Pondering

Howdy!
I’m still alive. I swear! That nasty flu took me out for a little over two weeks, but I’m finally back up to full speed.
I haven’t been posting here much lately, largely because I keep intending to get around to flushing this blog and installing WordPress. I’ve been messing around with WordPress on the IGDA-SF blog site and have found it to be much more user-friendly and extensible. And hey, I haven’t updated the tech for this site since like… 2004. So, it’s probably about time. 🙂
I recently had an article published in Game Developer Magazine. I suspect it will go up on Gamasutra at some point too. It is a more thorough version of the game engine survey summary than I posted previously. The GDMag folks did a great job of helping me consolidate the info and laying it out with images from all the game engines referenced in the piece.
In the wake of that survey I find myself really wishing there was some resource for game industry technologists who are seeking deep technical info on middleware of all types. Unfortunately there really isn’t, and it seems that it’s all so caught up in NDA’s that it would be hard to put something like this together. But when folks email me and ask my opinion on which game engine or middleware library they should use, I just wish I had a big book of charts and graphs and API descriptions and benchmarks and shipped titles and costs somewhere. The Big Book of Game Middleware. The alternative is to download trial versions of each engine or library and give them a go, which can take an awfully long time in an already-tight development schedule, or to just use what you’re already familiar with if your team has used an engine or library previously. I keep thinking about this.
Recently I worked with a team of folks to finish up and ship the “Real-Time Cameras” book. This book was written by Mark Haigh-Hutchinson and edited by myself and a group of his friends and co-workers (Mark passed away shortly before completing it). I think the book turned out great. Check it out! I’m planning to post up some sample text from the book soon.
As for me personally? I’m considering what’s next. Doing short-term contracts has gotten a bit wearing – I miss building things, whether they are platforms, games, strategies, or developer marketing plans. There are so many interesting things going on in the game industry right now. Certainly the economy is not in the greatest shape, but the game industry is filled with brilliant people who dream large. So I have a fair number of conversations in flight at the moment and am looking forward to seeing whether any of them become the right fit.
I’ll be at E3 this year so hope to see some of you there. I’m excited to have something more closely resembling the old E3 come back! I wonder if we can still get a “Big Cheese”. MMmmmmm tasty.