Real-Life Communication
"Video game development is a collaborative effort and efficient communication
is very important," says Emanuel Borsboom, senior software engineer and former
video game developer. "Programmers bounce ideas off each other all the time."
If you're developing video games, you'll be working with other people.
You'll need to be able to communicate with them effectively. There will be
stressful times and slow times and communication methods could involve talking
in person, on the phone, and by e-mail. Sometimes you'll need to come up with
decisions, like, now!
"Generally, you need to be in contact with the
other people you work with and be able to deal with issues quickly," says
Cary Brisebois. Brisebois is a senior programmer at a video game company.
In today's office world, this means being able to not only communicate
well in person, but also by e-mail. There are always lots of e-mails going
back and forth, and sometimes they can be a bit tougher to figure out when
people are typing in a hurry!
Here is an example of an actual e-mail
exchange between video game developers (and yes, the names have been changed!).
Read it and see if you can answer the questions below. Don't worry if you
don't know some of the terms they use.
Joe Videogame wrote:
Hey
guys:
There are a couple of items I'd like to bring
up for discussion. As I start to create actual levels, I'd like to know if
the way I am creating assets needs to change.
1)
Collision - My understanding is that the ground plane needs to be convex,
so that means to make anything other than a plane requires creating multiple
pieces and butting them up against each other. I have tried this method and
there seems to be issues when the character tries to traverse these seams
in the collision.
2) Alpha sorting - Not a show
stopper, would make making art easier if it sorted properly.
Your thoughts?
Jane Programmer replied:
1)
I think I will be creating a player class that uses better collision detection
and locomotion. This will allow us to create a standard collision mesh. In
the meantime we will have to live with the current shape collision.
2)
Once I am finished improving the raycasting interface I will be working on
the alpha sorting issues. Once that is done I will be working on lighting
and shading (toon, layered, etc).
After reading these
e-mails, answer the following questions:
A: Is alpha sorting a top
priority right now?
B: Could the game be released without fixing the
"collision?"
Want to learn more? Check out this URL to read about e-mail
etiquette in the office::
Business E-Mail Etiquette
Internet:http://www.businessemailetiquette.com/