My first Blog...shoutouts to fellow T.O.rquers :)

Hello everybody, my name is Krunal Patel, from Toronto (a.k.a T.O.), and welcome to my very first blog. I have been a community member of garage games for close to three years now and it has been an honor working with the various members here. I've been holding off on writing a blog for such a long time now. But after some friendly advice from Ken Finney www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=5261, I thought I would tap into this fantastic feature that garage games has set up for its community members. Anyways a little about myself. I have a bachelors in mathematics from the University of Waterloo. I specialized in computer science with a minor in software engineering, graduate of 2002. During high school and university I realized that I had a passion for working with computer graphics. At that point I was learning how to use all the various graphic programs such as Bryce, Photoshop, Poser, etc. I became famous in my local community as they go to person for developing multimedia shows. But it was soon that I realized that I am no artist and my passion did not lie in using these applications but more about learning how these applications work, and making them myself. Hence I put one and one together, and took my expertise from computer science and blended that with computer graphics to get where I am now.

I'm a professional software engineer specializing in the video games industry. I would consider myself an expert programmer of all torque related products, yet I do still have a lot to learn about this ever-changing technology. More importantly I am a very proud sponsor of Garage Games, and promote it to all my potential clients. Currently my client base composes of Gambatte Corp, WASD Gameworks, Doppelganger, and Garage Games themselves. I used to work for immersion studios on their flagship product, Virtual Canada www.imm-studios.com/sim_virtualcanada.shtml. There I met Neil Marshall www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=5446, one of the few people that you will find who is both great at programming and a good artist. At Gambatte Corp, I have been working with Shiraz Baboo www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=73601 a superb game designer. I have had the true honor of working with the genius Eric Preisz www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=59817, or we all know now is sharing his knowledge with his students at FullSail.

My current tenure at Doppelganger has been the most rewarding experience in my professional career. I have been working with such brilliant heads as Orion Elenzil www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=40475, Clint S. Brewer www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=43125, John Klima www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=41129, just to name a few. As you all might know about their flagship product, The Lounge www.pcdmusiclounge.com/, it is one remarkable application that goes above and beyond, and exploits all the capabilities of TGE, and moreso. I have been fortunate enough to work on numerous aspects of The Lounge, and I have gathered at least five resources, courtesy from the work at doppelganger, that they will like me to release back to the community. So please look out for that, I'm sure many will like it. Just one more thing about doppelganger. I have never worked for a company where the management knows exactly what they want from both a business standpoint but at the same time are extremely technically sound. It's hard to find those two traits coexisting in project managers. The brilliance of any product comes not from the technology it employs, but the people behind it.

I would just like to talk a little about the Microsoft X06 game camp that was held here in Toronto this past weekend. So here it goes. It was a 9:30 a.m. start on Saturday morning and I got there just on time. To my surprise there were a lot of people there many from educational institutions. I got in line for registration and after five minutes of waiting I got my game camp T-shirt and an evaluation form which registers me for a chance to win an Xbox 360. Then something caught my eye. At a distance I could see a faint resemblance of someone's shirt that look like the garage games logo. It wasn't too long before I quickly realized that the person wearing that shirt was a representative from garage games. Now the only question running in my head was who possibly can he be. Again the answer came quickly and swift. It was no other than Davey Jackson. I went up to him and explained who I was and reminded him of our previous correspondences. I didn't expect garage games to be representing but I guess that's my fault because who best to exemplify what the Microsoft XNA technology can do other than garage games with their TorqueX. Davey told me that he was going to have a special conference later on in the day talking explicitly about garage game technologies and TorqueX. I was psyched.

Thereafter I sat down at one of the few empty seats that was left in the room. I was waiting for my friend Shiraz to also be with me. I gave him a quick call on his mobile, only to find out that I just woke him up! I told him not to sweat it, and still make it to the conference in time for Davey's lecture. Then I glanced over in front of me, and there it was again that familiar shirt. But this time it was the indie con shirt. I tapped the person on the shoulder and asked him if he was a fellow torque developer. He smiled and said yes and quickly passed me his business card. Just one look at his card and I realized who he was. David Wyand www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=8341, yes no other than the person who created torque show tool! We chatted for a while before the show started.

So my overall impression of this conference was that it was a good effort from Microsoft to open up their platform to the indie market. To me it looked like the organizers of the show didn't really know what to expect as feedback from the community and they actually even asked on several occasions of how the audience felt about their endeavor. I think it was smart of Microsoft to partner with garage games on this new approach they are taking. Who better than garage games to understand the Indie mindset? Anyways, the show was all about Microsoft's new XNA technology. XNA is a set of tools that will allow an hobbyist, indie developer, educator, or just anyone to develop games for the Xbox 360. In my humble opinion, XNA is nothing more than a wrapper SDK around the real Microsoft Xbox 360 XDK, thrown in with some helper tools like content management system. It's basically a cut down version of the 360 XDK. Now do not get me wrong here, this is quite a formidable step undertaken by Microsoft to basically expose their precious hardware for development purposes in the average person's hands. One person asked really good question I believe, and that was is this Microsoft's answer to homebrew development. The person on stage responded plainly, YES. Quite a bold step if I may say so myself. I just hope that Sony and Nintendo follow on the same footpath.

So basically one can use the express version of C# ( professional will not do), XNA SDK, and write their games to hit two platforms: WinXP/Vista & Xbox360. The content management system would take care of all the necessary media conversion steps. The linker will take care of properly deploying it to the right platform. During deployment to the Xbox 360, basically connect both your computer and the Xbox 360 to the same subnet, authorize some encryption keys so that the Xbox 360 has permission to play the games you write, and basically upload the data from your development computer to the 360. It wouldn't have been a true Microsoft show if you don't have the odd "technical" problem. During a demonstration of this deployment process, the staff on stage had some issues getting the Xbox 360 to download their game. This was quite reminiscent of the now infamous Bill Gates Windows crash, but probably it wasn't as tragic. As a note, to be able to deploy onto Xbox 360 you would need to pay a subscription fee for this service. This was a real shock to me. Basically I will be paying a yearly fee on top of the Xbox live fees to play my own developed games. I guess is similar to how AAA Studios pay horrendous licensing fees to console manufacturers. But that little kid in the basement using XNA to develop a game is no AAA studio. Now don't get me wrong I don't think it's bad for Microsoft to charge something for this service, but I guess I just think it should be a one time fee.

XNA is a cut down version of the true 360 XDK. You don't get any network functionality out of it, so don't even think about writing applications that are Live aware. I even got slapped on the hand when asking about the multithreaded capabilities of the XNA. The answer was that multithreaded programming is a difficult problem and even professional game developers find it hard. So basically I didn't get an answer to my question, and it makes me wonder about why hardware manufacturers would employ multicore CPUs when they THINK it's hard for a software developers to use it. Another thing to remember about XNA is that it inherently is tied down to the .NET framework 2.0. Again, the Xbox 360 has a cut down version of this framework installed. Point being is that if XNA doesn't provide a functionality you're looking for, it might exist in the .NET framework. You might question why I am talking all this mumbo-jumbo when XNA is marketed as a game making tool. Well it is a game tool but it's not a game engine. You're still going to need a smart programmer to write smart and efficient applications. Notice I said applications and not games. Most people will be able to write simple games using XNA, but to get it at the level of an efficient application, it will take more than a general know how of the SDK. XNA in my opinion is similar to the Ogre3D Graphics engine www.ogre3d.org/. But I guess it's a little more than just graphics because it has support for audio too. I guess what I'm trying to say you all is that don't get your hopes too high for what XNA can do for you. Now on the other hand, TorqueX combined with XNA is a total game engine solution, and I guess that's why Microsoft has employed garage games to work with them in developing a game engine that will utilize XNA. Smart move Microsoft.

So the XNA demonstration comprised mainly of writing a PONG clone for the PC. Having worked with Ogre3D, I couldn't help but realize the similarities between these two SDKs. The demonstration was basically a coding practice, and the only thing I really got out of it was a cool new shortcut in Visual Studio that I've never used before, code snippets. Now I don't know how applicable this would be for professional software development as oppose to actual code templates, but I guess this is ideal for educational institutions where educators can build programming examples step by step during a class session. I found this approach by the presenter very neat and effective.

So during the last hour of the day it was time for Davey Jackson to come on stage and talk about garage games and all the wonderful things they do. One couldn't help to notice but in a room full of Microsoft heads, here comes Davey with a Apple laptop! During one point of the presentation I guess there was some problem with the Windows XP running on the Apple laptop when it came to the resolution being displayed on the projector. Obviously one of the Microsoft heads had to make a smart remark regarding this. Unfortunately he didn't realize that it's not the hardware at fault here but instead the distribution of Windows XP that EVERYONE runs. Majority of the time it's not the hardware's fault as more it is the software's. It's like writing a game which only does division by zero and deploying it to Xbox 360 and getting it to crash and saying that the Xbox 360 sucks. Anyways enough for the ranting, back to Davey's presentation which in my opinion was absolutely outstanding. He really got the crowd involved and was both informative and hilarious at times. He talked about how combining TorqueX and XNA will empower the developer to write amazing 2D games. The only thing I really wish, but I know will not be happening anytime soon, is that TorqueX allowed you to write 3D games for XNA. Basically I'm talking about TSE for XNA. I do hope garage games and Microsoft has this in their plans for the future. Before Davey went on stage I wasn't sold on XNA itself. But afterwards, I probably will be joining the Microsoft bandwagon. Thanks a lot Davey! So my overall impression of the seminar was good. I really applaud Microsoft for taking this bold new step in the console market. I would encourage them to continue having more seminars like this and also some which are specifically target to ISVs.

During the lunch break I went back to talk to Davey and there he introduced me to Ken Finney. That really rounded off my day! First Davey, then Dave (Torque Show Tool), and finally Ken! He was a real jolly kind of person and we talked about how we can further expose Torque in the greater Toronto area. He had some really great ideas and I volunteered to help him out in any way possible. He took me to his "office" (inside joke), and handed me an autographed copy of his new advanced 3-D game programming all in one book. Shoutouts go to Davey for introducing me to Ken! I guess the moral of the story is you don't know who you will meet as a result of attending organized conferences. I spoke with Ken through e-mail within the last day and he has informed me that it would be great if torque and just general game developers in the greater Toronto area get-together for a meet up. This would be a great opportunity for networking and generating cool new ideas. Ken has even offered space at the school that he teaches at (Art Institute of Toronto), to have the seminar at. We are thinking Saturday, November 25 starting at two o'clock and running for about two to four hours. We can meet up at the school, and then hang out there for a while, or move downstairs to the pub or coffee shop. If fellow T.O.rquers are interested please do let me know and let's get this started.

At that note I will end this horrendously long blog and thank you all for reading it and more importantly, being a great resource to me in the past three years that I've been here. Look forward to future blogs by myself!