ICEC in Pittsburgh

We all headed back to CMU last week to attend the International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC). The ETC was one of the sponsors, and put on a great event. Some of the highlights included a great talk by the ETC's own Jesse Schell, the presentation of the Randy Pauche award to Ed Catmull followed by Ed sharing his insights, and an entertaining lunchtime talk from Anthony Daniels (C3PO), and Stan Szymanski of Sony Imageworks sharing some behind-the-scene secrets from the studio. Not to mention an open house at the ETC and the opportunity to see Don's newest acquisition: a lifesize Princess Leia in the hallway.

After the conference, the Tea & Sugar Train team visited the USS Requin at the Carnegie Science Center to see how the interactive displays done by ETC there work.

Hatch Update

As our first application nears completion, the Hatch team is looking ahead to our next challenge: a game to be played on a sphere. We're quick-protoyping a few ideas, and I managed to use a discreet cell-phone camera to sneak some images past myself and post them on this blog.

This prototype is a platformer that wraps around the globe, set against stolen images from Mario 3 and starring Dotman Uglyhat, the Placeholder Hero.



That's Dotman! And here he is in his prototype adventure, Dotman Uglyhat and the Lawsuit of Miyamoto.



Dotman chills with Mario (DISCLAIMER: Mario is part of the background. You cannot chill with him).



Dotman prepares to stomp a Koopa Troopa (DISCLAIMER: background again. Do not attempt to interact with the Koopas).



Dotman readies himself to enter a pipe (DISCLAIMER: although the pipe possesses collision detection, you cannot travel through it. Also, that pipe doesn't even work in the original game, so what are you complaining about?).

HR Management Culture Introduction (Create. Innovate. Play. Repeat)

Colleen McCreary, the Director, Corporate HR & Diversity of EA Redwood Shores, come and gave us a talk to introduce the culture of HR management. She shared her great experience of her work and also gave us feedbacks to our resumes at the end.

The talk covers following topics:

EA Corporate Profile 2008

Reorganization

People

Marcket of dynamics

Culture of innovation

How is HR different at EA

What are they looking for

What are they NOT expecting

R&D

Interview strategy

Colleen talked about the history of EA. She gave us some examples to demonstrate how they take care of the interpersonal relationships through different existent and potential problems they encountered.

HR has guidelines, not rules. All of their politics are "local." How management works, how things get done, could be very different in different places. Ideas/Creativity/Risks are rewarded; Even might be failed, goals should be thought higher. Everyone needs to contribute to minimize hierarchy. They try to implement advancement by achievement, not tenure. HR also takes care of comforatble benefits. Their work gets involved in the game.

She also mentioned the culture of innavation in EA. They emphasize quality and innovation, act with integrity, and always listend and respond to consumer inputs, deliver beyond their expectations, build lifetime customers. "Be bold," "Think Consumbers First," "Learn and grow," and "Be accountable" are some rules they always obligate.

"Focus on people." She always concerntrates on trying to make colleagues more confident to their jobs.

Internship Presentations

This week, several of our students who had internships over the summer shared their experiences with us.

Si Yang
Si Yang entered his internship as a way to settle a raging internal dispute: design versus production versus effects artist, movie industry versus game industry, there was no way forward until the struggle within was put to rest. Si Yang applied to Activision, Crystal Dynamics, Infinity Ward, Cryptic Studios, Disney Animation Studios, Dreamworks, and Electronic Arts. In the end, it was EA Redwood Shores that brought him on.

Since Si Yang was already situated within ETC's EA campus, the call to an interview caught him in the middle of the day. Si Yang, in flip flops and t-shirt, didn't consider himself quite ready, so he asked for a bit of time to prepare, study the project he'd be working on, and perhaps iron a shirt. After the interview process, he was put to work as a designer on MySims Kingdom, working on game balance, or "tuning," with regards to the building system that players of the original MySims will be familiar with. Like the original, MySims Kingdom is an RPG aimed at young girls and based in large part on collecting resources and building structures. Si Yang worked to create a fun balance between collecting and constructing, and worked on the game's economy as well.

Finally, the internal debate was settled: Si Yang dedicated himself to games, and game design specifically. Except maybe some producing as well.

Linhan
Linhan comes to us with a Computer Science background, experience in oil painting, and a recently-acquired yen for a Technical Artist position. She applied to Shaba Activision, Dreamworks, and Electronic Arts, and in the end took an internship at EA. Linhan served as a technical artist on MySims 2 (and as an effects artist for a shorter time), working with MEL, Perl, and C++.

Linhan offered some advice for fellow students in her position: Firstly, she would have started earlier, building up her resume, portfolio, and website before the semester began. Starting late forced Linhan out of a few possible options. Linhan also suggests discussing one's application process with alumni, getting a direct line through HR representatives at conferences like GDC, and with HR people at EA. For those of us who don't spend every day at EA, like the ETC-SV students, this may require a cross-country trip, so use your own discretion.

In her exit interview, Linhan was offered a full position upon her graduation. Like the Promotion of Damocles, this decision hangs over her head for the time being.

Youngwook
Youngwook came to the ETC from a computer science background and with industry experience in Nexon and NHN as a programmer. He came to the ETC, he says, to make the kinds of games he loves – he listed too many to reproduce here (okay, only ten, but still too many) and, before the summer began, applied to many of the companies that produced them. It was Disney Online Studios who eventually brought him on. Their interest in him was based on an interview they'd given him when he visited with the ETC, and they hooked him up with an internship and an apartment. Not too shabby.

He worked on Pirates of the Caribbean Online, primarily on the UI. Youngwook originally wanted to be a gameplay programmer, expecting to have designer responsibilities, but found himself drawn to tools and system programming, rather than the AI-heavy work of the gameplay programmer. It was a learning experience in other ways too: Youngwook worked to break down the language barrier between himself and his teammates, studying English – rather than programming – when he went home at night. He insists that it was listening, rather than speaking, that was the most important part of improving his English.

Australia Trip for "Tea & Sugar Train Project"

meeting with UniSA ppl.....................................................................Visiting our client from"Railway Museum"

Augest 31, the whole team plus Don and Jiyoung flew to Adelaide, South Australia to meet with our teammate from University of South Australia(UniSA) and also our client.

All the meetings went well and the brainstorming session was crazy efficient. We throw down lots and lots of ideas so before we went back to US, we already have detail ideas for the first phase.

We are the team who work hard and play hard.
New group photo with Ben =)

professional group pose ^O^

For more detail trip information, please visit the team blog:
http://tstrain-etc.blogspot.com/