Chris Jones

Close enough. Chief Technology Officer.

So far, none of the people from Full Sail that have applied for programming positions at Obsidian have been hired. Two people from Digipen have. And I've tested and interviewed others from Digipen that impressed me. This isn't to say Full Sail is a bad school - this is just relating the experience I have had with applicants from each school. I've also reviewed the curriculum of both schools, and if I had to recommend one over the other, it would be Digipen. That said, like any school you will get out of it what you put into it. If you don't dedicate yourself while you are there and instead just do the minimum to skate by, you probably still won't make it through the interview process at any decent game developer.

If you sent the e-mail to jobs@obsidianent.com, you should have received an automated response.

I remember Chris Jones being pretty good at Quake 3 and Wolfenstein. I can't really keep up in FP deathmatch games, so I go for teamplay, which I enjoy more anyway. We've got several good FPS players here and it's difficult to judge who the top gun is when playing team games (the only thing we play right now is onslaught maps in UT2K4, and occasionally BF:VN). But if I had to pick one person, it would probably be Adam Brennecke. And the best sniper award would probably go to Akari Heck, I think I'd have a hard time qualifying for the top 10 around here. I must be getting old...

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?ac...indpost&p=22960

OK, this list may seem a little weird, but you have to keep it in the perspective that I recently bought my 4 year old son and 6 year old daughter GameBoy Advance SP's for their birthdays So lately I have been playing: GBA Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 Barbie: Groovie Games Justice League Chronicles Disney Princesses Power Rangers Ninja Storm Dora the Explorer: The Hunt for Pirate Pig's Treasure Rescue Heroes: Billy Blazes (until my son lost the cart) Polly Pocket: Super Splash Island Secret Agent Barbie Xbox MotoGP Sega GT 2002 PC Battlefield Vietnam Call of Duty Far Cry Max Payne 2 (just about to start) PalmOS Ricochet Cribbage 2.1 Aldon's Crossing Video Poker And I play a lot of Scrabble online against a friend of mine who works at Treyarch.

RTS games don't interest me much, but I would love to do a FPS or a first person action/RPG game someday.

I've played it through twice (LS & DS), and have gone back through saved games and played certain areas to catch some things I knew I missed previously.

In addition to what Frank said, for learning C++ I would recommend "Thinking in C++ by Bruce Eckel". The first edition seemed like an easier read for the novice for some reason, but that could just be me. The revised second edition is good too, but not as easy a read. Oh, and all of Bruce Eckel's books are available on his web site for free download. For OpenGL, I would skip the books entirely and just go through the tutorials on NeHe's site. There is plenty of material there to get you comfortable with OpenGL.

Typical employment agreements in this industry are of the form "everything you produce while you work here belongs to us, even if done during off hours". However, I don't think I have ever heard of a case where an employer has exercised that against an employee doing something for fun in his spare time. And at the time of your hire, you are usually given the opportunity to list any projects you currently have that you wish to retain rights to. Something that is definitely not tolerated though is using any assets, code, etc. that were developed for the company in your side projects.

If you already have a programming career, you also need to understand that you most likely will have to take a huge pay cut to get into this industry. Programming experience in other industries generally doesn't carry a lot of weight in games. At best an experienced developer from outside the industry would be able to come in at somewhere between a junior and intermediate salary level. And Java isn't really used at all. If you are going to do a demo or something, it would be better to brush up on your C++ skills again. Good luck!

Or could it be that the developers are just busy working on their next game? Any time you are going to release something to the public, even something 'unsupported', it takes someone's time to collect all the bits and put it together in one package. And most developers do not document data structures and the like, as everything changes too frequently during development. Another factor is 3rd party code. Many games rely on libraries or licensed technology (thus do the tools) that cannot legally be released to the public unless they want to pay up additional license fees. Removing such things from the code to replace them with free alternatives would be a very time consuming task, if a free alternative even exists. And more often than not, many of the tools and processes used to create games are built under the pressure of deadlines to get the game done resulting in undocumented, non-userfriendly stuff that would be almost useless to release to the public anyway.

Obsidian does intend to develop its own tools and engine technology. However, when a game using that technology will actually be released depends on many factors. With KotOR 2 for example, it would not have made sense for us to use our own engine. For other projects, it really just depends on what the project is, how much time we have to develop it, whether it is a sequel or original title, etc.

I know Softimage XSI, and I went and tried to use 3dmax, and it took me like 3 times as long to do the same thing. It was hilarious. Different programs have their strengths and weaknesses. Some things are easier/more efficient to do in max, some in Lightwave, some in Maya, etc. People tend to pick the one they know the best and/or learned first and complain about all the others. The best artists I know understand the strengths and weaknesses of each package and can easily switch back and forth among them.

What impresses me the most is seeing a completed game that I can play, rather than a bunch of buzzword techniques wrapped up in a demo that very loosely represents what could possibly be described as or used in a 'game'. A graphics demo != a game demo. In other words, don't get caught up thinking you need to have a lot of fancy features, just make a fun little game. There are a lot of different aspects to game programming, not all of which are considered fun or interesting to a lot of people. Yet they are still things that need to get done. Having a playable game, even if it doesn't have crazy graphics and physics, shows me that you have the perseverance and passion that it takes make it in this industry. It also shows you what making a game is really all about and gives you a chance to decide if it is really what you want to do for a living. When approaching something like this, you should set your sights low at first, and once you have something playable just iterate it and continue to add features and try new things. If you start off with this big checklist of complex technical features, chances are you will never end up with a working game/demo. And no, I generally don't care at all about what the art looks like. Programmers need to be able to know their way around art tools and create basic art for testing purposes, but I certainly don't expect them to be good at art.

Just pick one and learn it. Whichever is easiest for you to obtain. It really doesn't matter. If you become proficient in one, you should be able to learn another pretty easily.

This discussion isn't about game design, it's about programming. Programming is very technical, and requires a lot of education (either formal or self) to be good at it. I do agree that even with programming people either have the talent or they don't. But even with the talent, those without the education don't have the background to make the correct decisions on a daily basis and usually waste a lot of time trying to solve problems that have already been solved. For a school like Digipen, the focus is on the technical aspects (at least for programmers). The difference between somewhere like Digipen and a UC, is that Digipen will provide you with a foundation that is more specific to game development, rather than just a general purpose CS degree.

We currently aren't doing any internships, but that doesn't mean we are opposed to doing them. I think we have just been too busy to pursue it much yet. If you have skills that would be applicable to an internship here, then you should follow the directions on our website and send us your resume.

Digipen. I used to be pretty ignorant of their program, and discounted them as a gimmicky school. But recently they sent us some information and a course catalog in the hope that we might be interested in doing internships or hiring graduates, and I must say I was impressed with what I read. I then had the opportunity to interview someone who is graduating from there for a position at Obsidian. Again, I was both impressed with the candidate and with the experiences he described of Digipen. That said, the best way to get attention when trying to get a job in the industry is to show you have a passion for it by making small games yourself or modding existing games. Having the degree helps, because it shows you understand the fundamentals. But a degree alone won't get you a job in this industry.

Although I have one, I didn't used to think a degree in CS was that important for game programming. I've changed my opinion about this over the years. I've seen too many game programmers that don't understand the 'basics' - algorithms, data structures, pointers and memory management, what goes on 'under the hood', etc. Good general programming skills and the ability to solve problems are more important than being particularly skilled at one thing or another. A good programmer can always learn an API or technique quickly, whereas a programmer who is only skilled at certain things will have a harder time transitioning as API's and technologies change (which they do constantly in this industry). Understanding C/C++ is important because that is what most games are written in. Understanding more languages is even better, because it shows that you are flexible and can learn other paradigms. Don't get caught in the trap of thinking that OOP and C++ are the 'one true way' to program. Many programmers straight out of college these days are afraid to touch the compiler until they have properly modeled everything in UML 3 or 4 times. Get over it. By the time you are 'happy' with your design, our deadline has passed. We need working code, not diagrams. Make games or mod existing games. Having a game or mod to present with your resume goes a long way toward showing that you really want to do this. A lot of people think working in the game industry would be cool, but really have no idea what they are getting into. Completing a game or mod on your own or with a group of people shows that you have at least some understanding of what you are getting into, and that you are serious about pursuing it. Kenn Hoekstra from Raven Software has a web page that is worth a read: Getting A Job In The Game Development Industry Hope this helps.