Life of a games artist and fatherhood

TD Bank Summer Reading Program

2011-09-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

Summer Reading Program

The "Summer Reading Program", each kid reads or has 10 books read to them, TD Bankwill give your kids $10 each either for a new or an existing account, but the program ends end of the month, 30th September.

Great little program this and essentially free money for your under 18 year olds so got nothing to lose.

CryEngine 3 SDK Out now for free!

2011-08-22T12:51:00.000-04:00

The engine is now available for free here.

Read the terms and conditions, but they sound pretty good for those that just want to tinker around with it.

To get started, the official documentation can be found here.

The community developed documentation, which is well worth a browse can be foundhere.

A simple guide to get started on creating a level can be found here.

More indepth knowledge can be found in the wiki here.

Now go and enjoy!

Collection of Boston Game Loop Writeups!

2011-08-19T12:11:00.000-04:00

Information about what the Boston Game Loop is all about, for those who don't know can be found here.

For those who weren't able to make the GameLoop, a collection of notes, thoughts and write ups from various people who attended, in various disciplines are listed here that I could find. If there are any others, please let me know.

Darius Kazemi, on his blog, Tiny Subversions, has a indepth write up here.

"Embracing failure in game narratives"

Hybrid Mind Games

"Unconference unwriteup from a game undesigner" by Nick Lalone

For a photo look into the conference, Elliott Mitchell, has posted a public album here.

For those interested in the Philly Game Loop, which was a spin off from the Boston event, a good write up of that event can be found here.

Nappy Codes?

2011-08-10T08:46:00.000-04:00

Huggies v Pampers

So you've been buying nappies and noticing that they have a sticker on the inside with a code you can redeem for prizes, with the flyer being able to win a years supply of nappies and wipes, how awesome!

Well not exactly...but you've nothing to lose by trying.

Once you've set up a user profile at both sites, you can plug your codes in. Pampers certainly make this a lot easier to do, as you can add more than one code at a time and if you're anything like me, I just keep them in a draw and do a bunch at a time when bored some evening, and gives you a chance to check out other prizes being offered.

Huggies, you have to enter and submit a code each time and also select a store where you bought them from a drop down menu, which is more hassle.

On the other hand, to enter the year supply of nappy and wipes with Huggies, it only costs you 5 points per draw and you can enter as often as you want. Pampers cost you 20 points to enter their monthly competition.

They both offer many other prizes that you can enter for. Huggies have a instant win thing where the prizes are smaller and use less points, but you find out straight away and they also have small monthly prizes such as a box of nappies that you can enter and wait till they draw a winner. Pampers allow you to spend the points on products, toilet seats, toys, that kind of thing as well.

One nice thing about Pampers, they have a chart showing how many points you'll likely earn for each product, because different type of nappies, sizes and number count get different points ranging from 10 for wipes or a small packet to 180 for a large box for instance. Huggies doesn't appear to do this and the points ranged from 4 I'm guessing for the wipes, to 25 for a packet of nappies.

At the end of the day, you've got nothing to lose by keeping the codes and doing the programs, but they probably aren't worth the extra cost over getting a store branded box of nappies, especially if they had a coupon you could use.

Free Discovery Museum Fridays

2011-08-02T11:01:00.000-04:00

This is great for anyone living in the burbs or fancying a bit of a change.

The Children's Discovery Museum in Acton.

Every Friday till the end of August, between 4:30 and 8:30pm both the Children's Museum and the Science Museum portions at the place are free.

The Children's portion is fantastic for little kids, ideally from say 2.5 up till around 6 or so as they get to play with a fake train, water tables and a giant human bubble maker as well as a diner, a jungle themed room, a boat themed room, a theatre and a host of other fun little things for kids to play around with and explore.

Then over to the Science portion, aimed at slightly older kids, but 3 year olds will still love this. There are plenty of things for all ages, especially the musical instrument and noise making activities and water based activities.

Spending the evening here is very easy to do and a lot of fun. Not as crazy busy as the time they were doing the Free Friday event for the Highland Street people, so very easy to get in, park and play. The garden area is a great spot to have a picnic if you arrive early, or just play in the huge sandpit outside if the weather is nice.

$500 Collada contest

2011-07-29T13:10:00.001-04:00

The Khronos Group is hosting a art contest that ends next week, 7th August.

The details of the contest can be found here.

Mark Binder - Author and Entertainer

2011-07-28T14:43:00.000-04:00

Mark Binder

An author of children's books. He bills himself more as a story teller though and if you get a chance to catch him doing a book session, you really should!

He has read at a lot of libraries and it was there that I managed to catch a show, which went on for 45 minutes, stories and a little bit of music, just enough to entertain and keep little minds in tune for.

Binder, has a collection of around 6 traditionally printed books, of which "It ate my sister" and "The bedtime story book" are particularly good collection of stories. He also has a collection of audio books and e-books. The audio books would be great to collect as he has such enthusiasm and energy in his story telling. Of which, is't a strict reading of his books, but a collection of age appropriate stories, some of which are based on the written tales but many being based off of stories you might recognise, that have either been updated or merged with similar stories, all with great amusement and audience participation.

At the end of the reading session, he did have a collection of audio CD's and books you could buy, offering them for $10 each instead of the regular $15, and if you bought two, you could get a third for free. These were all signed and personalised. He accepted cash, cheque and credit card, so you don't have to worry about being caught short if you wanted to buy a book after a showing.

For a list of his free readings, of which seem to be mostly in MA and RI can be found here.

Aqueduck Bathroom Faucet Extender - Review

2011-07-22T09:03:00.000-04:00

Aqueduck Bathroom Faucet Extender

This product is made by Peachy LLC

For anyone with toddlers who are potty trained or getting that way, this is a really useful product!

You've got a toddler up on their stool, trying to wash their hands and they just can't reach and you don't want to be lifting them up every time, especially when they're starting to get a little heavy.

This is a simple, plastic piece that has a rubber attachment on one end which holds this onto the sink faucet and the plastic folds up creating a tube. Easily attaches to a variety of sink faucets.

Simple, easy to use product that'll help your kids out.

Best place to buy this seems to be on Amazon for $13

Tanglewood Marionettes - Review

2011-07-07T11:35:00.001-04:00

Tanglewood Marionettes

So these guys, based in Ware, MA and do shows all over the state and further a field.

I most recently saw the "The Fairy Circus" performance which was held at the Strawberry Festival in Concord, MA.

I have seen them perform else where, with other shows, but this one in particular I thought was most appropriate for little toddlers and a mix range of kids. It was a lovely performance, with music and very laid back with a nice little bit of audience participation.

The performer really knew how to engage the kids as well as the parents and handled the crowd really nicely, especially when kids where getting a little too close to the stage.

After the show, the children were allowed to get a close up look of the puppets and touch them which was really nice, as they were lovely.

They have a pretty good list of free, public performances listed for the summer on their website, which if you get the chance, you should definitely check out with your family!

Ben Rudnick and Friends - Review

2011-06-29T15:12:00.002-04:00

Ben Rudnick and Friends, the group who played at the Strawberry Festival in Concord.

A very fun, family friendly and quirky little band with easy going music, a combination of blue grass and rock in their own original musings.

These guys seem to play all over the state and further out, but pretty much all are free concerts such as town summer green concerts, or fairs etc.

They played 3 sets of around 40 mins a piece with great music that the kids could dance around to, which was a lot of fun to see.

You have the opportunity of getting free music if you sign up to their newsletter, but also check out the samples they have of all their CD's.

At the end of each set, you could hang around and have a chat with the band and get the chance to buy their wares, which included CD's, fun tie dye t-shirts and a collection of other small things, but they really didn't put up a hard sell at all which was rather refreshing.

For a line up of coming soon events, which is listed on their site, include:-

July 11 - West Bridgewater, MA
July 12 - Newton, MA
July 13 - Boarding House Park, Lowell, MA
July 14 - North Kingston, RI
July 15 - Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Oak Hill, NY
July 19 - Revere, MA
July 20 - Candia, NH
July 21 - Medford, MA
July 22 - Lexington, MA

So for those in Boston, there's Newton and later in the summer, Natick as well as a host of other venues you could catch these guys. Well worth keeping an eye out for!

Strawberry Fest Review

2011-06-27T20:10:00.003-04:00

Strawberry Festival

As mentioned last week, this happened last Saturday.

It's definitely a great event to be marked into your calendar for next year as it was a lovely, family event.

The strawberries were superb and the pick your own plentiful, as well as being very well priced at $3 a pound.

The farm also had a lovely marketstand type store where you could buy locally grown fruit and veg, which seemed to be very well priced as well. Plenty of lovely looking home made lunches boxes were available as well.

Because of the rain this time around, I don't think they had the pony rides which was a shame, but they did move the music and puppet shows into the greenhouse and there was plenty of room to enjoy them.

The one main consideration I think would be to arrive early, because even with the heavy morning rain, which had cleared out by the time this started at 11am, the place did get very busy by the time we arrived at lunchtime. There was quite a lot of parking available, but it was still a bit of a struggle to find a spot.

There also might be a bit of a struggle to use a pushchair if you had to as there might not much space to move it around easily when the shows get going and it's certainly very grassy outside.

The toilets inside were also very nice and clean and they had ample portaloos outside as well.

I'll get around to writing a review for the music and the puppet shows, which were both fantastic entertainment for everyone.

Slam Bolt Scrappers PSN Post Mortem

2011-06-24T23:16:00.002-04:00

The last Boston Post Mortem was presented by, Eitan Glinert of Firehose Games.

The talk was a post mortem into their PSN released game, Slam Bolt Scrappers, which pre-release had received very favourable news from Pax East etc, but since release has not been getting the same kind of reviews. They cover the highs, lows and the bittersweets of the development and cover the lack of online multiplayer which was one of the biggest detractors in the reviews for the game.

This presentation was filmed by Firehose.

Free Fun Fridays - Family Events!!!

2011-06-23T13:17:00.002-04:00

Highland Street have organised a Free Fun Friday for the summer, starting in July going through to the end of August.

Details of the events are here.

Basically, every Friday, there are a bundle of museums, art exhibits, zoo's and other children's activities that will be free. There's no registration, no need to be residents of the state or county, so a great way to have fun with the family and especially if you've got guests from out of state coming for the weekend.

Some of the personal highlights over the Fridays include :

BUTTONWOOD PARK ZOO
425 Hawthorn Street – New Bedford

PLIMOTH PLANTATION

137 Warren Ave – Plymouth

THE DISCOVERY MUSEUMS
177 Main Street - Acton

FRANKLIN PARK ZOO
1 Franklin Park Rd - Dorchester

BOSTON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM
308 Congress St – Boston

STONE ZOO
149 Pond Street - Stoneham

CHILDREN'S MUSEUM IN EASTON
9 Sullivan Avenue - Easton

OLD STURBRIDGE VILLAGE
1 Old Sturbridge Village Road - Sturbridge

ECOTARIUM
222 Harrington Way - Worcester

What's nice about this, they are dotted all over the state of MA, so everyone should have the opportunity of finding something nearby as well as a few other fun day trips such as the Boston Harbour Ferries.

Brit and other bargain goodies

2011-06-21T16:02:00.003-04:00

So at the moment, The Christmas Tree shop has been carrying crates and crates, in loads of locations of Robinson's Barley Water, both in lemon and orange flavours for $1 each instead of the going $7.50 a bottle.

They also had sun factor 50 sun screen, especially childrens sun screen for $3 which normally go for $8-9 in Target.

Then head over to Ocean State Job Lots, they had chocolate digestives and hob nobs for $2 each and also a 2 for 1 deal on Terry's Chocolate Oranges, which were $3 each, which is a bargain.

Family Fun - Strawberry Festival

2011-06-19T18:14:00.002-04:00

Verrill Farm in Concord, MA

25th June, 11am-3pm

Strawberry Festival, including ponies, hay rides, muppet shows, live music and a strawberry dessert competition.

Could be a lot of family fun for free.

Boston Blender User Group

2011-06-18T12:38:00.003-04:00

BBUG

Not to be confused with BUG (Boston Unity Group).

Good opportunity for Blender users to get together and talk about work flows, tools and other tips and tricks. This is especially good for indie devs to network as well as new comers who get the chance to meet a variety of skilled artists.

The next meet up is planned for 23rd of June, next week.

This group is organised by K. White Adam, who you can follow on twitter as @kadamwhite he also has a really interesting blog here, which covers indie game development and web design development.

Boston Pride Parade

2011-06-12T11:58:00.003-04:00

The whole gay pride celebrations are ending today, 12th Sunday, but the parties have been going on through out the week and the big parade starting out on Tremont St, going past Boston Common and ending behind Faneuil Hall was yesterday.

What a great family day out, even if the weather was poo and it rained like crazy.

It was a great chance for kids to see a lot of diversity which they might not be accustomed to seeing with a lot of fun and friendly people. The atmosphere was great and really up lifting and the floats and people in the parade were great, having various organisations taking part from various religious and charity groups, various banks, Zip Car, Google Android, the works.

Plenty of free swag for people being handed out as well, must of which was very family friendly, beads, bracelets, sweets, keychains, balls etc. There was only one float handing out stuff that you might not want your little kids to get, packets of condoms, but as ZipCar had decorated their car with condom balloons, you might not have minded.

What a great party festival feel and a great day out with the kids. Would definitely recommend going again, or taking part if you can!

Awesome Bowl Protectors!

2011-06-09T11:47:00.004-04:00

The Wrap by Boon

Check this product out here.

It's a rubberised wrap that protects your bowls, helps them stick to tables and makes them easier for kids to hold, so able to use your regular china which is lovely!

10 games that you believe people should have played?

2011-06-01T23:56:00.001-04:00

http://t-machine.org/index.php/2011/05/29/the-10-games-you-should-have-played/

This blog has a list of games that you think people should have played and here's my list -

Deus Ex - Seems a lot of the younger folks haven't really played it and it's a great game, really nice use of upgrades

Sabre Team - Nice turn based, strategy shooter game from Atari/Amiga days

Railway Tycoon - Or any of those of the era, they're good wholesome family fun

Golden Eye - Just really nice multiplayer action, and destructible environments

Turok - just some lovely environments and a good bit of fun

Lara Croft - As annoying as some of it got, nice mini games and exploration and fun character moves that were new at the time

Snood - Really simple game mechanics, but it got my missus interested in games so it has to have something going for it

Hotel Dusk - Really nice story based game with simple graphics

Gamebook Adventures - iPhone story based game, shows that a good story can make a game

Wii Resort - Something that's not all very gamey, but has a bit of something for everyone in the family and very easy to get someone to play the odd game with you

Boston Unity Work Flow Event

2011-05-20T12:14:00.002-04:00

Make Your Ideas a Reality: Suites and Unity Workflow

"On Tuesday, June 14th we are hosting event that should knock your socks off... Make Your Ideas a Reality with a Max and Maya workflow that works with Unity - there will be an in-depth look at Unity and the workflow with Max and Maya - then Carl will demonstrate how to make a game and build it for the web, iOS and Android.

Jono Forbes will be presenting Defective Studio's Unity-based world-builder, Platformer, working with their Maya plug-in for full modeling of terrain, and the ease in which it lets you move back and forth between Maya and Unity.

Carl Callewaert has 10 years experience working in motion capture, 3d animation and game development. His professional experience includes working as a liaison between artists, programmers and sales department on software/hardware development, motion capture pipelines and (mobile) game development. As an Autodesk Certified Instructor and Unity expert, Carl has taught specialized courses and workshops on game engines, key framing, motion capture, photo-realistic rendering, visual effects, modelling, level editing at companies and education institutes. Currently, Carl is Unity evangelist at the award wining company Unity Technologies . He also runs Fundi 3D where he is involved in the production of games. At The Gaming and Animation Institute of Fredericton Carl oversees the 3D gaming programs and runs the eMentorship program.

When: Tuesday, June 14th, 6pm - 10pm
Where: Bunker Hill Community College

How Much?: Free. But registration is required"

Should be an interesting event for Boston Indies to get involved with especially as the folks at GET put on such great stuff for the games community!

Ni Hao, Kai-lan Discovery Game - Review

2011-04-30T16:44:00.001-04:00

This game is aimed at children 3 plus, so we got it for our 3 year old. I don't recommend it, certainly unless the child is much older.

The dice popper, which I thought would be fun for our little one is incredibly hard to pop, I struggle to push it hard enough as it is.

The little pieces are really cheaply made and the card board inserts to the plastic base of the pieces just slide about and never stay put. There is also no box to this board game, so it's really hard to keep all the pieces together without losing them.

The instructions, if you actually want to play this properly are also not printed on the underside of the board, which is a really flimsy piece of cardboard, which is such an over site. The plastic that sits on the board is also rubbishy, weak and within minutes was cracking at the corners and falling apart.

Not very impressed with this game, which is a shame because it is very cute.

Legal Basics for Game Companies

2011-04-22T14:54:00.001-04:00

A free half day conference in Waltham MA, hosted by Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton, P.C. on the 5th of May 2011.

The iternary of the event is as follows:

Game Law Basics Sessions:

VC & Angel Financing - 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Strategic Partnering - 2:00 - 3:00 pm
IP Protection - 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Formation - 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Mergers & Acquisitions - 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Employment - 4:00 - 5:00 pm

More info on this great event for people thinking of starting up a studio, or who have started up can be found here.

What is Tech Art?

2011-04-11T16:14:00.003-04:00

Here are presentation videos from the talk given at 3D Stimulus Day.

The panel was hosted by Chad Moore, who you can follow on twitter as @smapdi

He also has a great blog with a load of information about how to get a job as well as including slides to his talks which you can find here.

The rest of the panel was made up of the following people -

Ryan Griffin, Senior Character TD, Turbine - @griffinanimator
Elliott Mitchell, Vermont Digital Arts - @Mrt3D
Brandon Bateman, Senior Tech Artist, Turbine
Farley Chery, Instructor, ITT Institute and Bunker Hill Community College
Justin Woodard, Technical Artist, Turbine - @JustinWoodard

The presentation covers what a technical artist means, covering how the varied role differs between the size and direction of the company from a large corporation to a small indie developer.

Roughly 45 mins in total over 3 parts, the final part includes part of the Q&A session.

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Part 3 -

Using Unity3D to create a 2D game

2011-04-10T10:20:00.002-04:00

Presentation given by Alex Schwartz and Yilmaz Kiymaz of Owlchemy Labs.

The topic of making a 2D game by mixing 2D and 3D in Unity and some of their tools that were created and techniques that can easily be used.

Some of these tools are available on their website for free.

The presentation is in three parts, totalling around 45 minutes.

Part 1-3:

Part 2-3:

Part 3-3 including the QA session:

Stuff from 3D Stimulus

2011-04-09T18:28:00.002-04:00

So this is really a highlight of some of the info as there are videos of some of the talks to come later.

Okay, so most probably couldn't care, but asking to help folks at the local New England resellers out, they're looking to get 200 people signed up for the 20th April event. GET.

If they do, they'll get some money to put towards local events, and they've helped put on a lot of cool events for artists in the Boston area, so if you're in the area or just want to help out, register through them and it'll be much appreciated.

The webinar is mostly a bunch of presentations about vfx, one is from the effects on Black Swan and another movie and one is a game I think.

If anyone is interested, give Heidi a shout - hjelev@greateasterntech.com

She needs your name, email and either an address or your company name and she'll automatically opt you out of receiving any Autodesk newsletter spam, unless you actually want it.

Other bits and pieces, Motion Builder or the Entertainment Suite of products, if you buy through GET, you'll get a free Kinect and set up with hacked software to have your own motion capture device out of it.

www.brekel.com if you want to check out the software that was demo'ed as a mocap software that plugged right into Motion Builder.

A nice free shader for people to use in their work was 3Point Shader Lite found here.

3D Stimulus Day

2011-04-06T11:16:00.002-04:00

GET are hosting another 3D Stimulus Day event - 9th April

A recap about the event, which is an awesome free art and networking event -

Location: Mt. Ida, Newton, MA

Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm

Presentations this year include:

Chad Moore of Turbine and Rigging Dojo, with Job Hunting Tips for 3D Artists
Alex Schwartz and Yilmaz Kiymaz of Owlchemy Labs, presenting Mixing 2D and 3D in Unity
A panel-discussion with various tech artists from local game companies, mediated by Chad Moore
- Ryan Griffin, Senior Character TD, Turbine
- Elliott Mitchell, Vermont Digital Arts
- Brandon Bateman, Senior Tech Artist, Turbine
- Farley Chery, Instructor, ITT Institute and Bunker Hill Community College
- Justin Woodard, Technical Artist, Turbine
Willem Van Der Schyf, Tencent Boston, presenting his Workflow for Character Creation using Max & ZBrush
Afternoon networking session upstairs with demos from local individuals and companies including Brass Monkey, Vermont Digital Arts, Owlchemy Labs, 3d Camera Technology, Mocap with Kinect and Motion Builder and lots more!!!

Adding to this, The Boston Post Mortem are having a meet up on the 13th April and will be talking about Game Law Hot Topics.

This should be a great, interesting meet up too.

Salary Survey?

2011-03-29T16:53:00.003-04:00

Adam Martin has a survey up to find game and web dev salaries.

Worth filling it in - Survey here.

The results of the survey will eventually be shown here in about a weeks time or so.

Conventions

2011-03-08T12:22:00.002-05:00

For anyone that has been to conventions or to future ones such as PAX East, Conventionist might be a really handy app to have!

It has the event agenda's, maps of the floors and helps you schedule out your meetings.

While talking about conventions, especially with the recent GCE11, the nice folks over at DICE have shared their presentations which have loads of great information about what they did with Battlefield, which you can find here.

BUG - Multiplayer 3D Worlds

2011-02-22T09:58:00.002-05:00

The last Boston Unity Group - BUG, meet up happened on the 15th of February. This talk was about 3D virtual worlds in Unity, given by Chris Hart, at Reaction Grid. You can follow her on twitter as @dstrawberrygirl

A good over view of the event was written up by the Lion Rampart here.

Own Brand Reviews

2011-02-09T10:30:00.003-05:00

Having a look back at some own brand products we've tried, here's a round up on my thoughts:

Nappies

BJ's - These were great value for money. Pretty basic nappy, but a good fit, easy to slide on/off and worked very well.

Target - These were probably the best own brand nappy we tried, they worked great and felt the nicest.

BabiesRUS - This was a surprise as they were the worst. They felt pretty horrid, were very thin but they were easy to put on.

Bath Stuff

We tried a variety of bathing products from Target, the sleep time body wash, shampoo and hair detangler, equivalents to the Johnson and Johnson line of products. We found these to be just as effective and pleasant to use and certainly worth the savings offered.

Misc Stuff

Own brand food. BJ's formula was significantly cheaper than the branded stuff and because all formula goes through the FDA, they're all essentially the same and as healthy so you might as well get the cheapest. Target, Hannafords and other stores now carry their own brands which is great, but BJ's is still the cheapest we found.

Snack foods, those cheese puffs and crackers etc. Hannafords have a good line, but so do Target and they are often more cheaper, especially when they are doing their deals. The food is pretty good too, including the little lunch pots and food trays for when the kids are a little older. BJ's are now carrying the branded stuff in bulk though and often have coupons for added savings.

Breast Pads. Many were tried, Avent, they were okay but a little thin, but they also have a 100 count for $11 which is the best value for money. Lansinoh, they were pretty good, but probably not the best value for money as they were quite expensive. Medela, were also expensive and not worth the extra cost. The biggest surprise was BabiesRUS, their own brand pads worked out to be almost the cheapest option, but they were great quality pads. The re-usable ones mostly ended up in the bin as they never ended up being practical and being quite expensive to maintain considering the cost and how many you'd need so that you'd have a supply with you while washing a set etc.

PAX East - Party

2011-01-26T16:32:00.001-05:00

10th March 7-10pm at the MS NERD Centre - http://paxeast031011.eventbrite.com/

For anyone in the area and especially those going to PAX East, it's a great party event to network with people.

It's a freebie event, get in touch for the discount code, it's there to keep those not in the industry off with the entry cost.

Pass it on to your friends.

http://blog.masstlc.org/2010/03/masstlc-pax-party-maxes-out-microsoft.html That's a link to some info of the party last year!

Best Lens and Screen Cleaner?

2011-01-08T12:25:00.002-05:00

Having tried a whole bunch after randomly getting quite a few as Christmas Stocking stuffers the one I keep going back to using with best results is the: - Spudz

It's really weird how much better it is than the other clothes, it does actually make your glass lens that much shinier and clearer and it does work great on your monitors, DS screens etc and with the added bonus that it can be tidied away into its own little pouch and clipped to whatever you fancy, in my key as a keyring so I've always got it.

Pampers v Huggies Pull Up Nappy Review

2011-01-02T11:15:00.002-05:00

Starting to potty train?

A look at a couple of the training pants, the Pull Ups.

Pampers v Huggies As the main two contenders, this is what I've found from using both for a while each.

Pampers - What I liked about these, they had plenty of blue "wet" indicators on the front of them and also they were slightly more roomy, so easier to actually pull up like a pair of pants. That was it and both of those had flaws to them.

The blue wet patch indicators never actually disappeared to show the nappy was wet, which they were supposed to do. Being a bit more roomy meant that the pants came off with the trousers very easily, which is not what you want if you've got a poop to deal with.

The biggest problem with Pampers though, the tear away sides didn't have a velcro like fixer to them, so if you had to change them in public it became a major hassle as you'd have to take the shoes and trousers off, you couldn't simply whip on a new pair like a regular nappy.

Huggies - The best thing about these were the velcro like sides, they came apart and stuck back together really firmly, making them very convenient to change when on the go.

Personal preference was the Disney characters as well, though that's no reflection on the quality of the nappy, but the wet indicators did actually work on these so you wouldn't find a bowling ball size nappy all of a sudden. These nappies were a little tighter than the Pampers, so were a little tougher for the little one to pull them up on her own, but it did mean they stayed up when you pulled the trousers down which was nice.

Over all, having loved Pampers for nappies in general and not liking Huggies, Huggies were the big winner this time, being much better product. The major flaw to both of them though, as they aren't nappies, they don't have proper side stickies to wrap the nappy up in case of a smelly poo disposal, which isn't quite so fun and also the gussets aren't quite as large as in regular nappies so they might spill a bit of baggage if the kid is moving around vigorously with a large load in their pants. You also do not get as many in a packet as you do for regular nappies, about 60 for $20.

Because of that I really do think they are a waste of time to use when your toddler is first starting out on the path to potty training and you might as well stick to regular nappies until they are well on their way to being able to use the potty or the toilet because once they start on these they probably won't want to go back to nappies either.

Toddler Birthday Party at the "My Gym"

2010-12-19T19:27:00.002-05:00

My Gym

This is a nationwide kids gym franchise aimed at 6 weeks to 13 years of age.

They offer a whole range of activities for kids, from arts and crafts, to sporting activities and general play.

Membership can be a little expensive, so that's up to you, but the party service they offer was superb. We were invited to a friends toddler party, for mostly 2-3 year olds.

The whole party went really smoothly, from story time to running around using various equipment such as a ball filled pit, to jumping around various padded blocks, to swinging around on huge rocket shaped swings. The activities were great fun and even though the whole thing was very laid back, it was nicely structured, to get the kids doing something different very quickly leading up to singing before the cake, which they were great about preparing and serving. A great couple of hours entertainment for a huge number of kids.

Sing-a-ma-Jigs The Hot Toy?

2010-12-07T12:25:00.002-05:00

The Sing-A-Ma-Jig

It is supposed to be the big hot toy this Christmas. Little furry plushie toys who sing and jibber when you squeeze them.

You will end up killing anyone who gives your kid one. They are insanely annoying and they're shit. You need a whole group of them to make any decent rhythmical tunes but unlike other toys who are meant to interact with each other like the Dino's, these chaps you have to press them each and every time and timing is what counts to make the tune sound anything but a drowning cat.

Not a fan and not sure why so many other parents seem to like them, but there you go.

Boston Unity Group - The Winter Showdown

2010-12-01T11:49:00.006-05:00

The Winter Showdown was the third meeting of BUG at the Microsoft NERD Centre, held last night, 30th November.

The presentation was held by, Trevor Stricker, of QuickHit, talking about their NFL licensed game and the combination of using Flash and Unity3D as well as looking a little into their monitisation routes of micro transactions and adware.

Following the presentation, their were a handful of demonstrations by people, many of these were updated demo's that had previously been shown so they were not recorded, but one that was new I will mention as I thought it was brilliant, a cloud based asset server.

But first, here is the presentation, the intro followed by 5 parts, the last two parts were from the Q&A session which was especially interesting and well worth watching.

Intro -

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Part 3 -

Part 4 -

Part 5 -

The cloud based asset server was created by Defective Studios. The website doesn't contain very much information about the asset server, which is a big shame, but they are offering beta testing for free, email Matt Schoen for details at schoen@defectivestudios.com

What made this really interesting was the simplicity and cost, they were planning on offering a monthly subscription to the service at $10 and the cloud being run from Amazon, but if you wanted to run your own servers they were working on another license fee for that.

This platform is a cheap alternative to the Unity Asset Server, much simplified and something that works very well across platforms via a web interface with no real learning curve. Meshes and textures are uploaded to the cloud and people can sync the whole build or specific items and can get them running in Unity immediately, meshes and textures being very robust with all scaler and modifier information remaining intact.

2010-11-27T12:24:00.001-05:00

Unity Prefabs - Good place to buy and sell assets, scripts, FX's and all sorts of Unity stuff, handy resource for prototype work

Indie Game Market - Good place to sell your games

Big Fish Games - Another games portal that is indie friendly, especially for smaller games it's a good place.

Things to Do - The Ecotarium

2010-11-17T15:20:00.002-05:00

The Ecotarium out in Worcester, MA

It's a great day out for kids, especially those 2-8 as they have a lot of activities for the kids to play around with, water toys, mini wind tunnels, music and light toys.

More than that, a collection of live animals, great collection of turtles, frogs and birds.

On a good day, they have lots of trails outside which are lovely too, nice short walks around a pond, with places to observe the water life and bird life, those some of these paths aren't very easy to get around with a push chair while others were. The kids playground is also very nice and spacious.

Some of the attractions were closed such as the walking tree canopy, which I could see being fun in the summer, and also the polar bear wasn't on display. The train ride is though and that is very cool, but it is a shame that some of these attractions cost extra.

One big tip, get a library pass to this place, entrance is then only $5 for adults and kids under 3 are free and older kids are $3 instead of being $12 for adults and $8 for kids.

Mass Innovation Night

2010-11-11T13:03:00.003-05:00

Mass Innovation Nights - A monthly event held in various locations in Massachusetts.

You can follow info about the event on Twitter here. #min20 was the tag to follow specifically what happened last night.

This event is a free event for people to show off their products and get some simple marketing with word of mouth. IP lawyers were also there to offer advice as well as people who run marketing sites who also offered advice to people for free.

Some of the products and people who stood out for me last night though included a anti-piracy software, which was more analytic's of who was pirating your iPhone/iPad software and had ways to help try and convert those users into paying users. Simple marketing for e-commerce, cloud based group collaboration projects and simple education animation software.

iCreate to Educate

They have a great, simple to use stop motion animation software program called "SAM", which is aimed at K through 12 year old students, which has mostly been used towards science and maths classes, but can be used to enhance any kind of class by having kids create simple animations to show off their ideas and understanding of a project.

It really was very simple to use and a lot of fun. The free version is great and has most of the features, but a few extra editing features are in the licensed version which was $50 but a site license was only $300 and individual license costs would be deducted from a site license if you decided to upgrade at a later date.

Mtiks

iOS apps anti-piracy software you can bolt on to your apps, with Android coming soon. The free version has basic analytics which is pretty good and then a paid service for more features.

What it does is identify how many users are using pirated copies, how and where, allowing you to use the info to help convert some of those users into paying users, but the paid service can go as far as allowing your app to be used for a short while before bringing up notices to buy your app or lose the high score, or other such stuff to inhibit the fun of the game.

Webiva

A whole suite of features from building your website with simple CMS funtions, to e-commerce and easy social media integration. What made this pretty interesting though was the level of realtime statistics, the huge amount of information it can provide for you in simple graphics was kind of neat, especially when seeing which affiliates of ad programs seem to be working the best for you.

Spreadable

A spin off from the Grasshopper Group. This was simple way to market your products using your customers, by allowing them to have a shout out on Facebook, Twitter or whatever they used to spread the word that they just got something they liked. Really useful for e-commerce, but probably less useful to convert sales in games where you are already on the platform, but it might work. There's a decent free trial of this service.

Novell Vibe Cloud Computing

Cloud based collaboration software services. You can do ad-hoc group communications and work collaborations, file share and consolidate enterprise social networking with messages, chats, blogs and wikis all within one program.

There is free beta testing at the moment, but the licensing is $100 set up and then $20 annual service fee per seat.

Clock Tower Law

Erik J Heels, of the above firm specialise in patent and trademark work with special interest in working with start ups to help minimise their costs. He does seem to understand the software and games sphere pretty well, so certainly with a talk to if you're in the Boston area looking for a lawyer, based in Maynard, MA.

Fruit Snacks

2010-10-28T10:40:00.002-04:00

We've been trying out some mixed fruit snacks. There are loads out there so really, get what you think is reasonably priced and as healthy as you are bothered with.

A pretty good range is the Del Monte Fruit Naturals as the fruit cups are a decent size, you can get boxes of them for quite cheap in the bulk stores, often with coupons and they're pretty easy for little ones to eat on the whole.

One variety I wouldn't recommend, surprisingly at least was the mixed berries variety. It's supposed to be a mix of blueberries and raspberries/blackberries. Very tub so far has only had a couple of blackberries and the blueberries were the nuclear huge ones that are so tough that our little one would be chewing on those for hours. It's a shame as she does actually like that variety.

Sales and Clothes

2010-10-21T15:50:00.001-04:00

Old Navy were having a sale of one any adult clothing, get kids clothing free if you use their store card, or one of the affiliated store cards such as Gap, Banana Republic etc.

Great deal for holiday outfits this

Target Clearance Sale

2010-09-28T08:43:00.001-04:00

Found Borderlands for $5 and Bioshock 2 for $15.

Some other pretty good bargains going for games right now too.

Boston Post Mortem - HTML5 and Akihabara

2010-09-16T11:20:00.002-04:00

So the last Boston Post Mortem meet up event took place at the UK Trade and Investment office as part of the consulate.

The speakers for the event were Darren Torpey and Darius Kazemi, who discussed HTML5 game development, focusing on the open-source Akihabara framework but also covering other available HTML5 game engines and general advances in HTML5/Javascript.

Akihabara is a 2D (bitmap graphics) game engine based on the canvas tag, part of HTML5, a great platform for quick product prototyping, with very little knowledge of coding or web work to get simple stuff together and working.

Some information about the engine with tutorials can be found here.

Fantastic documentation about the engine can be found here.

The Boston Game James website has a copy of the presentation which includes a great list of links to the various demos and other engines, which you can find here.

Bath Time

2010-09-05T16:37:00.002-04:00

Towels....okay, not the coolest things ever, but just came across the "Cuddledry"

It's £25 from Debenhams and found here.

It's a fluffy organic cotton towel that you can wear, to keep you dry and to easily wrap around your new born to make it much easier to have a good hold of them and dry them at the same time, just really simple yet awesome.

Boston Unity Group - Second Meet up

2010-09-01T16:27:00.002-04:00

The second Boston Unity Group - BUG had the meeting last night, 31st August 2010, held at the really nice Microsoft NERD Centre in Cambridge, MA.

The presentation was given by the ever talented user of Unity, Yilmaz Kiymaz, who came from Turkey to give the talk. He talked about editor scripts and maximizing your Unity workflow.

For an artist, a lot of this was a little over my head as it was quite technical in nature, but the results spoke for themselves, lots of little tips and tricks for people to create scripts and custom editors that would help over come a lot of tedious and especially repetitious tasks, more so for when dealing with a group of artists on the same project.

The presentation can be viewed in 3 parts below, apologies for the low volume and slight gitters in the video, but you should be able to hear and see most of the info. It's a 40 min presentation and worth seeing.

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Part 3 -

After the main presentation, a few of the folks in the crowd gave demos of their projects, not all of them were captured, but the ones that were are below -

Demo 1: This was about a set of server side art tools created to help make 3D platform style games.

Demo 2: This was given by Chris Allen, from Infrared5 showing off Brass Monkey, a controller SDK that allows a iphone/Android etc to control a web based or another iPhone/iPad type of game, very cool!

Demo 3: This was a soft body physics engine created by a MIT student doing his masters. Very cool looking physics plugin.

Demo 4: This was a weapons implementation engine, very simple and free, great for people creating FPS's.

Boston Game Loop 2010

2010-08-30T10:45:00.003-04:00

The Boston Game Loop that happened over the weekend.

Great local event that was well tended, with many local developers, but also with quite a few well travelled companies.

Images showing proposed topics of discussion on the fly at the event, photo by Boston Innovation. More photos of the event here.

A couple of good write ups of the event that are worth reading can be found by, Cruise Elroy here and by Boston Innovation here.

A good over view of the event and discussion about it as well as improvements can be found on Rob Zacny's blog here.

Boston Game Jam

2010-08-23T15:59:00.004-04:00

The Games Jam, with the immigration theme:

One of the entries for this years Boston Game Jam -

Another game you can try by Philip Tan "What's my Name?".
For a good write up of the event, you should read the blog by David Bolton, here.

Jeff On Games, has a nice Post Mortem of the event here too.

Boston August Event Line up

2010-08-05T21:12:00.002-04:00

Starting out with the Boston Post Mortem - 10th Aug, 7-10pm at the usual venue, the Skellig in Waltham.

The speaker this month, Terrence Masson, who will be giving a SIGGRAPH roundup.

Boston Game Jam - 21-22 Aug at the MIT site in Cambridge MA.

The theme for this event is about "Immigration" It should be a fun and light hearted event and a chance to mingle with other devs in the area.

Boston Game Loop - 28th Aug 9am start with conferences kicking off at 11am till the end of the day, held at the MS NERD building in Cambridge, MA $40 donation.

Scott of MacGuffin Games has more info here.

Boston Unity Group - BUG - 31st Aug 7-pm at the MS NERD Centre, Cambridge MA.

This is a great event and networking opportunity for game devs and for anyone who uses or is interesting in using and learning more about Unity. The prior event, which was the first, had people from many different backgrounds using the game engine for none game uses, so was very interesting to see people show off their projects.

Game Dev Blogs

2010-07-26T17:11:00.003-04:00

http://www.gamedevblogs.net/

A new blog that lists other game dev blogs and promotes interesting stories, so a good resource to check out a lot of industry stories and information.

Check it out folks

Boston Post Mortem - Indies Will Shoot You in the Knees

2010-07-19T17:50:00.002-04:00

The last Boston Post Mortem meet up was recorded by, Darren Torpey.

Information about the talk can be found here. The discussion panel was talking about indie game development, a repeat subject from the PAX East discussion, but an awesome talk by 3 Boston indie studios on the subject.

The youtube video is in six parts -

Link to the Youtube page with info is here.

Toddlers and Toothpaste

2010-07-13T12:09:00.002-04:00

So we've started to use some Toddler Training Tooth Paste by Orajel.

Seems to work a treat, doesn't have fluoride so safe for the little one is she swallows a little bit of the stuff.

Not sure about the flavours that they offer, we got the girly variety, which is "pink" flavoured, bit general and don't have a clue what they mean by that.

Best thing about this though, it gets rid of bad breath and after the amount of yoghurt and cheese our little one goes through, that's a really good thing!

Well worth checking this out, but look for Orajel coupons first because you can usually find quite a few online as well as in the usual newspaper flyouts etc.

Boston Unity Group - First Meet up

2010-06-13T20:38:00.004-04:00

Boston Unity Group - BUG

This is a new meet up group organised for the Boston indie dev scene, though anyone who is interested in, or has used Unity were more than welcome to the event.

The group met up in Northeastern University for the first time, a good venue, organised my Elliott Mitchell and Alex Schwartz.

Kicking off the event, Tom Higgins, community manager at Unity Technologies, spoke about Unity, the company, the product and what will come in the future as well as understanding how to get the best out of it with various pricings and features. The afternoon session held an all-day workshop dubbed ‘Unity Day’. This was a series of tutorials on Unity.

Below is, in three parts, a video of the talk given by Tom Higgins.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

The next of these bi-monthly Boston Unity Group (game developer meetup) meets will be August 31 @ the Mircosoft N.E.R.D. center in Cambridge, MA. 7 p.m.

2 Year Baby Check up

2010-06-09T12:59:00.002-04:00

So a little while back we had the 2 year health check up on our little one. This trip was much the same as previous ones.

She was weighed, but this time on a proper scale rather than the basket style as she was able to stand still long enough. Her length and circumference of her head were also measured.

The doctor checked her eyes, ears and prodded all her limbs and organs as usual and checked her walking by having her walk along the corridor towards us.

The questions were much the same as usual, how much milk is she drinking, what kind of foods is she eating and liking, how is she doing with her words and how many two or more word sentences can she speak. How well does she feed herself and is she showing signs of using the potty and other gross motor skills.

As for the jabs, she had another Hep A shot and another booster jab because there was a change up in that kind of booster.

All is well and she was booked for another visit in six months and again for her third birthday.

Game Sauce - Free Developer Magazine.

2010-05-28T12:33:00.002-04:00

Game Sauce

This is a new game developer magazine, the second edition has recently been sent out and has roughly 20,000 users, mostly developers with a couple thousand journalists. It is a free magazine and with that in mind and the fact that it is new, the thin nature of the magazine can be over looked, certainly for now.

It has a different approach to development, a lot of stories from those involved with development, talk of casual games, projects being cancelled and in depth interviews from people behind some game franchises.

What this magazine doesn't have, tutorials and in depth talks in code base, art work or tools reviews. I don't think that is a problem though because there are plenty of other magazines out there which cover this.

Also unlike some other free magazines, this isn't over loaded with advertisements which is quite refreshing, but that could also be because it has quite a small readership right now.

Either way, it is worth checking out and you aren't losing out as it is free, so check out the signup link up top.

Sony Playstation - Move

2010-05-26T07:24:00.003-04:00

This is just a little summary of information gained at the last Boston Post Mortem, held 20th May.

So what makes this a good thing to develop on? Hard question to answer with out seeing any killer apps for it, though the tech demo was pretty interesting and does show some potential for tools creation and as a editor for current games.

What Sony are doing to help developers is providing the Live Motion 2, the motion library for free to all licensed Sony devs and they are trying to make a push for people to use this by offering various bundle deals, most including the Eye Toy camera which is need to get this working, which is a good thing as they have only something like 10M Eye Toys out there at the moment.

What doesn't help, certainly devs going for the casual sports and pub type games, there won't be any controller add ons, such that you get with the Wii controller with all those baseball bats, golf clubs etc. This I think is a bit of a short fall as it breaks the illusion of being part of the event, sure this thing is accurate but there is a much larger level of disconnect from the game because of that.

A concern for who will use this is another big issue. For a party accessory, unlike the Wii, this becomes very expensive, having the PS3, the camera, the Move and the navigator, not a cheap toy to bring to a party. Also you need a certain level of light for this to work, and it needs to be consistent light for it to work at its best, so that could rule out anywhere with strobed party lights. A nice tough though, the controller can phase out colours which are similar to the background and lighting so that they won't create problems with the controller and if two or more controllers are using similar colours, it can auto change the colours for you to make game play smoother and easier.

You can have up to four Move controllers on any one system which is good, but there was no mention if that included the navigator controller or not and they would take up a joypad spot, so limiting how much of a mix and match you can have.

Allowing older games to function with these, should be easy apparently, though this is a little more in the programmer sphere than I understand, it did sound relatively simple because the units used very little system resources with a 13m/s latency per SPU for each controller. I think I got that right.

What was very nice, the face detection, this could add quite a bit of fun to game design because it could track relative age, eye movement, head movement, if you had glasses and whether you were smiling or not. It could also consider your height, if you were sitting or standing. This was a nice mechanic for game show puzzle type games because it could indicate various facial factors.

Gestures, which was also quite nice, but very glitchy. It allowed you to create a rough skeleton of your height and build, so you could control yourself and using the buttons on the controller to add fine hand control, something they pointed out that Natal didn't have. It was nice to see, but it didn't work that great though.

Big issue was the line of sight, the light on the Move controller had to see the camera and getting in the way either because you were moving around, someone passing through, or you swinging the controller back behind for something like a baseball swing broke the controller, left you hanging in the air as it were. It was quite quick to pick you back up, but it still broke the illusion.

Eating Out at The Cheese Cake Factory

2010-05-11T15:13:00.003-04:00

Seems like the Cheese Cake Factory at least locally has changed a little to become a lot more child friendly.

Recently they have added more high seats for little kids, which is great, but there still seems to be a lack or limited amount of booster seats.

Family with little kids are also places in booths or tables with a lot more room now, which is nice, that certainly wasn't the case before, where you would be kept on tables with very little room.

The menu, they also now have a proper kids menu, which also has had some revisions to the meals on offer, not exactly the cheapest kids meals, but quite a good selection and the food does seem to be freshly made such as the macaroni and cheese, which unlike many other places at least doesn't come out of a Kraft box.

Not being able to make reservations though and having long wait times in the evening can be a bit of a chore, as does no crayons or anything on offer for little kids.

Next Boston Post Mortem

2010-05-07T11:19:00.002-04:00

The next IGDA local Boston meet up is going to be the 20th August.

It's going to be at the usual venue, the Skellig, in Waltham.

Sony Move team are sponsoring the event, not much in way of details out yet, but they will be doing a talk and demo on the device.

Boston Post Mortem - Animation Panel

2010-04-14T11:06:00.002-04:00

The BPM meet up was last night and the topic was about Animation, information about the event is here.

The panellists consisted of Ron Friedman (panelist, Tencent Boston), John Lindemuth (panelist, Turbine Inc.), Andy Welihozkiy (panelist, Rockstar New England).

I'm only going to summarise what they covered, which included what they looked for in a animation reel, how best to present your work and what to look out for in doing good work.

The reel, they all agreed that the time should be around 1 min to 1:30 in length, starting out with your best piece but also ending with something strong and memorable, but you should also include your name and contact details at the start and end of the reel for convenience.

One tip they suggested for people who don't have a lot of samples in their reel is to break down the animation into segments, show off a particular part of a animation, break to another area and show that and then showing the whole sequence as a whole.

Using sound got a split response, couple of them would watch without sound just to get a sense of weight and style of animation, while one panellist liked seeing how you timed and edited your animation to the music/dialogue to see if you understood how your animation might be used. They all agreed to stay away from "funky" music though and if you don't have a reel that is well timed to the music to not have any.

Weight is a big part of animation, so they liked to see a whole character, don't zoom that character in on a particular motion, such as a hand shake, they want to see how the character stands and leans around as a whole, not just the particular motion of the hand shake, even if you add some silly jitters and coughs or what have you to bring the sequence to life.

More about weight, they often could tell if someone acted out their animation or used reference video because it added a more natural rhythm to the animation which is what they want to see, you using the best resources out there to make the best animation, so don't be afraid to look in a mirror and be goofy acting out the sequences, don't be afraid to use your webcam to record your motions. All good studios should have some sort of set up or space to do this.

Don't be afraid to include the bouncing ball in your reel if you can show good weight and life to the ball bouncing, they want to see you understand how things move, not necessarily have the most sexy looking models, but it is how you used them that impress and they appreciate seeing the basics. They want to see these basics because it shows you understand how a walk cycle works, how a ball moves around. If you understand that and also show a good little sequence you'll be in a good position because a cool sequence doesn't show that you understand all the fundamentals, just that you had a lot of time to tweak a certain animation, plus it gives you more content to show.

Munchkin Two Snack Catchers Reviewed

2010-04-05T12:08:00.002-04:00

Snacks and car seats, always a mess waiting to happen, so there are plenty of little containers designed to hold the snacks whilst providing easy access to little hands.

I got a double pack of Munchkin Snack Catchers. They range anywhere from around $4 to $8 for a pair depending on where you get them.

They look great, they are dish washer safe which is a huge plus and generally they get a great review.

The reality is, they're a bit shit.

The actual container is so flimsy even with the lid on that it can be squished quite easily, which results in all the snacks falling out. The opening in the lid is way to larger and flexible that anything slightly small for a snack falls out and the flaps don't hold anything back from falling out when little hands reach in to grab at stuff.

For all the good these things do, you really wouldn't notice any difference between using a normal open container but at least something like that you can put a lid on so they don't shake all the contents into your bag if your carrying it around which this will do as it squishes together.

Find something else would be my advice.

PAX East

2010-03-29T12:05:00.002-04:00

Well a nice read up can be found here.

Nice that it'll be finding a larger home for the next couple of years. The Hynes Convention was cool, but way to small, massive over crowding, huge queues and virtually impossible to get into any of the talks unless you wanted to spend hours queuing.

Highlights of the event, seeing the indies, a lot of local ones, but also from all over the country. MIT with their Gambit Lab helped having a large stand that local indies could be a part of which was great.

Also loved the classic arcade section, reliving childhood games, even playing the original Pong, that was awesome.

Plenty of new games being displayed, even Atomic Games, with their change in design from the dropped controversial game were there trying to drum up interest for their now download game.

Lots of surveys to be had, lots of prize raffles of gear to be had, plenty of swag, but most of it was pretty boring, nice t-shirts, but would have been fun to see some more original stuff.

Autodesk

2010-03-23T15:31:00.002-04:00

Just a random post on Autodesk.

Video highlight of Max 2011 - http://area.autodesk.com/3dsmax2011#

Naughty Dog - Character and Animation, basic work flow video of the GDC talk - http://area.autodesk.com/gdc/ondemand12

Lunch Out With the Little One

2010-03-10T17:55:00.002-05:00

Just had lunch at a couple of places over the last few days, where I've not eaten before.

First was at Chick-Fil-A which was in a mall. The food wasn't what impressed me, because it was pretty meh, fried chicken and the kids meal was really limited to chicken nuggets and you had to pay extra to substitute the waffle fries for a fruit cup.

What was really good, especially for a place in a mall food court, the service. They offered to have someone take your food to a table if you had your hands full with a pushchair, never had that happen before and certainly makes up for the food. The waffle fries are awesome though!

The second place I tried, The Border Cafe. This was great, the kids menu had a good selection of meals from the usual grilled sandwich to chicken tacos with a decent serving of the string fries, salad, soft drink and a choice of chocolate or a packet of sweats for desert, all for $3.

Only down side seemed to be the fairly open plan of the place, which could have been the location I was at rather than the other restaurants. They had plenty of high chairs, but they were still a little low for the high tables and the lack of booths meant it did get quite nosy during lunch as it was very busy. The service was great, the food was out very quickly, all lovely and well priced with good portions and the fresh tortillas and salsa make for a great free snack while your waiting for your food. Loved it.

Zhu Zhu Pets are evil?

2010-03-03T08:09:00.003-05:00

Quite the fad at the moment, Zhu Zhu Pets!

They're furry little toy hamsters that have little wheels so they can zoom around the floor and through their own little hamster track.

What makes them evil? Kids are kids, and though there is a tiny sticker underneath them saying not to put them anywhere near hair, kids will eventually put on on their or someone else's head. When that happens, the wheels which go like the clappers will tangle and snag the hair and the only way to get out of the tangled mess is by cutting the hair down to the scalp, either that or your kid freaks out and rips a chunk of hair off.

Seems to be quite a common theme, there's thousands of posts of this type of incidence happening all over the interweb.

Definitely not a toy for little kids, even though it does say over 4 year olds, I'd be sceptical about anyone younger than a teen playing with one of these and even then...

WD TV Live Media box review

2010-02-24T17:06:00.002-05:00

There are loads of these media boxes around so it can be hard to chose, but I personally went with the WD TV Live - Mainly because I know quite a few people who have one, or at least the models down, the WD TV and WD Mini.

First the alternatives, which there are quite a few -

Dragon Tech

Popcorn A-200

Acer Revo - a mini desktop using XMBC media streaming network software.

Main reason I went with the WD, it was a cheap option at $120 did nearly everything I wanted from it and was easy to use as well as being nice and small.

So out of the box, you've got the player which is about the size of an external hard drive, a tiny remote and the audio/video cables and composite cables, you have to get your own HDMI cables.

The player has two USB slots so you can use a thumb drive or plug in a wireless adapter to get it online, but the list of adapters that are certified to work is fairly small, you can see the list here. You also have the option of plugging in a network cable.

There is no hard drive in this, unlike other players, but using a thumb drive to get media on the thing is pretty good for tele shows or movies, but if you wanted to get the most out of this, you should get it hooked up to your network where it can play music and movie files from a shared drive on the network or media shared device.

Once you've got a USB wireless adapter that works for the device, getting it set up is a breeze, plug it in and go to settings to select wireless and automatic settings and then you plug in any network passwords and it hooks straight up. You also can store user name/passwords for any shared drives if you want which is quite nice.

So far, it has played all kinds of media files I have thrown at it, streamed them really well and upscaled non HD content wonderfully. It also remembers where in a file you were if you have to stop the show and go to another show for example. Fast forwarding files also seems to work really smoothly, as does the ability to read subtitle files.

Product support is great too, with regular firmware updates to sort out any issues, which are really easy to install. For the more adventurous out there, they also provide beta firmwares here.

Online features, Youtube, Pandora, Live365 radio, Flickr. Really easy to use and they all work really well with the device.

With all the love and I'd highly recommend this device to anyone, there are a few cons and I'll go over them.

The remote, you can't use the player without the remote and it is a small remote, make sure you don't lose it, and for anyone with a large media catalogue, it would have been nice to have a rocker switch to quickly scroll through your library.

USB slots, only two of them, the one at the back, which you'd probably use for the wireless, it is right next to the HDMI slot, so unless you've got a narrow adapter, you'll have to use and extension or there won't be room for it. The other USB slot on the side is slightly recessed and isn't lit up at all so can be difficult to find if you've got your player in your TV cabinet, but that is a small gripe. There really needs to be a third USB slot though because you can use a keyboard, but there isn't room to plug one in, and you'll see how useful a keyboard is if you use the online features like YouTube, Panadora etc. Still don't know why they couldn't have built wireless into the device as it would reduce there need to support other adapters but oh well.

The online features, it is missing Hulu and other services such as Netflix, which apparently can work if you have a media server set up and stream the content from your desktop and there are also hacked firmware files out there that do add extra services. Would have been nice to be able to put in proxy/VPN details so you could use a BBC iPlayer service etc. Also the player can't play DRM protected content from say iTunes

Audio, it's stereo output, automatically downscales it for you, but it would be nice not to if you've got an A/V receiver to put it through, less of a concern for me but it should be mentioned.

I'm still loving it, works a treat, simple to use and no messing around to get it up and running in minutes.

The Indie Bundle

2010-02-14T11:40:00.002-05:00

http://www.theindiebundle.com/

For a short time you have the opportunity to get 6 great indie games for $20 which is a great bargain.

Worth it just for Eufloria and Machinarium on their own so well worth checking this bundle out.

Boston Science Museum day out

2010-01-29T15:25:00.004-05:00

Something fun to do with the little one in Boston.

The Boston Science Museum makes for a lovely day out with the family, especially at the moment when they have the Harry Potter exhibit.

At the moment it is $26 a ticket for the museum and the Harry Potter exhibit, but one thing to consider, get a library pass card from your local library as it'll save $30 on admission for a pair of adults, the pass allows up to 4 people. Kids under 3 go for free which is really nice.

Definitely bring a push chair for the little ones as the place is pretty huge and will take much of the day to get around, but well worth it. Parking at the museum is in a multi story, and is around $16 for the day which is really good.

The cafeteria isn't to badly priced and the food generally isn't all that bad, some of it better than usual and some typically cafeteria fare, but over all not bad, especially for the kids.

There are plenty of bathrooms and water fountains through out the place as well as lifts making it easy getting about and taking care of little ones.

Plenty of extra shows that cost extra, but the butterfly exhibit is a good one and worth the money, certainly for little kids, the others probably not so much, certainly for little ones at least.

Gaming in China and thoughts on suceeding

2010-01-14T11:22:00.004-05:00

This is a summary of information that was provided at the Boston Post Mortem talk last night, which was given by Jeff Goodsill, the general manager of Tencent Boston.

It covered some tips on how to try and make a success of the market as well as some things that you need to understand to be able to have a chance.

One thing to understand about the market, the average salary for people is very low, $500 a month, this is a contributing factor into the high piracy rates in China as well as the reason that 70% of games fail in the market there. With that initial outlook, why bother? Because there is a lot of money to be made but you have to tailor the experience for the market. Games playing out there is seen as a social experience, a way to meet people and talk to friends and family cheaply, it's all about the social interaction and micro transaction. Many games are free without purchase to get around the piracy factor, they also do not bother with the subscription model because it limits the number of regular players by allowing only those who can afford it. The money is on micro transactions, small, cheap, easy but many of them.

This has lead to the government introducing a strict 5 hour a day play time to curb the huge number of hours people were playing games, more than 5 hours a day seven days a week. You have to have this mechanism to stop people playing to get approval in the country, but that does not mean that those people can not make purchases or continue to chat after they have exhausted their daily playing time.

Talking about the market size. The country has the largest amount of people online and using the internet. 230 million people were online last year 2008, it is 388 million users now. People that have mobile/cell phones, that was 370 million users five years ago, it is now at 700M, 33M of those users are using their phones to play games daily. Broadband access covers 93% of the country, that is massive, the US is only around 63%.

The game market has 23% casual users, the rest is primarily mmo's, whether that is FPS style, side scrolling, fantasy or real world games, these games generate $380B.

One thing you can do to give yourself the best chance of success and perhaps saving some money at the same time, getting the language right. English isn't spoken by many people, certainly outside of the largest cities, but with a country with so many dialects, picking Mandarin would be your best option to have appeal and reach to the largest sector of the market.

Where you can go to see what has been produced and who are making successes - Tencent, Shanda, Changyou and Perfect World. These companies cover most of the market making much of their money in MMO microtransactions, "Dungeon and Fighter" would be a good example of how the transactions work with 100M registered users and 2M daily users. Don't discount the level of polish on some of these games either, some of them have $2-5M budget and 2-3 years development time, and one particular game had 6 years and $15M, when you consider the average salary, this means they are using mammoth teams to create a huge amount of game content.

It is all about showing off, being the best, being the most individual, so while a lot of the transactions might seem silly to us in the West, they ave very important to the market. Key way of maintaining active users is tying in the playing experience with the market, for instance a player might have to farm for 20 hours before having a skill level to allow him to buy a pink pony, having that pony shows off he has a lot of game loot as well as dedication to playing the game to his friends as well as his guild. Another popular one is charging people to join larger guilds, so it will be free playing with 5 people, but you have to pay to join a 20 person guild, going all the way up to the thousands of people in some games. People also enjoy completely random side games that have no bearing on the real game, such as fishing trips, family/clan dinner parties, anything that can be gone in a group, often where people can show off what they have accomplished and bought.

Again this might sound very silly having so a high number of hours to pace for in a game, but these players are looking to spend 700-1000 hours in a MMO world before they completely max out on everything, so the scale is something completely different to what we are used to. So when you have the pacing thought out, you also need to plan the monetisation of the game from the get go.

So you have thought about your game, how do you manage the business side of things?

There is a 12/13 hour time difference with China, so you have to plan your communications out very well and factor in a large budget. Tencent spends $250K a year on communicating between the US and China sites, this includes many flights for in people conferences when you just have to be face to face. Obviously covering the flights and hotel, but even more importantly the cost of having a good translator, which is often key. A good translator is worth their weight in gold, not only in being able to translate what you say, but to also understand business and gaming so that they are able to convey the nuance of what you are saying and pass that information back to you.

Getting a game successfully released requires going through three regulatory government bodies, these include GAPP, SGAFRFT and MOC. Understanding that these bodies are always having "turf" wars can be a problem and because of that, going through a partner company is often your best bet, these publishers I will cover a little later on.

Key aspect about your game though, it must not contain any reference that is anti government/communism, religion, alcohol and especially any references to both Korea and Japan. The games must show that they are not promoting addiction, nor addictive behaviour, so no obvious gambling and having that five hour game limit is a must. Also no references to skeletons, there are a few exceptions to this one rule, mostly for those old games who already had the references but for anything new, you should avoid.

Going back to having a partner to get your game out, these publishers take on a few important roles, obviously guiding you through the government regulatory bodies, but they also work to combat farming bots, because they are more harmful to you making money than a pirate, for some games there can be as many as 50 bots per active player, but the best way of combating these bots is simply working on balancing the game and rebalancing so that they bots are not needed.

So who do you approach, the big partners who are used to dealing with the West and having the best reputation: -

-Netease.com Inc, who generated $452M in revenue last year, they also host WoW and own their own search engine.

-Shanda Interative Entertainment Ltd, they generated $523M

-Perfect World Co, they generated $211M but they are also based in the US

-Giant Interactive, making $232M

-Tencent, revenue last year was $1B, they own the number one social site in China, have 100+ games in the top 5 categories and are now currently the largest phone, mobile and internet providers.

Getting one of these partners interested in working with you. Simple things that you are probably used to doing, but show a prototype of your game and mechanics, show what kind of schedule you plan for and your staff requirements that you can provide or how you could bring people on board and most importantly, how do you plan to make money in the game, who the target player is and how you intend to grow your product to hook more players and to help grow a continual future partnership with your publisher.

Finally, I'd just like to thank Jeff Goodsill, the talk was really interesting and I hope I was able to pass on as much information as I was able to gleam without any inaccuracies, but anything wrong with be accountable to by note keeping.

$228 emachine notebook

2010-01-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

Don't know if anyone is interested, but I just saw that Walmart are still doing in their store those emachines netbooks for $228

http://gadgetmix.com/index/emachine-netbook-for-only-228-at-walmart-stores-after-christmas-sale/

250GB HD
1GB Ram
10.1" Screen
270 atom
Windows 7

Looked pretty nice, even has full sized shift keys on both sides.

GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4670 Review

2009-12-29T13:36:00.003-05:00

I was looking to replace my old ATI 2400HD card, criteria was something cheap, a big improvement, which wouldn't have been hard and preference to not requiring a new PSU.

The card I got was the Gigabyte Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 from New Egg.

It's certainly not the most sexiest of graphics cards, but it hit all the points I was looking for for under $50, can't complain about that.

Some rambling thoughts about the card, starting with the good points-

Price, can't beat the value for money
Spec, great features, could have done with more memory compared to other cards but it has gddr3 which can't be sniffed at either
Size, it's a fairly small card and only takes up one slot unlike many, but barely
Power consumption, it really does run well on a 300/350W supply, without needed an extra power connection
Sound, it's very quiet, marginal increase to the old one but hardly noticeable really

Cons about the card-

Would be nice if the fan was idle until it was needed, would make it silent during regular use
Box content, I've seen OEM packages include more this, no cables, screws, connection converters or anything, not that I needed them
Manual is a bit generic and rubbish and the drivers on the CD are a little out of date
Connections, HDMI is a little close to the DVI socket so could be a problem for some

Over all, this is a great little card, nice Windows Review increase by a couple of points, games certainly look a lot more impressive and very easy to install and get going and it's CrossfireX ready for those who want to join up a couple of cards though you'll need to get your own bridge connectors.

Eating out at American Girl Bistro

2009-12-20T19:24:00.003-05:00

American Girl Factory, going for lunch at the Bistro, certainly an experience.

Cute as the place was, lending you a doll with a high chair if you don't have your own, it's still an over priced treat.

$16.50 for a fixed starter and main course plus drinks and $7.50 for a kids menu, which is a main meal and ice cream.

The food is good, but the descriptions were a little deceptive. Fondue of strong cheddar cheese with crusty farm style bread turned out to be what appeared to be melted Velveeta cheese and soft chunks of normal bread.

It was good but not quite as expected, but better than the veggie skewers, which consisted of a piece of pepper, a tomato and cucumber.

Main meal, the macaroni and cheese had the same cheese as fondue, the side of fruit was a couple pieces of melon. This contrasted with the kids version which did have a good portion of fruit and vegetables on the side.

The salmon meal was fantastic on the other hand, good portion of salmon, nice side of steamed broccoli and carrots with a good serving of mashed potatoes.

Another odd thing about the place, no booster seats, only high chairs.

Certainly a fun afternoon treat with the little one, but some how I think it would be better for icecream and coffee kind of break.

Transferring Software Licenses?

2009-12-17T14:24:00.002-05:00

For anyone interested, there was a pretty good article about this in this months 3D World Magazine, current in the US, being number 124.

It mentioned that a court ruling in California allowed someone to sell a license of AutoCad on ebay that was purchased from a architectural firm. This is being appealed by Autodesk however.

The point being Autocad and other software are being sold as products with a set fee, which is different to being sold as a service where there is continual payment, so the subscription services for 3DSM etc would not be included in this.

Various companies allow you to transfer your product license to a new user after sale, some with more ease than others. Some packages the license can be transferred when both the old and new user get in contact, others where the seller gets in contact. Some were free to transfer, some had a transfer fee ranging from $50-200

Boston Post Mortem Round up and the IGDA

2009-12-09T11:42:00.005-05:00

This months meet up of the Boston Post Mortem was a round up of what has happened to the chapter during the year as well as highlighting plans for the future.

These plans included organising elections to the board of the chapter now that it is an official chapter of the IGDA as well as highlighting a few of the planned chapter meet up events, which have been provisionally arranged for the next few months, which for the most part do actually sound pretty interesting.

Also at the event was Joshua Caulfied, the executive director for the IGDA.

He talked a little bit of what he is hoping to accomplish and what has been happening at the organisation, but much of the evening was just a question and answer session, which he seemed to hold his own at and certainly a very pleasant, well meaning person who made himself very open to communication, staying for over an hour after the event to answer more questions from people.

One accomplishment he touched on was the medical health insurance pool being offered to those in the US, but he didn't go into how they would filter those who just joined the org for this benefit without being a developer. He did say that if people found better rates or plans on their own that he would be able to go to the brokers to find out why those better rates weren't on offer to people though. These rates might not necessarily be cheap, but the group rate should offer better rates for many people, especially those with families or pre-existing conditions.

Liability insurance as a group rate was also being offered to members which a lot of smaller start ups were interested about but he wasn't able to give any details at the moment, certainly regarding those outside of the US.

My main question to him was what he was doing to get the "I" in the organisation to have any real meaning and value to the members outside of the US via promoting communication, attractiveness to join or stay as a member as well as what advantages were being offered to those aboard.

His answer consisted of organising events aimed at those aboard, starting with web seminars with topics to help indie devs, going over local cultural differences, how to market to various other markets, how to go about localisation and distribution. These web events to begin with are being aimed at those countries who have shown most interest, such as Japan, China, Spain and Mexico.

To make the most of these events, they were being planned on being time shifted so that they could be viewed at a decent hour for those in the countries these events were being aimed at so that they could be involved in the discussions. These events should then be made available as streaming media for the rest of the membership afterwards but in a none interactive format.

Another way to help bolster the organisation through the ground up was giving more value to local chapters, such things that happen in the BPM, speakers doing practice runs for larger conferences. He was hoping to get in touch with people who do these speeches and arrange for them to do talks in their local chapter areas, perhaps offering to help out subsidising any out of pocket expenses if they had to travel beyond a local destination.

Bringing chapters together was another aim, but getting chapter organisers to provide event feedback after events and highlights of information and talks held so that they could be provided to the organisation as a whole so that every one gets to benefit from these hubs and if nothing else to act as a starting point for discussion for those smaller chapters.

A big issue of contention was the whole board of directors election process. The plan is now to lead a more structured approach of having each candidate answer 10 standard questions as part of their manifesto and information blurb. There is plans to also arrange a video conference some how where each candidate gets 10 minutes to talk about themselves and go over anything they feel appropriate as well as to answer question fielded towards them. How this is all done hasn't been sorted out yet, but is high on the agenda to be finalised soon.

The whole web problems. Part of the problems with slow responses to communicate with members were down to custom features implemented by the previous ED, Jason, who never documented how functions worked so that the board would have to get him to fix issues or to explain how to get things working such as the whole group email system is still tied into his little system.

The four years of development of the website, using two developers, he did mention who they were but I don't feel I should mention who they are so if your interested, email him. The reason for this, at the start they had cost estimates of $150K for a AMS system and creating their own being considerably less than this, though he didn't give an exact figure of how much they saved.

What they wanted from the system, not just a BBS, but the whole backend to the database, keeping membership information sorted by types, automating sending out membership dues and discount coupon codes to various events as well as opening up the studio membership so that those in the studios knew they were members.

The frontend at the moment is being handled by 20 volunteers, only 4 of whom have any decent experience with Drupal, this is part of the problem with slow responses and glitches with the site. They are looking for a proper web developer to help fix these issues and are interviewing a few companies to help out. One particular place is offering the hosting of the site on much better servers as well as 80 hours of development time to work through and fix the whole site. What Josh wants is a timeline to work with so that he can inform the membership what is happening, which at the moment is 3 months to get everything fixed and working properly or they'll revert back to vB.

He also said that they were limiting emails to the members to a maximum of 2 per week and he was trying to prioritise what kind of information is being sent out. Something that would help him would be members directly contacting him with any particular issues so that he is personally aware of them so that they could be addressed, for instance he wasn't aware what people were thinking about with the whole ghosting of posts and the time delay of them appearing or not appearing if you weren't logged in. This was a system glitch and not an attempt to censor posters which is something he is very against doing, as long as members follow the rules of the forum, more from a legal side as well as not being abusive to others. So he should hopefully address this and other concerns in further communications.

If anyone wants to get in contact with Joshua, his email is - joshua @ igda.org

iPhone Dev Resources

2009-11-24T12:14:00.003-05:00

Some sites everyone should have bookmarked - The Ultimate Toolbox for iPhone Development.

That site is such a great resource covering tools and tutorials on getting you started, heavy slant on the app side rather than games but it does also cover the basics of doing games.

iPhone Dev Made Easy - Short slideshow going over some tools.

35 Free Icon Sets for your iPhone projects - Does what it says on the tin...handy collection to get you started.

Storing those Plush Toys!

2009-11-10T09:23:00.001-05:00

Found the perfect answer on Think Geek - The Otto Plush Animal Bag

Store all your plush animal toys in this big blob plushy.

Family Photo's and the holidays

2009-11-09T14:35:00.002-05:00

Well it's that time of the year again and time to get another portrait photo of the little one.

Last year we used JC Pennys' but this year we opted to give Target a go.

Using their coupons they offer on that gallery portrait site, it's a great saving, about $100 it saved us.

Really liked the service, much more laid back and easy going getting the pictures done, also very quick in getting the pictures back, a week turn around.

They do offer all the extras like cards and multiple pictures on a print, but they were far less pushy on offering those services. They do have 3 of these extras that they offer for half price, so $8 when you pick your pictures up but you don't have to take them.

Highly recommended.

Baby Monitors

2009-10-04T16:41:00.002-04:00

Here's a short review of a few baby monitors because we had to finally replace our original monitor because new neighbours below our apartment has caused some interference so we went for an upgrade.

Our original monitor was a Graco Respond which we managed to find at Big Lots for $10 and has been a fantastic bargain as well as a great product.

It is well built, very sturdy and can be thrown around lots without breaking. The receiver has a battery built in that can be charged up and gives you great usage which is handy when when you've got to run around the house as the range is also very good. The signal also is generally very good, except when placed around a phone or router.

Other features of this monitor include a recording option so that if your baby cries it can play your recording, or it can play a few nursery rhymes.

Very happy with this unit and give it 4/5

The replacement unit we got was a Graco iMonitor Digital Vibe - What we liked about this, it's very simple to work out of the box, comes with a built in battery for the receiver which charges from a cradle and the base monitor can use batteries as a backup, which aren't included but the power adapters were universal for both the base and receiver.

Also the receiver has a power socket so you don't need the cradle if you don't want. This is a nice mobile unit, small, well made, light and sturdy with a pretty good belt clip. The battery life on this isn't as good as other monitors but it is good enough to get you around a long nap time.

The range on this is advertised as 2000 ft, I haven't confirmed that, but it has been crystal clear through out our apartment which is lovely, and it really has been crystal clear with no static or interference, being a digital unit really does make a huge difference here over the older analogue systems. The receiver also has a vibrate function to let you know your baby is crying if you have the volume turned down which is a nice idea but not something I use.

We'll give this a 5/5 rating.

Before we got the above, we tried and then returned a couple other units, the first was:

Safety First Go and Glow Monitor - Looks great, quite cheap depending on where you get it, $25-35 and nice and sturdy design. The major problem we had with this unit was interference, it wouldn't work anywhere at all in our apartment, the receiver was just bleeping out static which was horrid. Other things that dinged this in our minds, the belt clip was rubbish and this didn't include any batteries. The base unit was nice and stable though and had a thermometer. Finally the nightlight feature didn't really light up, so was a bit pointless.

2/5

Fisher Price Sound's n Lights Monitor - Another cheap unit around the $25-35 price range, analogue and returned because it also suffered heavy interference, it was better than the above unit in that it would work if the receiver was placed close to the base unit or in certain parts of the apartment but not anywhere that was useful for us.

This does advertise itself as being "green" with the power supply, the irony being that it was least environmentally friendly in the packaging having the most disposable rubbish. The antenna is not built in on this either, which potentially means it could be unsafe as a large protrusion, certainly something easy for the baby to grab and throw. The base unit was very light and didn't feel sturdy, but it did have a nice night light feature, which wouldn't automatically shut down incidentally which is a shame. Also no built in batteries for this unit and if you wanted to place your own batteries, the compartment comes with screw fitted fixings which isn't very convenient, this is aimed at the parents and not the child after all.

A nice feature about this unit though, the light indicator is visible from both sides of the receiver and the belt clips is quite sturdy.

2/5

Other units we looked at but didn't try out, but you can read the reviews on Amazon, which came highly recommended were the:

Safety 1st High-Def Digital Monitor

Sony 900 MHz BabyCall Nursery Monitor

From the discussion last night

2009-09-30T18:59:00.002-04:00

The "Jobs in 3D discussion" was interesting because it came from the view points of someone in education trying to place students, an internal recruiter, someone who hires contractors, a art director and someone who runs a small business.

From the perspective of the small business owner, having all round skills were the most important factor because there wasn't many resources and projects keep changing that you had to be able to work on whatever came in and a great way of getting a foot in the door was as a school/college internship or offering to help out on a certain project for free.

From a contractor perspective, Lane Feuer at Hasbro just wanted to see good looking sculpture work, doesn't matter about the quality of the model or texturing, just the final sculpture because that is all they are interested in, which is quite different to a lot of other fields. Also because a lot of the contractors work remotely from as far as Brazil, communication is key in being able to understand the requirements of the project. Being a contractor for 6 months is also looked as a probationary period, much like an extended interview, if they like you and you work out there is every possibility of them offering you a full time position at the end of the contract.

Thom Ang, the art director at 38 Studios was a very interesting speaker, talking about working to your strengths, if you aren't the best artist out there but are able to manage projects he said work to those strengths, gets you working in a art position but where you can help out the most as an example.

As a side note to the discussions, Brad Porter, who organised the event mentioned that Maya 2010 with a subscription included would be $4100 or a stand alone license of $3500 and this version combines all the versions of the past so no more 3 flavours.

They are also offering an "Entertainment Creative Suite" which is $5000, this includes either Maya 2010 or 3DSM 2010, Motionbuilder and Mudbox.

He highlighted the main advantage of the subscription model, apart from cheaper future upgrades, it allowed the artist to remotely use the license on their home personal computer at no additional cost, which is a great way to play around with the package on your own time.

Jobs in 3D Panel Talk

2009-09-24T12:54:00.001-04:00

NEDAG have arranged a panel discussion focusing on jobs in 3D -http://nedigitalartists.org/?p=87

Location - 32 Vassar Street Cambridge, MA 02139

Date - 29th September

Panelists include:

Thom Ang: Art Director, 38 Studios
Kevin Fanning: Manager of Strategic Staffic, Harmonix
Kristin Casasanto: Director Career Services, NEIA
Gael McGill: CEO of DigiZyme, Harvard Lecturer, Medical Visualization Specialist

Cool Toddler Crockery

2009-09-18T16:40:00.002-04:00

The Loopa Gyro Bowl - This thing is awesome, a gyroscopic bowl that will always face up, so hopefully reducing the chances of spilled food when your toddler is on the move.

Bed Bath & Beyond has it online for $8

Video Game Innovation Day

2009-09-17T12:23:00.003-04:00

Just because it's amusing that there's now a Games Day in Mass.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/09/10/massachusetts-guv-proclaims-video-game-innovation-day

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Video-Game-Innovation-Day-Massachusetts,news-4623.html

Just a couple of links that are worth a read on it.

Nice token gesture, but doesn't really mean anything, doesn't get any benefits to the companies or people involved in the industry.

Ludum Dare

2009-08-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

The Ludum Dare 15 - 48 hour competition is happening again - August 28th-30th

Always interesting seeing what gets created for this and a good chance for people to get involved with a quick competition.

Boston Game Loop

2009-08-14T09:51:00.005-04:00

For anyone on the East coast, especially around Boston, check out the Boston Game Loop

GameLoop is organized by Darius Kazemi (Orbus Gameworks) and Scott Macmillan (Macguffin Games) who are great characters who do a lot for the local scene and are instrumental in the success of the local IGDA chapter, the Boston Post Mortem.

The event this year is the second to be organised and has a much wider reach of people attending from all over the country, but obviously with a more local slant of attendees.

It's a "unconference" which basically means people talk about what they know to those who are most interested. How it works, people turn up and introduce themselves and what they are interested in at the beginning. With that information, people can suggest topics to talk about that they have knowledge in and that other people are interested in and can contribute towards.

This means that there might be micro niche topics with only 5-8 people being involved, but they will all gain and give so that they all benefit.

The whole point is to have a more intimate setting, people aren't putting on massive GDC style talks which only hold interest in parts for some people.

There's also a $20 suggested donation for this event to help the organisers cover the cost of the event which other wise would be out of their own pockets, cover costs of coffee and snacks etc.

Location, the "NERD" centre on the first floor of the Microsoft Office, Kendal Square, MA

Go, enjoy, learn and network!

Edit: to add, this event is on the 15th August, and for industry people only, so no students.

Back pain during work?

2009-08-10T15:14:00.003-04:00

Bit random this, but just got a pair of Fit Flops - Freeways

Just really nice to wear while walking around the office or home when having a break from the computer. Could be purely coincidental, but it does appear to have helped relieve a bit of lower back pain whilst taking a break from things. If nothing else, they do help tone up the calf muscles a little.

Maya 2010 Deal

2009-08-05T14:47:00.001-04:00

Bit spammy I supose, but I got sent this and thought others might be interested -

Autodesk has combined Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited into Maya 2010! If you were planning on buying Maya, you have a very short window to be able to save some serious cash... From today until August 10th, you can buy Maya Complete ($1995) and subscription ($595) for a total of $2590 and still have access to Maya 2010 when it is released on August 12th.

Maya 2010 is one Maya, one value. It will include all the functionality of Maya Unlimited 2009, with Maya Composite, Autodesk Backburner and Autodesk Matchmover. The Network (NLM) version will also come with 5 Mental Ray batch nodes.

Maya 2010 will retail at $3,495 (SLM) and $4,370 (NLM). Subscription will be $595 and Gold Subscription will be $895.

Call Dawn at 800-875-0025 or email dobrien@get.com for more details.

Developers Rally Round Colleagues Besieged by "Trademark Troll"

2009-07-24T12:11:00.001-04:00

In an unprecedented show of support, members of the game development community from several countries have come together in support of French independent game developer Mobigame. Mobigame is involved in a legal dispute with former publisher Tim Langdell, who conducts business as Edge Games. Langdell has a history of confrontation with game companies using the word "Edge" in games titles.

Dispute Between Langdell and Mobigame

On July 15th, Langdell forced iPhone platform-holder Apple's hand to block the sale of the award winning and triple IGF award nominated iPhone game 'EDGE'. Langdell's claim was that the product infringes on his trademark of the word 'Edge'. Initially, when Mobigame voluntarily removed the game from the store they were receiving several emails per day from Langdell; some of which even went as far as threatening to sue the owner of Mobigame (David Papazian) personally, stating that it could cost David "millions of dollars".

Mobigame actually own the trademark 'EDGE' in France, and the registration is on-going in Europe. Despite this, Langdell threatened to sue unless they remove the game from the AppStore entirely, even in the regions where Mobigame own the trademark. On May 14th, Mobigame proposed renaming the game to 'EDGY' for the UK and the US market, stating that their trademarks could co-exist since Mobigame will have the trademark in Europe, and they would rename the game to 'EDGY' for the UK & US markets. Langdell refused to accept this, and on May 16th he applied for the trademark 'EDGY' in the US.

As a small company, without access to substantial legal resources, Mobigame was keen to avoid a protracted legal dispute, and have tried on many occasions to reach an amicable solution. Unfortunately, negotiation with Langdell proved fruitless. Mobigame is currently evaluating their options, but are denied the income they were depending on from iPhone game sales.

Langdell's History of Threats and Litigation

Langdell has a history of similar tactics with other small companies. He lists credits for games containing the word 'Edge' on his website, and claims credit for their development. In reality his involvement is limited to demanding money for the use of the word 'Edge'. His legal relationship with renowned British development magazine EDGE is unclear, but claims that he "spawned" the publication were recently removed from his website. Even after the outrage among the international community of developers began to rise, Langdell applied for a trademark on the phrase, 'Edge of Twilight', days after Australian company, Fuzzyeyes Studio announced they were soon launching a game of that name.

Community Reaction

Game developers around the world have taken a dim view of Langdell's actions, as trademark disputes have a far more profound effect on small game companies with limited resources for legal support.

To try to combat this, members of The Chaos Engine, a game industry professionals' think-tank/forum have started a fund to aid Mobigame in what could be a lengthy legal dispute, during which time sales of EDGE are being restricted. There is also a Facebook group set-up to show support for Mobigame and EDGE.

"We think it's important that Langdell not be allowed to bludgeon small companies with esoteric trademark laws," says Paddy Sinclair, CEO of Proper Games Ltd. "Games may be a fun and light-hearted product, but this is still a professional industry. There's no room for schoolyard tactics to extort money and claim unearned fame."

Finding no support from their professional association, the IGDA, developers have taken the case into their own hands - organizing creative ways to help Mobigame with their plight. They hope to see industry luminaries speak out, and are galvanizing all their supporters to stand up against this unethical use of trademark law.

"Langdell needs to be stopped and anyone else who thinks it's okay to take advantage of small game companies needs to know we're not isolated, easy targets," said Yacine Salmi, an industry veteran and current IGDA member.

IGDA Controversy

In further controversy, Tim Langdell is also a board member of game development advocate body International Game Developers Association (IGDA). Here he has a hand in guiding the professional association's policies on aiding small game companies and improving the industry for all developers. So far the IGDA has officially taken no action and made only a short statement saying they don't see a need to act.

"Just because Langdell managed to bluff his way onto the IGDA board doesn't mean we as members support his unethical strategies, and we're doing what we can to have him removed," said Corvus Elrod of Zakelro Studios, an IGDA member and part of a small game company himself. He has started a petition for IGDA members to sign, calling for a special meeting where Langdell could be voted out of the IGDA board.

Donations

Paypal donations to mobigame@gmail.com

The Chaos Engine is a virtual community of game developers from around the globe. Launched in 2003, it has grown to include 7,000 game developers representing views from across the industry.

Logitech MX Revolution Mouse Review

2009-06-22T10:32:00.004-04:00

Well after years of service, my old MX1000 Logitech finally died.

The replacement, a MX Revolution.

At $100, it is pricey, but figuring how much time spent on the computer it was money well worth spending.

The construction is very good, the mouse looks nice, has a good weight to it and feels nice. The ergonomics make it very comfy in the hand and the buttons are right there at your finger tips as well as having a nice feed back when you press them.

One of the unique selling points was the fast scrolling wheel which does feel a little surreal but quickly becomes appreciated. It allows you to free scroll at speed for those long documents but intuitively applies a break that slows the wheel down for that click, click type of scroll depending on the application. So far this has worked really well.

The mouse software does allow you to customise the mouse well and one recommendation was using the thumb rocker button as a volume control instead of the default of scrolling back and forth between apps, which is currently what I have left it at. The downside to the software, which you do need to install other wise the middle mouse button click doesn't work, is that it is 58mb and took me a half hour to install, seriously, wtf?

The battery life is very good and the charger is nice and small, certainly compared to the old mouse and more importantly, it doesn't need to be plugged into the back of the computer as there is a small usb receiver for the wireless aspect. This works fabulously well, I was able to use the mouse across the room with out any problems. There also isn't a need to select a channel, search for the mouse or anything that potentially was a hassle with my old mouse, just plugged it in and it worked.

To summerise, this is a great mouse for someone who sits at a computer a lot, very easy to use and set up but the software install really needs to be streamlined and you better be right handed.

Because of that, I'll give it 4/5

Indie Handheld Gaming?

2009-06-06T20:49:00.003-04:00

Just looking at the GP2X Wix - At $180 it's not a bad priced open source handheld gaming machine, touch screen and what is basically a dual d-pad set up, this could lead to some interesting projects.

There is also the Pandora, which does look promising, but far to clunky I think to take off.

Another alternative is the Dingoo A-320 but this looks even less appealing as a device.

Ultimately, this is a great arena for home game makers to get some easy exposure, release something fun that'll get you possibly noticed, it will even play flash games as well as be a emulator so you can get some of those old home brew projects you wanted to make out there on this platform. The makers are also launching a digital online store similar to Apple's, which would allow you to sell your creations if you didn't want them released as freeware, which could be a nice bonus feature for anyone who might have released a game on any other platform.

No more wallet nappy bags?

2009-05-26T14:26:00.001-04:00

Skip Hop have discontinued the best little nappy changing wallet bag, so get one where you can, Target still had a few, they are awesome bags!

There are other mini wallet bags around, but they are all rubbish in comparison.

Steve Meretzky

2009-04-15T09:06:00.002-04:00

Steve Meretzky is a great character and designer in the Boston dev scene who has produced some great games in the past, especially The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

He gave a really interesting talk about fun in games called "Bring Back the Fun" at the Boston Post Mortem. This wasn't about how to make games fun, but about how to help make making games more enjoyable looking at past trends and how other industries have done things to change a slump.

The whole talk was filmed, but it wasn't very long so it would certainly be worth taking the time to watch it when it comes online, probably later in the week, a link will probably show on the BPM site and on Steve's.

It was a very inspiring talk too and certainly one of the most amusing events held for quite a while.

It's just a shame that the area will be losing Steve as he is moving on to the west coast for a new adventure.

3D Stimulus Day

2009-04-04T18:51:00.003-04:00

The Digital Northeastern Artist group as part of Great Eastern Technology held a day long art event today called "3D Stimulus Day" at the Ida Mount College in Newton, MA. The host of the event was Brad Porter.

The free event had talks about success in animation, which was more of a selling event for the person giving the talk of her books and the classes she taught and wasn't that useful for many there.

Intro to 3DSM Mental Ray Rendering was next, this was about architectural rendering and covered the basics to global illumination and final gather and was pretty informative and the talk was very amusing, given by Ted Boardman, who has a good blog which has many tutorials and good information here. It was also a chance to see 3DSM 2010, which had a new user interface which is a bit different to previous versions though how good that is I didn't get to see. The main things of note were the simplifying of Mental Ray for the basic features and how quick it was to get them working to make good quality renders and yet still have all the tweaks you would expect. Also the new Quadify modifier looked pretty nifty too, which as it suggests, quadlifies your model rather than the tessalate feature.

Elliott Mitchell did a talk about realistic Mental Ray Skin Shaders in Maya, showing off Maya 2009, which had a few issues of stability, but compared to 2008 and below seemed to have simplified the whole process of creating shaders that work by automating the setting up of them, though there was still a lot of tweaking and rendering to get a good result.

Gael McDill of Digizyme Inc, talked about molecular and cell visualisation in Maya. This was very interesting showing how they are able to use custom scripts using Python to help them make tools as well as using cloth and hair adapted to show cell interactions. Molecularmovies.org was a really good resource they created to share the knowledge of what they do and includes a lot of videos and tutorials that can be applied to many aspects of art and animation.

Michele Bousquet, from Turbosquid talked about how you can maximise your sales and make money from using the service. Most of the things were comon sense such as providing good quality thumbnails and a good description of your work and what is included in the sale as well as how to best price your work by comparing to other works on the subject and looking through the highest priced pieces to gauge your price point.

Following this talk was a raffle of goods from the vendors who sponsored the event, the highlights included a new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, a licensed copy of ZBrush 3 and one upgrade. All these things were being demoed during the breaks and especially the lunch break as well as a 3D scanner.

The last part of the day was a SIGGRAPH animation festival screening.

Sippy Cup Reviews

2009-04-03T13:31:00.002-04:00

It's now time to try sippy cups, well for a while now, but there's loads about to try out, so we got a bunch and here's our thoughts on them, all of which are BPA free by the way.

Avent Insulated Cup - $7 cup, for cold drinks only, but that's fine. Easy to take apart and clean and also the parts are interchangeable with other Avent cups. What is nice about this cup, the flip top lid, so you don't have to worry about losing the lid, which makes this very handy when on the move and out in public. It is also very easy to hold and a good sized cup and the spill proof valve works very well.

5/5

Avent Magic Cup Trainer - $5 which isn't bad value for money, like the above cup, well made, functions very well and very practical, dishwasher safe and the training handle can be removed once unneeded. There is a plastic cap lid for this, but the spill proof valve works very well so it isn't really needed. The squat size makes this easy for small hands to hold and also tilt back far enough to drink from.

4/5

Born Free Training Cup - $11 so getting a little expensive for one cup, but very sturdy and well made. This is dishwasher safe and easy to assemble, but there are more parts in this than the Avent, so more likely to lose pieces, but they do fit together nice and easily. The handles can be removed and the parts are interchangeable with other Born Free products which is nice.

3/5

Munchkin Mighty Grip - $7.50 for two cups, which appeared like great value for money. The reality is, this was rubbish. This isn't dishwasher safe, so more hassle to clean, also the parts are very flimsy and the rubber seal only fits in one way and has to be lined up into 3 notches which aren't equally spaced and not clear in which way to line up the valve. The valve is also very flexible and doesn't take much shaking or squeezing of the bottle to cause a gap in the valve and a big leak. The bottle is also very flimsy and weak and looks very cheap. There's no cap to cover the top of this and given how easy it is to cause it to leak, this is a bit of a over site.

1/5

Nintendo DS Homebrew!

2009-03-17T12:27:00.002-04:00

What this is about, creating your own projects, applications or games and there's a lot of great homebrew stuff around. Getting set up for this does allow you to play pirated games though which isn't so great for the industry and a reason for bad press on the home brew scene.

Cyclo DS is my choice for cartridge which I got from Abotcity. The reason, this is updated on a regular basis and it auto patches, which means you don't have to mess around with application roms, stick them on a micro SD card and away they go, it is also nicely made and can handle larger than 2GB cards. I use a 8GB card that I got from Newegg.

Apart from being updated regulary, what makes this the best card to use, you don't have to stick your roms in the root of the card, you can stick them in folders so you can organise your apps how you like and stick photos and media files on there and play them with a media player.

Okay, your set up, now what, a couple sites to start you off are NDS Homebrew and NDS Hive. You'll find applications ranging from audio tools and painting tools to maps, weather tools and other apps that use your wifi connection as well as home made games.

Child Safety Gate

2009-03-01T12:38:00.002-05:00

Well it's gotten to that point where we really needed one for our crawling tot.

Our criteria was based on:-
-Recommendations from friends/family
-Cost
-Ease of use and installation; not requiring it to be hardware fixed because we rent

With that in mind, we went with Safety 1st Perfect Fit Gate - $35 so the price was good considering how expensive some are, also it is a sturdy gate, not the best looking but it can be pressure fixed against the door frame.

Over all it works as a safety barrier, but as a opening gate, not so good because you do need to use the hardware for that to work, screwing it into the wall and using the mounts, which does take the point of the pressure fit away some what.

The auto fit system which seems good on paper, and when watching it work, does seem to work well, but it is only on one side of the gate so I can see how this might not work so well for people who have base board heat on both sides of a corridor or other things that could be in the way against the wall.

It is also quite heavy too, so definitely make sure you have it installed securely.

Over all, I think it works quite well and worth the money, though if we had our own house and could install a proper gate I would perhaps look at another option.

IGDA - Board Elections

2009-02-12T13:50:00.002-05:00

The 2009 election for Board of Directors is finally open to IGDA members.

If your a member, it's worth voting for someone who shares your views or will do something you believe in.

The list of nominations are quite large and there's a lot of information to shift though.

My criteria, someone who is in the industry rather than out of the industry, who is able to try and improve what the IGDA stands for and what they hope to accomplice and make it have more impact for people in the industry with less student focus. I also would like someone who isn't based in America to help give the board a little more balance and a view from aboard. Not having a stupid photo is a bonus, this is supposed to be serious after all and you are supposed to be representing and helping the industry.

Adam Martin would be my first choice

Gordon Bellamy a second choice

Jared Eden a third choice

More Boon Products

2009-02-05T13:33:00.002-05:00

Following on from the Boon Spoon which is awesome, we went and got more of their product line up.

Fluid - A toddler cup, nice and chunky, easy to hold and doesn't spill so in theory should be a great cup for the baby to get the hang of, but the tip is a bit unwieldy so baby isn't finding it that easy to drink out of, shame.

Catch Bowl - This is a great little bowl with a lip that is supposed to catch dropped food, there is also a sucker on the base that is supposed to keep it securely held in place on the table. The reality is, the sucker doesn't actually hold the bowl down that well and nor does the catcher actually catch the food that well, it's a little to flexible and the baby just pushes it down. This also isn't machine washable, but it is easy to wipe clean.

Benders - This is a spoon and spork combination, the heads bend quite easily so that the baby can hold them in either hand, which ever they are most comfortable with. These are great, they are easy to hold, not sharp and the head has a nice dip that allows the food to slide off into the babies mouth nice and easily. This is a superb product!

Snack Ball - We thought this would be a fun little container to hold the snacks. The reality is, it is a bit rubbish. It's a round sphere, no dimples or rubber pads to hold it in place so it rolls all over the place when you put it down. Also the sliding top that opens isn't all that secure so it is quite easy for this to slip open and dump the snacks in your pocket. Bit of a disappointment.

There are other products in the line up to check out, more for the toddler age and we will probably give them a go later on.

For now, we highly recommend the Boon Spoon and the Benders, some of the best small baby purchases we've made. They are available all over the place too which is handy.

Pixel Pushing

2009-01-30T14:10:00.003-05:00

Those interested in Pixel pushing and the old school, there's a lot to chose from, especially free programs.

It's something well worth playing around with, especially handy if you are doing tile maps for hand held devices.

Tile Studio - This is a nice open source freebie

mtPaint - This is also open source and works well, just doesn't appear quite as polished.

fishEd - This is great and recently released as a freebie. Lots of resources here on the site too.

Graphics Gale - A nice little animation pixel program. Not free though, but not expensive either.

January Boston Post Mortem

2009-01-22T08:37:00.002-05:00

This months talk was given by Randy Smith who was the designer that helped shape the Thief series of games for Looking Glass and recently of EALA.

This was a talk he gave at the Montreal International Game Summit, called "Games Are Art, and What To Do About It."

It was interesting and to summarise the talk, he went into how game mechanics have progressed over the years talking of the parallel of how peoples comprehension of movies have grown, so you don't necessarily have to be blatantly obvious with every detail to show emotion or the progression of time, people know a day shot followed by a night shot in a movie means that time has progressed, even though they didn't when film first came about. This kind of evolution is happening and how it needs to continue so that the game users experience can be more engaging. The slap in the face uninteractive cut scenes, overly forced sound and facial animations to show emotion fail because they aren't engaging, they break the flow of the experience that takes the game player out of the continuity of the expeirence much like if a movie director had a statue roll up in the middle of the cinema at a particular moment to show an emotion would be breaking of the flow and feeling of the movie.

He also talked about design decisions and different genres of games, how best to engage emotion out of the game player so that they have a feeling of accomplishment, how they can care about an outcome so that they have the desire to replay the game in to see a different outcome. It all comes about asking the question "Why?" at every stage of the design process. What you think will be a good idea, question why. What way of having a game mechanic do such and such, question why. Continually questioning these decisions brings about a more layered mechanic to the game so that you can see and show how engaging and what responses you are looking for. It also can lead to interesting spin off thoughts that could lead to new avenues to explore.

TrendNet TEW 424UB Wireless USB adapter - Update

2009-01-16T14:02:00.002-05:00

An update to the original review of the TEW 424UB Wireless USB Adapter -

They released a new driver on the 16th of December 2008 -here

This driver seems to have fixed the device from BSOD'ing your system, especially when you lose a network connection, it is able to reconnect without needing a restart or causing a BSOD. Also doesn't seem to lose a network connection as often either, so a much needed driver update makes this a very solid and cheap wireless network adapter.

Baby Teethers

2009-01-09T13:31:00.002-05:00

There are loads around, but the best so far has been the set of Crombi Training Teethers

They are just nice and easy for the baby to hold on to, nice bright colours, has a nice little rattle to them and the baby is able to easily use these to gnaw the back teeth with, which many other teethers fail to do.

Those gel ones that you stick in the freezer or the fridge to get cold do relieve some of the teething pain, but they are usually to chunky to be practical, the baby can't hold them very stably and isn't able to use them to sooth the rear teeth.

Seagate Barracuda 1TB Hard drive review

2009-01-05T10:04:00.002-05:00

The Seagate ST31000340AS 1TB Barracuda

A sata 7200rpm drive with 32MB cache and 8.5ms seek time and a 5 year warranty.

It's a great drive, really quick and also very quiet which is lovely. This being an OEM box, you don't get any screws or any cables nor instructions though which probably isn't a problem for most people. Do jot down the serial number before installing it though as it's a mare to get to other wise and you'll need it for the warranty.

Amazon ship it in one of those "Ready to Ship" boxes, which means the box they send it to you in is the box of the product.