SLO News :: Nov. 2, 2004 (Because I have nothing better)
It's been another couple of days of growth, and we've done a lot more from the design perspective since Sunday. The design document is growing pretty quickly, and Jason is actually planning on helping out a bit once he's sure he understands the level of technical detail required. Also, in other news regarding Jason- he's set up a very well-organized system for voice recordings, and if you're interested in helping out, you're more than welcome to contact either Jason or myself.
We've also been doing some other organizational stuff, like writing up lists of the needed animations and all that whatnot. In the paraphrased words of George Goldstien, "it's amazing that this game has been this successful without design documentation." Meh. Regardless, we'll see how much better it gets with it.
Two new models ready to be skinned from Elfo in the creatures wing today, including (finally) one of Shay's: the floppy-eared puppy. This little feller will mostly likely be found running around the streets of cities like Aequin and Shila. Also, we've got Wilberg, a very odd critter with a very odd tail. This is one of those monsters that I'm personally going to enjoy killing.
Just as a brief summary of the rest of development, Alex has begun the male base model in humans, Jason has done 3 voice command sets in sound, Mike and George are working feverishly to keep up with Amanda (she's a machine), and we're hammering out the conventions on the code-side. If there's one thing I've found, is that organization is very much key to successful team-based coding, and especially in a web-based team. I've managed several group projects where communication was in-person, and I could actually look at my cohorts' code, but when the code is being developed halfway around the world, it's very important to have all the conventions clarified and the method's matched.
Finally, it's time for an update on our latest recruits. M. Padzunas and Z. Ryan are both presenting their versions of foliage which will bring the world to life. It seems to me that Mr. Padzunas will be best suited to "specialty" type things, whereas Mr. Ryan might be a bit quicker in producing more traditional styles of vegetation. In the event that only one of the two can be chosen, it's going to be a tough call. Mr. Ryan is definitely faster, but would require us to produce textures for him, whereas Mr. Padzunas creates some slightly more original and self-sufficient works. We'll just have to see how it goes. It might be possible to do both. Of course, I really need to get a hold of Matt Masseth, as it's been a day or two since I've seen him.
Finally, there's an architectural concept artist applicant who's begging for attention. This'n's almost a guaranteed acceptance. Welcome Paul Fassett to the scene, folks. From talking to him, he's demonstrated a great deal of independence, while being able to grasp and follow predefined concepts and play with them very nicely. He is also immensely widespread in skills, and can do many different types of 2d and 3d art. His application, a rough sketch of a building in the town of Aequin, shows just a brief glimpse of his anal-retentiveness and capability that is required for such a nitpicky job as architectural design. Anyway, I'll stop bragging on him for now, seeing how this design document isn't gonna write itself!
We've also been doing some other organizational stuff, like writing up lists of the needed animations and all that whatnot. In the paraphrased words of George Goldstien, "it's amazing that this game has been this successful without design documentation." Meh. Regardless, we'll see how much better it gets with it.
Two new models ready to be skinned from Elfo in the creatures wing today, including (finally) one of Shay's: the floppy-eared puppy. This little feller will mostly likely be found running around the streets of cities like Aequin and Shila. Also, we've got Wilberg, a very odd critter with a very odd tail. This is one of those monsters that I'm personally going to enjoy killing.
Just as a brief summary of the rest of development, Alex has begun the male base model in humans, Jason has done 3 voice command sets in sound, Mike and George are working feverishly to keep up with Amanda (she's a machine), and we're hammering out the conventions on the code-side. If there's one thing I've found, is that organization is very much key to successful team-based coding, and especially in a web-based team. I've managed several group projects where communication was in-person, and I could actually look at my cohorts' code, but when the code is being developed halfway around the world, it's very important to have all the conventions clarified and the method's matched.
Finally, it's time for an update on our latest recruits. M. Padzunas and Z. Ryan are both presenting their versions of foliage which will bring the world to life. It seems to me that Mr. Padzunas will be best suited to "specialty" type things, whereas Mr. Ryan might be a bit quicker in producing more traditional styles of vegetation. In the event that only one of the two can be chosen, it's going to be a tough call. Mr. Ryan is definitely faster, but would require us to produce textures for him, whereas Mr. Padzunas creates some slightly more original and self-sufficient works. We'll just have to see how it goes. It might be possible to do both. Of course, I really need to get a hold of Matt Masseth, as it's been a day or two since I've seen him.
Finally, there's an architectural concept artist applicant who's begging for attention. This'n's almost a guaranteed acceptance. Welcome Paul Fassett to the scene, folks. From talking to him, he's demonstrated a great deal of independence, while being able to grasp and follow predefined concepts and play with them very nicely. He is also immensely widespread in skills, and can do many different types of 2d and 3d art. His application, a rough sketch of a building in the town of Aequin, shows just a brief glimpse of his anal-retentiveness and capability that is required for such a nitpicky job as architectural design. Anyway, I'll stop bragging on him for now, seeing how this design document isn't gonna write itself!