ETC Silicon Valley

WE'VE MOVED!

2009-03-03T12:08:00.000-08:00

Our Blog is has moved to the official ETC website. Please join us there:

etc.cmu.edu/siliconvalley/blog

Project CA clutches 1st Prize Animated Documentary at CICFF

2009-02-17T17:03:00.000-08:00

Superhero Training Center: Cultural Awareness Day, a 3D animated documentary created in Fall 2008 at ETC-SV, obtained the 1st Prize Animated Documentary award at Chicago Children's International Film Festival (CICFF). It was a tremendous honor to receive such an award at CICFF because it is the only children's film festival that is an Academy Award qualifying festival.

Visiting NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.

2009-02-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

Feb. 5th, 2009, Students in ETC-SV visited NAMCO BANDAI Games America, which located in Santa Clara, California.

About NAMCO BANDAI Games
NAMCO BANDAI Games is a combined company aiming at developing video games to inspire and entertainment people to the full. In 2005, Japanese toy giant BANDAI and game publisher NAMCO(Pac-Man developer) joined operations to leverage their core strengths to increase their competitiveness in intense entertainment industry. Earlier this year, they announced their new manga-based action game Afro Samurai, which was developed in U.S. headquarter.

Talks Given by Company Managers
Our tour around NAMCO BANDAI started with Diana Ross, Director of Human Resources, giving us a general introduction about company business. She also told us some interesting back-stage stories on developing Afro Samurai.

Later on, Makoto Iwai, Executive Vice President and COO, explained to us how NAMCO and BANDAI decided to merge and shift their focuses to western market. As Japanese video game market shrinking and development cost increasing, two companies figured out to merge their operations in order to make more competitive and profitable products. Meanwhile, the company began to open up new studios in US and Europe, expanding into larger entertainment market. Moreover, Mr. Iwai mentioned NAMCO BANDAI America is in really good shape hiring more talents while other companies are undergoing a lot of laying off. He encouraged us all to apply to NAMCO BANDAI Games.

Lastly, Roger Hector, Financial Manager, also a video game veteran, gave us a talk on evolution of character design for video games. In his talked, he showed us how artists designed characters on paper in old days versus nowadays sophisticated 3D technology. Besides, Roger told us how Toru Iwatani created the character Pac-Man. Mr. Iwatani got the design of Pac-Man when he was looking at a one-slice-off pizza. With the thought of everyone loves eating, he designed Pan-Man an eating game with this cute yellow character.
During the second half of Roger’s talk, he went through all NAMCO BANDAI games with us. It is interesting to see that most of NAMCO BANDAI games are manga-based. Roger explained to us this is a strategy to build company image.

Tour the Working Space
After the talk, Veronica Guzman toured us throughout their working space and gave us NAMCO BANDAI goodies. People working there are very welcoming. We can also feel the various cultures blend very well there. It is an especially friendly place for foreign students.

At the end of the day, we learned a lot about the company and got nice gifts. It was an amazing visit.

Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details

2009-02-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

Last Monday (01/26/09), ETC-SV students, faculty and some other people were invited to a test with respect to the storage capacity of visual long-term memory. We were asked to view sequences of images and took 5-minute breaks in between. After several iterations, testers were handed a set of test papers with paired images on it. The images were paired in this way:
1) In the novel condition: the presented image was paired with a different categorized image to test the category memorization of the long-term memory.
2) In the exemplar condition: the presented image was paired with a phycally similar image to test the appearance memorization of the long-term memory.
3) In the state condition: the presented image was paired with a exactly the same but in different state image to test the state memorization of the long-term memory.
Testers needed to circle the image which appeared in the previous slices.

These images were our test results. From the tests we could know that: 93% of novel questions were correctly answered, 88% of exemplar questions were correctly answered, and 87% of state questions were correctly answered. The result indicates that our memory is as good at detail(shape and state) recognition as at category(nobel). This leads to a conclusion that our long-term memory is capable of maintaining detailed representations of thousands of images.

From the game developer’s perspect of view, players’ memories should not be under-estimated. If making a role playing game, the hints for a puzzle should not be too easy or too obvious to get. If making an action or a shooting game, the tempo should not be too slow so that players have enough time to observe the environment and react. Also, for both games or movies or any other works, the character , the NPC, and the world information need to be well-designed so that nothing will be illogical or mismatched when the story goes.

Visit to Namco Bandai Games

2009-02-09T18:55:00.000-08:00

ETC-SV visited Namco Bandai Games on Thursday 02/05/09. Throughout the studio, we were welcomed by the warmth and positive attitude of the Namco Bandai Games developers. It was a tremendously fun and insightful visit.

Go Steelers!

2009-02-01T23:25:00.000-08:00

Jiyoung hosted a Superbowl party today that was well attended by west coast ETCers, past and present. She also had an ample supply of 3D glasses for the half time commercials. Thanks Jiyoung!

2009-01-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday, we were invited to a special event which was hosted by Dreamworks. The speaker, Jeffery Katzenberg, who is CEO of DreamWorks, was giving a presentation of select 3D footage from the animated film, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS (It will be released this March).

He started by saying that “3D film is the evolution of cinema, following sound film and color film.” A 3D film makes the audience feel a three-dimensional effect significantly with 3D glasses, based on the principle of using two different images. Actually, this technology isn’t completely brand-new, we feel somewhat familiar with it. Most people have experienced watching a 3D movie wearing glasses with blue and red color lenses.

But what makes this 3D movie special is, while the traditional way of making 3D movies is to develop 2D first then convert it into 3D, this 3D movie is developed on the base of 3D technology at the very beginning. In order to support this new technology, DreamWorks had to collaborate with Intel which has a well known reputation for making graphic chips, embedded processors, and other devices.

Even though we didn’t finish the whole movie, the scenes from MONSTERS VS.ALIENS were very exciting. Various sizes of monster characters made a dramatic landscape and maximized a three-dimensional effect. And since the background of that movie is San Francisco downtown, where we were at that time, we enjoyed it even more.

According to Jeffery, it seems like 3D films are going to be the big shift in the near future. Popular movie directors, such as James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and Peter Jackson are focusing on developing this kind of film currently. But the important thing is that 3D technology cannot make a bad movie good but can make a good movie special, as Jeffery emphasized.

Welcome ETC SV Spring of 2009!

2009-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

Classes started up again last week, and we're welcoming five new students, four returns from last term, two returnees from last Spring, and an alum!

Here's the entire group, including Jiyoung and me

Team Seesaw - researching some interesting ways to do skill balancing in MMORPGs. And rooting for the Steelers.

Team Trino - continuing development of the Trino game from Spring '08

Trino on Official Xbox Magazine ( February Issue )

2009-01-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

End of last year, Trino did an interview with Xbox Magazine. The article is out in the February issue. Go and grab a copy! Trino team, go go go!

Thanks for Carl taking this great team picture for us.

Final Presentations - Done!

2008-12-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to our Fall 2008 class! Yesterday were final presentations, and the teams presented to about 40 guests in the audience, including our own Don Marinelli. Great jobs, all the way around.

Tea & Sugar Train Team

Team Hatch

A Visit from CMU President Cohen

2008-12-08T21:33:00.000-08:00

During his visit to the West Coast, CMU President Jared Cohen dropped by EA and spent some time with our teams.

First stop was Team Hatch, where he protected the north pole from aquian invaders.

Then, on to a tour of the Tea & Sugar Train, where he got an earful about the life of a butcher straight from the source.

More importantly, we all appreciated his interest in the students themselves. He met them all individually and learned about their roles on the projects and their backgrounds before coming to the ETC.

And check out the the T&S Train team - all wearing their CMU colors. Smart in many dimensions.

The Eye of Sauron in action

2008-12-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

Or its marketing name, Generic Evil Sorcerer King Burning Eyeball.

It's terrifying, and it really works! No mocking-up or fakery in this video, it's all done with camera vision. Movie magic (read: camera angles) prevents you from seeing the camera we used to watch the user, but it's all for real! Why not buy an Eye of Sauron to top your Christmas tree this year?

I can think of several reasons why not! Principally: weight!

Michael Augustin Drops By

2008-11-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

Michael Augustin is a former ETC student (and former Apple employee, and former intern at Three Rings) and the CEO of startup company Gendai Games. The name "Gendai Games" is very appropriate to the company's philosophy and business model, because "Games" in an English word meaning "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement." He came to speak with us last week.

Game Salad, Gendai Games' current project, is a tool to help non-programmers create games. Broadly, the toolset gives the user a "salad bar" of video game basics with which to make a game, things like "life meters" and "keyboard navigation" and "croutons." The user puts these elements together however he likes, in a user interface so friendly-looking that you'd swear Michael used to work at Apple like I already said he did.

But the thrust of Michael's presentation wasn't his project per se, but the experience of creating a startup. The first lesson? 99% of startups fail. Aww.

Other lessons include:

-The creation of a values hierarchy - the priorities that detemine your culture, your method, and your product.

-Positioning yourself in the market so that you're not in a footrace with existing, established products.

-Connecting with your audience - "make a blog before you make a business plan" goes the inter-wisdom - in other words, put your idea into the light of day and see if it survives.

-Networking. Except don't call it "networking" while you're doing it. "Aren't we having fun networking, you and me?" No, that doesn't go over well.

-Being on a startup team means being prepared to wear many hats (and, if you're really into the role, many false mustaches). Michael has been, at various times in his startup life, an accountant, a quality assurance tester, an HR rep, a web developer, a programmer, and, currently, a CEO.

-OODA. According to Wikipedia, "OODA" is "Ōda, Shimane (Redirected from Ooda)." But according to Michael (and military strategist John Boyd), it's "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act." What it boils down to is a commitment to a quick work cycles and overall company agility. Apple, he notes, has an eighteen-month develoment cycle, while Windows Vista had a four-year cycle. Windows, you'll notice, is just now mounting a response to the "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" ads. Come on, guys.

-It will generally take longer to do anything than you think it will. User experiences, specifically, take longer to polish the more the user will exprience them. In Super Mario Bros., for example, the experience of jumping had to be perfect, while the encounter with the princess, which the player only experienced once, could just go ahead and suck.

-"Income - expenses = profit." I am SO GLAD someone told me this. I was putting a plus sign in there this whole time.

-Various ways to get money for your startup, including venture capital, bootstrapping (using one's own money) and "angel" investors, individuals who provide money for the fledgling business.

And that was Michael's startup lesson in a nutshell. Now YOU know more than eighty percent of startups. Not enough to beat the 100-to-1 odds every time, but it's a good start.

Game Salad drops in early 2009.

Greg Dismond - Technical Artist, Perspectives and Viewpoints

2008-11-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

Today, we invited Greg Dismond, a senior Technical Director in Electronic Arts who has been in industry around 20 years, to our elective class. He has given us Perspectives and Viewpoints on being a Technical Artist. Through his talk, he has cleared our understanding of Technical Artist, stimulated our creative thinking, and encouraged our motivation exploring our future career.

Greg started with how different are engineers from artists. Ones are technical, while the other ones are artistic. Enable to let engineers and artists work efficiently together, communication between these two is very important. He pointed out that hybrids are highly needed to connect those two parties with their technical and artistic skills. Also, Greg brought up this fact that lots of hybrids are struggling between being artists and engineers. As a result, technical artist is a perfect fit for people who are struggling with both technical and artistic talents.

With Greg's experience in movie and game industry, he explained to us what does technical artist/technical director do. Generally, technical artists will be dealing with dependency between different departments, for example, tools, workflow, shaders, general problem solving and assets conditioning plus optimization. It is very inspiring Greg reminded us that being a technical artist requires focusing on "HOW" more than "WHAT". Afterward, he asked everyone to speak up, talk about who they are, are they focusing type or variety type. The result was a little bit surprising for him, focus vs. variety is half and half. Some people are struggling in being focus or variety. For this situation, Greg's suggestion is to start doing something meanwhile think about what fits the most.

As an industry veteran, technical director who has been working in both movies and games, Greg shared his experiences when dealing with different people in work. He started this topic with a rendering question, how to solve a seeming impossible rendering task. With unveiling the answer, Greg gave us tips to face different demanding people and tasks. Be positive, proactive, and attaining social perspective to technical problems.

Lastly, Greg mentioned how landscape of economy also affects our career. He explained how out-sourcing is more and more important, and people with bilingual skill are in high demand. Greg's talk about technical artist is really enlightening, he not only told us what does technical artist like, but also encouraged us to how think about and find out what's best for us.

The Eye of Sauron

2008-11-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

Steven Dow - Understanding User Engagement in Immersive and Interactive Stories

2008-11-18T22:58:00.000-08:00

Steven Dow is a Postdoctoral Scholar working in the HCI Group at Stanford University and currently investigating the cognitive and social effects of media and tools on design thinking. He earned his PhD in 2008 and his MS in 2004 from the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Today, Steven talked about his dissertation, Understanding User Engagement in Immersive and Interactive Stories, and shared with us his empirical observations and the psychological concept that he explored of user engagement through an immersive and interactive story experience called AR Façade.

Façade is a desktop-based interactive drama authored by Andrew Stern and Michael Mateas. It's then developed and installed with an augmented reality (AR) interface that allowed for unconstrained body movement and speech communication. Therefore, in the AR Façade experience, players could move freely around, as well as use gesture and speech to interact with an animated married couple. They would find themselves in the middle of a marital conflict and could influence how the social scenario played out through their actions and statements.

To evaluate user experience, Steve intended to examine how a media experience changed when going from traditional desktop interaction to immersive augmented reality. He had 45 participants playtested and being interviewed. To analyze this vast quantity of interview and play data, he conducted four primary analyses: Qualitative interview analysis, player profile analysis, episode analysis, and log analysis. His studies indicated, even though the AR interface increased most guests' sense of *presence* (immersiveness) over the PC version, but this did not necessary lead to fun and engagement.

After the presentation, I chatted with Steven regarding design and analysis of human-computer interaction. Sonology, the prior ETC project that I worked on, also had an interactive device with trackers attached on players so that they could interact with the virtual environment. Yet the team were strongly engaged in tech development, we found ourselves consistently interested in observing human perception, how it affected our guests' movements in the virtual worlds, and how we improved our system based on their reactions. This also reflected what we've seen in Steven's thesis. Sometimes we assumed the high technology would lead us into entertainment or convenience; we assumed we would always appreciate the evolution of technology. Nevertheless, we forgot it's often not *computer* but *human* that we should have had researched on; it's always the humanity that defines and decides the technology.

Jon-Paul, who is a Game Designer in EA Redwood Shores Studio

2008-11-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

On November 06, Jon-Paul, who is a Game Designer in EA Redwood Shores Studio, who was also an ETCer, come and gave us a great talk about how to become a game designer in one easy step as well as how to design a game.

The key point he would love to point out is “A designer is a developer whose main job is to create the fun.”

To different projects, even a same designer could be involved in different roles.
He mentioned himself that he has experienced many design stuff such as story design, quest design, AI design, and level design, etc. Jon-Paul told us it might be a good thing if we realized that as a designer, the tip is to always keep in mind to prepare ourselves to face different sorts of design issues, not only focus on one.

Then he talked something about different duties to different roles in a team. Producers must think about the team as develop directors must think about schedule. As a tester, you must think about the bugs. As an engineer, you might concentrate on your code structure and the frame rate. If you were an artist, take care about the look.

To become a designer, you might start with the fundamentals (don’t jump to electronic right away), and then educate yourself (take a class, read a book). Another important thing is a game designer should practice designing anytime and anywhere. After designed in your head, try to design it on paper, and then design it on the engine. The last step is to play it and iterate on it (time to think about the balance).

As designer, everything is a game! A Game Design basically is like a tree: each pillar is a game, as each feature is a game; each branch, leaf and node, are all games!

Game design is modular.

We could get so much of knowledge about Game Design from Jon-Paul at that time. We really appreciated his talks.

Current Issues in Digital Media and Game Design

2008-10-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

In this week’s elective class, Bryan Neider, the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Electronic Art’s Games Label, gave us a talk on the current issues in game industry. Prior to talking, he showed us the video of EA Games – Battlefield Bad Company, Spore, Spore Creature Creator, Warhammer Online, and Dead space. EA released many cool games this year.

The summary of current issues is as follows.

Current economic conditions

o Today’s economy is in a highly unusual state of uncertainty and it has created heightened anxiety for consumers
In past downturns, interactive has been less impacted by market slumps compared with other entertainment

Consumer buying habit patterns

The number of casual consumer and online multiplayer, the demand for social experience is increasing
Marketing is still gravitating to quality
As the international demand for video games rises, it is important to localize games to meet consumer preferences and tastes
The increasing demand for second hand games has risen significantly

Connected consumers

Games are becoming a "service" – transition from only packaged goods, to a hybrid model, where the game is “always on
Consumers expect online features and social interaction

Ongoing relationship with customers

Customer service takes on new meaning - moving up the value chain from fixing "bugs" and providing "patches," to managing and refining the customers' entertainment experience
Customers are starting to expect the interactive experience to evolve to meet their preferences and gaming "style"
The interactive experience will begin to be tailored to the consumer

Impact to game design & team structure

Teams are required to expand their design “horizons” and they are well underway in changing their designs
Multiplayer, online, episodic, downloadable content are the core deliverables to tomorrow's games
Data mining is becoming a core competency - understanding how people interact with games - this will allow improving play-balance and tailor the interactive experience to each consumer's style and skill
The "user interface" is very important and now requires consumer feedback early in the design process
More focus on high quality art/audio

Thanks to his talk, we were able to gain a more broadened perspective into the interactive game industry. He also presented us with Spore creature creator. We really appreciated his talks and the presents.

Animation Show of Shows

2008-10-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

Ron Diamond of Acme FilmWorks brought his Animation Show of Shows to Electronic Arts today. The 85 minute show included 11 different shorts, plus a Q&A session with two of the directors afterward. Koji Yamamura (left) directed "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor", and Alexi Alexeev (center) directed the (very) short "KJFG #5." Ron Diamond is on the right.

My personal favorite was "Keith Reynolds Can't Make It Tonight," which was director Felix Massie's graduation film for his animation degree. (You can see an excerpt here.) He uses simple stick figure animation in a Sim Tower type environment with a wonderful narration voiceover.

Half Presentations

2008-10-25T22:43:00.001-07:00

Last Wednesday were Half Presentations - so named because they're halfway through the term. We invited ETC alums, a number of our EA friends, and a few other guests to be in the audience for the two presentations and Q&A's afterward. A free lunch, of course, was used as bait.

The presentations were in a 'double-wide' theater at Electronic Arts, so the audience is twice as wide as it is deep. This can be an extra challenge for a presenter, but both teams did a great job of adapting.

Top image: The Tea & Sugar Team during their introductions.
Middle image: Linhan presenting with Shih-Han looking on.
Bottom image: Team Hatch, with the Global Imagination globe in demo mode.

Alyson from Pixar

2008-10-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

Alyson started working at Pixar right after she graduated ETC in 2005. She has presented about 3 topics which are "How to make animations", "Tools Development" and "Tips for getting a job".

1. How to make animations.
In Pixar, the most important rule is "Story is King". They usually spend years developing a really good story. After they have it, they research "Art" and "Characters". They are using many references and trying to use real sculptures and lighting models to find proper art style and characters. The next step is making a layout and sets for environment. Creating animation and effects for whole scenes is followed. Lighting is the last work to finalize the film.

2. Tools Development.
Alyson emphasized that they are developing tools like they are making animations. This means they also make a story board for new tools by interviewing animators. Also, like film department, there is a director driven system in the Tools development team. The director has a right to make a final decision for tools and this is working very well since he has a lot of experiences about it. This director driven system is the key system for both department which enables the directors to maximize their creativity and ability.

3. Tips for getting a job.
Alyson explained that students should know themselves before they apply to companies. Also, being aggressive is another key point to find a job. She introduced her episode that she went to San Francisco from Ohio just for having lunch with a person working at Pixar. This brought her another interview chance and she got the job from Pixar at the end. In addition, communication and public speaking skills are always important. She said ETC is really good place to improve those skills.

Historical "Fiction" means you don't have to do research, right?

2008-10-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

We've been doing a lot of playtesting on our spherical shooter, and it's safe to say that we've "found the fun." People enjoy playing, even though the game's currently flailing away without any sort of scoring or win condition. We're in a good place; all we have to worry about is not losing the fun while we fill in the little details like "goals" and "story" and "intuitive controls" and "more than one type of enemy."

Speaking of story, we've got one of thems now! The game's all about defending a Renaissance-era human settlement (the only one in the world) at the North Pole from giant monsters that rise from the South Pole. Now, that's already historically and geographically inaccurate on too many levels to really think about. So we went whole hog on the made-uppedness and came up with this story:

1000 years ago, in 1459, The King of Europe decreed that all the citizens of the world must relocate to the green and fertile plains of the North Pole, to escape the fearsome creatures that rose from the south. Since then, the pact he forged with Queen Margaret of the mermaids has kept the human stronghold safe from all seafaring invaders.

But now, in 1654, the tides are turning. The currents are granting passage to the underdwelling beasts of the South Pole, and a new King rallies the naval forces of his kingdom to drive back the approaching monstrosities.

It doesn't quite have the velvet perfection of John Hodgman's richly textured historical dishonesty, but it's a spirited mendacity nonetheless. I'm particularly proud of its assertion that one thousand years passed in between 1459 and 1654.

Hoyt Ng on Presentation Skills

2008-10-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

Today, Hoyt Ng a senior trainer at DreamWorks PDI and a veteran presenter visited us at ETC-Silicon Valley. He brought with him many gifts and tidbits on presentation skills. Throughout his two and a half hour talk, he emphasized that everyone has the natural skills to present well. He joked about how some of his students when seated could answer questions like a perfect presenter, but would shed all their presentation skills the moment they leave their seat. It is important to note that Hoyt did not attempt to change our presentation style. He believed that everyone must find a style that is comfortable to them. Instead he provided us with various exercises. These exercises aimed to bring the natural skills that we apply on person to person communication into our presentations.

Hoyt explained that there are nine common presentation flaws:

Pausing
Breathing
Non-Words
Posture
Eye Contact
Movement
Intonation
Facial Expression
Emotion Honesty

In the spirit of good presentations, instead of a boring talk about presentation skills, Hoyt gave us many exaggerated hands-on exercises. Each exercise aimed to make us comfortable with applying a natural communication skill, in order to overcome some of the common presentation problems. For example, in one exercise the participant had to present by pausing for five seconds after every sentence. Similarly, in another exercise, the presenter was required to remain in eye contact with each audience for a continuous five seconds. In yet another exercise, the participant must perform extremely exaggerated gestures. He believed that once we are familiar with these exaggerated exercises, skills such as pausing, having eye contact and using gestures will become a habit during actual presentations.

Hoyt’s presentation skills class felt like an improvisational acting class every ETC-er takes in his or her first semester. Between engaging discussions about flawed presentations and numerous hands-on exercises, Hoyt’s class taught ETC-SV students many life-long skills on public speaking and presentations.

Our First Shooter Prototype

2008-10-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

The Magic Planet team is building a shooter! It's set on the ocean, which seemed like a logical choice for a shooter's setting since outer space isn't spherical.

It's toroidal. Everybody knows that, right? We'll let the Magic Donut team take care of that one.

Anyway, our game is based on real nautical battles that have occurred in the Earth's history. Take a look:

Here, the player's ship follows a giant enemy prawn, about to shoot its collision sphere for normal damage.

Here, another giant enemy prawn prepares to strike the North Pole. You may remember this from your history classes, assuming your teachers got all the way through the real history and had time to teach you the imaginary stuff.

We're hard at work on this one, so expect to see more soon. We're also getting a 3-foot Magic Planet soon, to replace our 2-foot one, so expect it to get bigger, too.

Carl Rosendahl - The Next Digital Entertainment Wave

2008-10-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Carl Rosendahl, was noted as being the founder of Pacific Data Images (PDI) producing the hit animated film Antz and Shrek. Carl is currently a faculty member in the ETC-SV working with the next generation of entertainment creators. The topic of today’s talk was “The Next Digital Entertainment Wave.” It was also the same speech that he gave in South Korea last month, only more dynamic and more personal stories shared.

The talk was started with the evolution of new media. Carl considered the primary thing of filmmaking was *editing* as we learned in our visual story class. He also thought the computer graphic technology was meant to make the filmmaking better not make it different. Carl then talked about the technology evolution of how CG was developed, and gave details of creative evolution, which again, was all about story telling. He also drew of chart showing the trend of technology and creative and illustrated the relationship between these two media elements. Subsequently, business model evolution was included in this session regarding the film production. A variety of filming examples were listed to support his point of view. After that, he continued with the future vision of media. How the trend towards quality? When entertainment was developed from a single location such as stages to many locations like films, then to home, to be on demand, and to be portable, how did we take the balance between quality and convenience? Furthermore, linear versus interactive was another task for media creators. Lastly, how did we see the possibilities in the social world, such as Facebook and Second life? There’re always big chances but it’s about how you seize them.

It was a very inspiring talk that Carl gave us. We valued this opportunity to have the world’s digital media pioneer, Carl Rosendahl, as our faculty and friend at the ETC-SV. Thank you, Carl, and we love you!

Quarter Presentations

2008-10-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

October 2nd was 1/4 way though the semester, so it was time for formal quarter presentations. This is a shot of team Hatch and their Global Imagination globe with their first app on it. They are navigating around the world using a Wii remote looking at geotagged pictures from Flickr. Their interface allows you to input a string of tags and how far back in time you want to look, it then populates the planet with images. Think tags like "baby" or "sunset" or "toys" - the results are fascinating.

ICEC in Pittsburgh

2008-09-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-18T14:24:00.001-07:00

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)

2008-09-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

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"

2008-09-11T12:18:00.001-07:00

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/

Birth of Hatch

2008-08-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Today the Global Imagination team unanimously agreed on the name Hatch. We like to perceive ourselves as hatching ideas for the giant egg (The Magic Planet System).

Henceforth, we shall be known as "Hatch"

Photos of our brainstorming maps will follow shortly.

Welcome ETC SV Fall of 2008!

2008-08-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

School started today! After a tour of the EA campus, and before lunch, we took our group photos.
Here's the whole crew:

Top row: Taefun, Carl (faculty), Trent
Middle row: Linhan, Sunny, Youngwook, Rick, Jiyoung (faculty)
Bottom row: Michelle (staff), Shih-Han, Siyang

The Australia Project team:

Also working on the team, but based in Osaka, is Ben (not pictured here, obviously!).

The Global Imagination team:

Spring 2008 - Final Presentations

2008-05-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

Team photos taken right before their final presentations.

Project CA - Cultural Awareness. In 14 weeks they produced a four minute animated film about cultural awareness in the workplace.

The Trino Team conceptualized, designed and built an XBOX game in one semester.

Soft Launch Celebration

2008-04-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

This was a big day for the teams - they "soft launched" the projects they've been working on all semester. We celebrated this evening with a BBQ at Carl's house. I was so busy cooking that I forgot to take pictures of the real meal, but we did s'mores for dessert.

This is a candid picture, but it looks like a posed picture from a magazine. I mean really, one person cooking and everyone else standing around being entertained by it? But you can see that everyone else was already eating. BTW, Soo is trying the advanced s'mores technique where you jam the chocolate INTO the marshmallow before you roast it - that melts the chocolate, too. Yumm.

Play Day in San Francisco

2008-02-27T20:34:00.000-08:00

A bit of R&R was in order after a month of intense work by both teams, so Jiyoung organized a tour of San Francisco for everyone. We enjoyed the view of the City By The Bay from atop Twin Peaks, walked under the Golden Gate Bridge, hit the beach, and finished up on Alcatraz.

Atop Twin Peaks

The beach, City Hall and the Golden Gate Bridge

Heading out to Alacatraz

Lunch with Bing Gordon at Electronic Arts

2008-01-29T18:31:00.000-08:00

Bing Gordon, Chief Creative Officer at EA, was gracious in hosting the students for lunch. We spent a little over an hour with him talking about the student projects and getting his insight into what makes games great.

Welcome ETC SV Spring of 2008!

2008-01-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

Quickly shot team photos as everyone gets moved in to our cubes at Electronic Arts.

The Animation Team will be creating an animated film about cultural differences. Over the holiday break they recorded dozens of hours of interviews that will be the basis for the soundtrack.

XBOX Project Team. Design of the game starts today.