 952 92 93 94Partnertrans +44 (0) 1480 210 621SoundHound +1 212 575 8664Specialmove +44 (0) 141 585 6491Testronic +44 (0) 1753 653 722Think Tank +44 (0) 7712 885 934Tsunami Sounds +44 (0) 1483 410 100

COURSESGoldsmiths www.gamesgoldsmiths.comUniversity of Hull +44 (0) 1482 465 951

KEY CONTACTS

RATES1/4 page: £450 (or £200/month if booked for aminimum of six months)

To get your company featured here contact:[email protected] T: 01992 535 647


TOOLS:Deering

joins Geomerics

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Universityopens game lab

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The world’s premier listing of games development studios, tools, outsourcing specialists, services and courses…

57 Dev76_final 31/8/07 18:10 Page 1

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58 | SEPTEMBER 2007

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Studio NewsGames development’s movers and shakers.This month: Introversion, RealTime UK and PopcornIntroversionIndie darling Introversion has this month takenonboard another full-time developer, significantlyincreasing the size and production power of thecompany’s development team.

Leander Hambley joins Introversion after havingstudied Computer Science at the University ofSouthampton. As well as being a long standingmember of the Introversion community, he’s alsoparticipated in the beta-testing of all ofIntroversion’s games. He was initially employed todevelop a prototype of Defcon for a mobileplatform and will also be helping the team with therelease of their fourth title, codenamed Multiwinia.www.introversion.co.uk

RealTime UKThe art team welcomes twonew recruits into its fold thismonth, with Ben Robins (left)and Peter Kolus (right) bothjoining as digital artists.

Ben previously worked aspart of the NVisage CGi teamat Burrows WCJ, and previousto that worked for IF3D, on aStar Wars project forLucasArts. Peter has relocatedfrom Poland to start work atRealTime, and previously worked at Evermotion, one of the most renowned 3Dvisualization companies, where he specialised in creating life-like environments.www.realtimeuk.com

Popcorn ArcadePublisher DataDesign Interactivehas opened a newstudio for their Wiisoftware labelPopcorn Arcade,and supplemented its development team with another five staff, in what they say is their bid to‘become the biggest developer for the Wii’.

Lee Parke (far left), Samuel Hanke (second from left) and Gerard Mulcahy(centre) join the company as junior programmers while Marc Geahchan (secondfrom right) and David Wolsey (far right) enter the art department.

The new studio will be headed up by Robert Dorney, who has been with thecompany for nine years.www.datadesign.uk.com

ViacomViacom has hired former Take 2 Germany MD Arwed-Ralf Grenzbach for the roleof VP for videogames, music and special products at its Nickelodeon and ViacomConsumer Products division. Based in London, Grenzbach will oversee thedevelopment of NVCP’s international videogame, music and special productsstrategy spanning brands including MTV and Nickelodeon.

Prior to Take 2, Grenzbach worked at Disney and Sony Music and at Viacomwill report into Jean-Philippe Randisi, VP and MD of NVCP EMEA.www.viacom.com

studios

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Dark Water [email protected]

Fuse Games [email protected] www.fusegames.com

Beriah [email protected]

Real Time Worlds 01382 202821 www.realtimeworlds.com

WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM SEPTEMBER 2007 | 59

studios

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Stainless Games [email protected] www.stainlessgames.com

Strawdog Studios 01332 258862 www.strawdogstudios.co.uk

60 | SEPTEMBER 2007

studiosRebellion 01865 792201 www.rebellion.co.uk

Venom [email protected] www.venomgames.co.uk

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tools

Instinct +353 (0)74 9368 603 www.instinct-tech.com

Epic +1-919-870-1516 www.epicgames.comTools NewsPolish push for Emergent’sEastern European expansionEmergent has opened a newregional office in Poland, reacting tothe growing Eastern Europeandevelopment industry.

The office will be headed up byDave Solomon, who will work togrow relationships with EasternEuropean developers and provide on-the-ground support for the region. Bulgariandeveloper Black See and Russian studios Alterlab and Play Ten already useEmergent’s game technologies.

Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent, said: “We are seeing a great deal of creativityin terms of games, concepts and technologies coming out of the Eastern Europeangame development community.

“Emergent is very proud to be supporting what we view as some of the bestminds and talent in the industry as this segment of the market matures. DaveSolomon is a great addition to our team and we are happy to have him on board torepresent us in the region and lead our expanded operations there.”www.emergent.net

DEERING JOINS GEOMERICSGeomerics has appointed industry veteran Chris Deeringas a non-executive director.

Drawing upon roles as president of Sony Europe andchairman of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, aswell as earlier high-level positions at Columbia Picturesand Sony Pictures, Geomerics hopes he will provideinvaluable insight for the company as its Enlighten SDKnears completion.

Gary Lewis, CEO of Geomerics, said: “We’reabsolutely delighted to welcome Chris Deering to ourboard of directors. I’d be hard pressed to think ofanother person with his level of experience in theindustries our target market supplies.”www.geomerics.com

XAITING DEVELOPMENTSGerman artificial Intelligence toolcompany Xaitment has opened up anoffice in San Rafael, California in a move to bolster its work with Americangame studios.

The company has appointed Katja Reitemeyer as the CEO of the new office.Reitemeyer co-founded NXN Software, which originally developed the assetmanagement software Alienbrain, and she helped establish the firm’s salesoperations in the US, then overseeing the product after NXN’s acquisition by Avid.

“The US represents a great opportunity for xaitment,” said Dr. Andreas Gerber,xaitment’s group CEO.

“And Katja is the ideal person for helping us take advantage of its potential. Shepossesses a thorough understanding of the game development process and hasbuilt great relationships with many of the key players in the industry. We haveutmost confidence that she has the skill and experience to lead our company in theUS market.”

Also, the company has announced the second version of its Xait-Engine is nowavailable, designed to offer more realistic in-game behaviours.

The new version includes a hierarchical finite state machine and rules interpreter(which can be blended together to create different character movement) and alsothe new NavMesh Generator which lets developers define details about anenvironment and a bot with the system letting the bot navigate through without apredetermined path.

“We have always envisioned an AI solution that would offer game developers theability to go beyond simple pathfinding and decision-making,” said Gerber.

“The new xait-Engine will do just that. A new hierarchical Finite State Machine, anenhanced Rule Interpreter and a flexible NavMesh Generator will enable gamedevelopers to create more immersive games by easily programming bots with morelifelike actions and reactions.”www.xaitment.com

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www.kynogon.comFrance United Kingdom Canada

You’ve got the looks.

We’ve gotthe brains.

Kynapse A.I. Middleware

Kynogon www.kynogon.com Natural Motion www.naturalmotion.com

62 | SEPTEMBER 2007

toolsbluegfx 01483 467200 www.bluegfx.com

58-69 Dev76_final 31/8/07 18:01 Page 6


toolsPerforce 0845 345 0116 www.perforce.com

Develop Magazine 01992 535 647 www.developmag.com

TO BOOK YOURSPACE IN THE

CONTACT:KATIE RAWLINGS

[email protected]

Tel: 01992 535 647

PROFX

SpotlightTool

Described simply, ProFX is amiddleware solution for generatingand rendering procedural textures –but such a description belies thetechnology that powers it.

ProFX is split into two parts: theProFX runtime engine and MaPZonePro, a tool for authoring the maps.MaPZone Pro uses a node-based interface to enable artists to graphicallyproduce diffuse, specular, normal, emissive, alpha and other varieties of maps.Thanks to being procedural, generated textures are resolution-free, meaningthey can be scaled to any dimensions without artifacting. Seamless tiling is also anon-issue, and the tool comes with a library of ready-to-use texture maps.

The other benefit of being procedural is that the textures are stored asinstructions as opposed to image data, and thus are dramatically smaller thancomparable Photoshop-generated textures. Allegorithmic estimate that usingProFX will reduce a game’s entire dataset by between 20 and 50 percent, withProFX textures having a 300:1 space saving over DXT-compressed maps.

The ProFX runtime is used to generate the maps, which can be done at install-time, load-time or even on-the-fly, utilising CPU and GPU cores if required tospeed up generation.

Allegorithmic also offers a free version of MaPZone Pro, simply titledMaPZone, which allows hobbyists and modders to create the same high-qualitymaps but render them to bitmaps instead of for the procedural run-time. Thismeans that the textures can be used in any application or environment, and run-time support for XNA is currently being implemented.

ProFX is available as a self-contained runtime binary, which weighs in at 350kb,or as a patch for Unreal Engine 3 and Gamebryo.

CONTACT:FRANCEAllegorithmic37 Avenue LavoisierZAC des Varennes63173 AubièreFrancePhone: +33 (0)4 73 40 79 84Fax: +33 (0)4 73 40 50 01

USAllegorithmic3700 S Sepulveda Blvd - Suite 407Los Angeles, CA 90034U.S.A.Telephone:Phone (Cell): +1 213 268 9013Phone (Office): +1 310 876 0647

58-69 Dev76_final 31/8/07 18:01 Page 7

64 | SEPTEMBER 2007

services3D Creation Studio +44(0)151 703 0111 www.3dcreationstudio.com

Air Studios 0207 7940660 www.airstudios.com

Services News

TwelveJ has announced a range of trainingprogrammes specifically designed for gamedevelopment studios in collaboration withSCEE, Media Molecule and FreeStyleGames.

The programmes have been designed toaddress the concerns facing studios as theyexpand alongside the rest of the industry,with topic areas including ‘leadership forsenior management’ and ‘transition tomanagement for seniors and leads’. Courses take anywhere from two hoursupwards, and are presented as workshops,tutorials and seminars.

TwelveJ was founded by Kumar Jacob,who spent nine years taking responsibility forHR at Criterion as part of his role as vicepresident of corporate affairs.

“Having worked closely with developmentstudios of all sizes and shapes over the past 12 years, we understand the needs andchallenges they face as the industry continues to grow,” said Kumar.

“Training is increasingly important to maintain creativity, efficiency and strongmorale. This will directly impact on the quality of the game and the work practices.We not only cover areas such as management and leadership but also the functionalareas such as programming and art. Our programmes enable the developmentstudio to reach its goal whilst maintaining or changing its organisational culture. “

Jamie MacDonald, vice president of SCE Worldwide Studios Europe, added:“TwelveJ has been working closely with our European development studios, helping us to invest in the future by creating world-class training and staffdevelopment programmes.”www.twelvej.com

SONY ERICSSON LAUNCHES REMOTE TESTING SERVICESony Ericsson has unveiled a new online remote testingservice to speed up development of Java applications,including games. The Sony Ericsson Virtual Lab will provideJava developers with a means to develop, test, andmonitor applications on SE phones in a quicker andcheaper manner than before.

The online service is available globally 24/7 to allmembers of Sony Ericsson Developer World and providessupport for pre-commercial mobile phones released by thecompany. As a result, developers no longer need to investin device labs or even be physically present on anoperator’s network.

Ulf Wretling, general manager and head of contentplanning and management at Sony Ericsson, said: “Withthis launch, Sony Ericsson is responding to consistentdeveloper feedback about the importance of having earlyaccess to phones and prototypes for testing purposes.”

The service allows developers to remotely access 2007phones that are not yet commercially available, and hasgone live with six mass-market feature phone modelsannounced in 2007.www.sonyericsson.com

ANIMAZOO OPENS SECOND LIFE SHOPMotion capture system developer Animazoo has opened a shop in Second Life,selling animations to the residents of Linden Labs’ virtual playground. The shop,located at ‘Animazoo, QA Business Park’, sells a range of high-quality animationswith prices ranging from 50 to 300 Linden dollars (about 8.5p to 50p).

Animazoo marketing director, Jo Hull said: “Animazoo motion capture systemsallow people the freedom to express themselves more fully through their avatarsthan previously possible.

“How you look is important in Second Life, and our system gives the usermuch more scope to look and move naturally and express themselves. The shopis an ideal extension of our brand into an environment that really benefits frommotion capture, enhancing the Second Life user experience.”www.animazoo.com

TwelveJ offers bespoketraining for game developers

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WWW.DEVELOPMAG.COM

services

SEPTEMBER 2007 | 65

Gamesure 0845 8901350 www.gamesure.com

Army Of Geeks 07915 044 459 [email protected]

Fonic +44 (0) 207 729 1200 www.fonic.co.uk

BigBean 01482 874 885 www.bigbeanaudio.com

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66 | SEPTEMBER 2007

services

SoundHound +1 212 575 8664 www.soundhound.com Specialmove +44 (0) 141 585 6491 www.specialmove.com

Partnertrans 01480 210621 www.partnertrans.comLocalsoft (+34) 952 92 93 94 www.localsoftgames.com

58-69 Dev76_final 31/8/07 18:02 Page 10


servicesTestronic 01753 653722 www.testroniclabs.com Think Tank 07712 885 934 www.thinktankstudios.co.uk

Ian Livingstone/Tsunami Sounds 01483 410100 www.tsunami.co.uk

FACTFILEArea of expertise: Audio for gamesLocation: UK and North AmericaFounded: 1997Number of Employees: 15W: www.side.com

Key Personnel: Andy Emery (managing director), Andrew Barnabas (musicsupervisor), Paul Arnold (sound design supervisor)

Recent work:� Heavenly Sword (Sony), Dragon Quest VIII (Square Enix)

Currently working on:� Age of Conan (Funcom), Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts)

Based in state of the art facilities in London’s West End and drawing onresources worldwide, Side claims to be the UK’s leading sound productioncompany for the gaming industry. The team includes scriptwriters, castingdirectors, voice directors, musicians and sound designers, covering allaspects of outsourced audio development.

SIDE UKGreat Titchfield House14-18 Great Titchfield StreetLondonW1W 8DB

Tel:+44 (0) 20 7631 4800E-mail: [email protected]

SIDE UK

SpotlightServices

58-69 Dev76_final 31/8/07 18:02 Page 11

68 | SEPTEMBER 2007

courses

The University of Hull +44(0) 1482 465951 www.mscgames.com

Goldsmiths +44 (0)20 70785052 www.gamesgoldsmiths.com

Training NewsSAE Institute launches UK games courseAnother course forbudding gamesdesigners is to launch inthe UK later this year viathe co-founding of a newLondon college by theSAE Institute.

Called Qantm UK, it follows on from SAE’sfounding of QantmAustralia, which wascreated to provide education in video games programming, creative design and 3D animation.

SAE was formed as the School of Audio Engineering in 1976 but has over theyears diversified to include 3D media and since 1998 has offered full universitydegrees thanks to a partnership with Middlesex University.

The new college in the UK will offer certificate, diploma, bachelors and mastersqualifications and Qantm already has industry partners ready to make a course thatis relevant and practical.

Nic Oliver from Qantm UK commented: “With such a vibrant games, web andmultimedia industry, the UK was always going to be a prime choice to benefit from a Qantm educational facility. The new London college will meet the demands of a flourishing local industry keen to employ the best students for some of the most exciting careers.

“The facility is equipped with the latest technology and a huge variety ofhardware and software to help give a solid grounding to students in all commonwork practices in the industry.”

He added: “Experience from the Australian Qantm course shows that workingclosely with the industry yields great dividends in terms of relevant and practicalcourse content and, consequently, higher employment opportunities. Qantm UK willfollow this important and successful direction, providing very industry focusedcourses with the flexibility to allow specialisation in specific areas of the industry.

“With the games market exploding with next-generation activity and webdesigners in such high demand there’s never been a better time to consider a careerin interactive entertainment and new media,” he said.www.sae.edu

COLOGNE GETS GAME LABCologne’s University of Applied Sciences is to launch a new masters games courselater this year as part of its brand new Cologne Game Lab.

The course is being designed to bring together fields in game design, audiovisual design, programming and management into one interdisciplinary curriculumwhile the lab will look to improve research in those fields.

The university also say that course will be designed as broad and international aspossible, with plans to make the Cologne Game Lab the only institution of its kind inEurope thanks to the way it will mix games development and research.

“Cologne Game Lab draws on the rich body of research at Cologne University ofApplied Sciences,” said Prof. Dr. Joachim Metzner, the university’s rector.

“The establishment of the CGL will allow us to build on our previousachievements in the area of computer games. The interdisciplinary approach thatwe will take to teaching and research reflects the complexity of the subject matter.”

He added: “The new knowledge and skills that will emerge will be important notonly for the entertainment software world, but also reflect an interest of society as awhole: building up knowledge and experience of games.”www.colognegamelab.org

58-69 Dev76_final 31/8/07 18:02 Page 12

www. mag.com

ONLY ONE WEBSITE

NEWS

CHARTS

KEY RELEASE

TUTORIALS

EVENTS

OPINION

ANALYSIS

INTERVIEWS

JOBS

Dev Ad for MCV_003.qxd 23/7/07 16:50 Page 2

GOLD

It seemed a simple enough task. TheSecret of Monkey Island was, as I recall,one of my favourite Amiga games, so

getting SCUMM running on my newNokia Internet Tablet seemed likeliterally the best idea ever.

I’m kind of addicted to getting gamesrunning on inappropriate formats. TimeCrisis on iPod is my ultimate goal –complete with lightgun, obviously. Soinstalling a celebrated emulator on anopen-sourced operating system shouldhave been a breeze.

The Nokia 770 runs on a Linux-basedsystem, which I’d never used before. Itsbinaries appear mysteriously scatteredacross the far reaches of the World WideWeb, for no apparent reason than toconfuse newbies. Typing INSTALLSCUMM proved ineffective. “Why wouldI want to do that?” answered the device.“I don’t think so,” came its secondscripted reply. Already, I was tempted totype “fuck off, then” but rememberedthe trouble Charles Cecil got into in oneof his early text adventures when hejoked about raping, only for The Sunnewspaper to find out.

It quickly became obvious that Ineeded to DOWNLOAD theSOFTWARE from the INTERNET. Onlytrouble was – the PC had been split intothree pieces which had be scatteredthroughout my house.

I spent four fruitless hours proddingliterally everything in my house with myfinger, hoping to spot some kind of right-

click option with which to interact.Knowing no better, I decided to pick upthe DECAF COFEE, HAMSTER, COINOF MONEY and everything else notnailed down to the floor, all of which fitperfectly into my POCKETS OF INFINITESIZE. The PC was eventuallyreconstructed using theMOTHERBOARD, GRAPHICS CARD,and MONITOR and UNIVERSAL USBHUB. Once I’d constructed theMONITOR from the GLASS WINDOW,CATHODE RAY TUBE and powered it upusing the HAMSTER and WIRE andPLUG and ELECTRICTY. I’d tried to gethold of the HUMAN INTERFACE DEVICEby BUYING it from a SHOP, but that,obviously, proved ineffective. I had to getthe BUNCH OF KEYS off the SLEEPINGGUARD and NAIL them to a BOARD.Obvious, really.

Sourcing the games was an additionalchallenge. Obviously I own The Secret ofMonkey Island, but the Nokia Tabletdoesn’t have an AMIGA FLOPPY DISKDRIVE. Thinking illogically, I decided totry SHRINK the DISK in theMICROWAVE, but this just MADE MYKITCHEN SMOKE A BIT. Instead, I HIDMY MORALS and got a friend to emailthe files over. I kind of liked the IRONY,what with it being a game aboutPIRATES, etc.

After much tinkering, and WORKINGOUT WHERE THE MEMORY CARD’SFILES COULD BE ACCESSED FROM INTHE RUDIMENTARY FILE MANAGER,

the game booted. And then, like the lesswrinkled, slightly happier version ofmyself some 17 years ago on an AmigaI’d convinced by then-girlfriend to buyme if she wanted me to move in with her,I became instantly BAFFLED at what Iwas supposed to be doing.

I tried CONVINCING MYSELFADVENTURE GAMES WERE GOOD, butI COULDN’T. I’d spend hours on theTube to use objects with otherinappropriate objects, and then gettingfunny looks from other passengers as Iswore randomly.

Text-based and, subsequently, pointand click adventures were hugelypopular back in the day. Turns out, ‘theday’ was when gamers were happy tospend hours trying to use one unrelatedobject on another and being barrackedby sarcastic in-game commands in orderto accidentally solve a puzzle with aliterally incomprehensible solution.Ordinary tasks were split intomaddeningly complicated challenges,making a quest to open a doorsomewhat akin to assembling a jigsawwith no image, whilst blindfolded andwearing mittens.

Thankfully, the Nokia Internet Tabletbroke shortly afterwards – probably ofboredom, too – and I ended up gettinga full refund from Expansys. My emails toRon Gilbert demanding a full and frankapology for wasting my time twice andmy money once remain [email protected]

thebyronicmanSimon Byron tries downloading the past…

70 | SEPTEMBER 2007 DEVELOPMAG.COM

“Installing acelebrated emulatoron an open-sourcedoperating system

should have been abreeze…”

Publication dateOctober 5thBUILD guide NetworkingBUILD special feature Motion capture

Publication dateNovember 2ndBUILD special feature Artificial intelligenceBUILD guide Security

BUILD guide Source/process toolsBUILD special feature Character animationRelated Events Lyon GDC 2007

BUILD special feature Art toolsRelated Events GDC 2008

BUILD special feature Audio tools

BUILD special feature Asset management

develop FORWARD PLANNER

EDITORIAL enquiries should go through to

[email protected],

or call him on 01992 535646

To discuss ADVERTISING contact

[email protected],

or call her on 01992 535647

november 2007

october 2007 dec/jan 07/08

february 2008

march 2008

april 2008

70 Dev76_final 3/9/07 10:57 Page 1

cre ateIn Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft used Autodesk® 3ds Max® software to create a hero character so real you can almost feel the coarseness of his tunic.

i n t eg r at e Using Autodesk® HumanIK® middle-ware, Ubisoft grounded the assassin in his 12th century boots and his run-time environment.

a n i m ateAutodesk® MotionBuilder™ software enabled the assassin to fl uidly jump from rooftops to cobblestone streets with ease.

Autodesk, MotionBuilder, HumanIK and 3ds Max are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. © 2007 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

HOW UBISOFT GAVE AN ASSASSIN HIS SOUL.

autodesk.co.uk/Games

83 Dev75_final 2/8/07 11:22 Page 1

84 Dev75_final 30/7/07 10:27 Page 1

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Develop - Issue 76