02.17.14 |
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Designer Jeff Archibald:
If you’re working 60 hours a week, something has broken down organizationally. You are doing two people’s jobs. You aren’t telling your boss you’re overworked (or maybe he/she doesn’t care). You are probably a pinch point, a bottleneck. You are far less productive. You are frantically swimming against the current, just trying to keep your head above water.
These signs? They are not the signs of a healthy business or work environment.
I admittedly had a period much earlier in my career where I started falling into the “macho crazy hours” trap. That productivity was measured in time and late nights in the office. But then you wake up; perhaps a launch doesn’t go according to schedule, or there’s a management shakeup in the office. You start realizing you haven’t seen your significant other much or hung out with friends like you use to. That’s when you realize having a healthy work environment with happy employees working sane hours (with rare exceptions from time to time, but the key word is exceptions) is critical to your well being.
Work hard and show pride in your work, but realize there’s a limit.
02.14.14 |
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The immensely talented Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) recently starred in the Cold Comes The Night. Hurricane Sandy temporarily halted Cold’s production, and Cranston created a contest in the downtime: the film’s production assistants would create a script, and if he liked it, he’d star in it. The result is Writer’s Block. It’s moody, abstract and has its flaws, but there’s something very fun about watching Cranston game for work in what’s basically a student film with no budget.
02.13.14 |
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The New Yorker’s film critic Richard Brody writes about how film criticism has evolved and fragmented as more critics turn to the internet for distribution. It’s a bit all over the place, in some ways a companion piece to what Manohla Dargis wrote originally in the NYT. But a few statements rang true, most notably how new online critics are shaping and influencing critical thought:
Ultimately, the question that Dargis poses is to herself, her editors, and other critics and journalists: namely, what, in the current diverse but fragmented world of movie viewing, are critics for, and what should they—should we—be doing? The Internet offers a wondrous diversity and quality of critical voices—and because many of the critics writing online aren’t constrained by the same editorial policies that narrowly define review-worthy releases, they’re distinguished as well by the wide spectrum of movies they cover. Maybe the readers of mainstream publications aren’t keeping up with the best of online film criticism, but the critics in mainstream publications are certainly doing so. Their influence may often be subterranean, but it’s also often strong and crucial.
02.12.14 |
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Ben Blumenfeld over at Fast Company writes some solid advice, not just for landing a “dream job” but any tech job. What’s standout most is a quite from a design director at Square:
Designers spend so much time creating beautiful work and preparing their portfolio very thoughtfully; they shouldn’t forget the importance of having prepared questions as well–related to our customers, products, team or anything else that shows considered thinking beyond their presentation.
Having interviewed many candidates for developer roles, I find it a bit shocking how many otherwise very prepared, strong candidates have few to any questions that relate to the specific company they are interviewing for. You get the sense the candidate is a talented web developer that has no real passion for your product at all.
02.11.14 |
Gaming |
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Gamers have focused on better graphics and game scale to mark what defines “next generation” console gaming. However, it’s disappointing that artificial intelligence hasn’t been given the same scrutiny; strong AI makes a game more unpredictable, challenging and immersive. Assassin’s Creed 4, Ubisoft’s latest adventure epic, needs work in the AI department.
It’s a shame because AC4 otherwise exemplifies what I expected out of a next-gen launch title. There’s a much larger world in AC4 than earlier Assassin’s Creed games with huge amounts of ship combat, treasure hunting, and exploration apart from the game’s main storyline. Graphics are stunning and run at a fluid 1080p resolution on the PS4. Water and facial animations are especially impressive compared to games I’ve played on “current-gen” consoles.
Unfortunately enemy AI is poor, seemingly unchanged in quality from the now four year old Assassin’s Creed 2. For example, when a group of enemy soldiers surround you in hand to hand combat, only one or two attack at a time. Also when you’re spotted, enemies run blindly at you. There’s no attempt at a sneak attack, flanking or a defensive position. In addition, AC4 has a lot of fighting on rooftops and ship decks where enemy AI is easily confused. Soldiers tend to cluster precariously near deck or rooftop edges where a quick attack can knock them off to their deaths.
AC4’s solution to this inept AI in later stages of the game is to either overwhelm you with sheer numbers of enemies, hoping you’ll make a mistake, or ramp up AI speed, making sword or gun combos more difficult to execute. But these feel like riffs on the same difficulty adaptations that we’ve relied on since 1980s arcade shooters. With next generation console hardware, I expected better.
I’ve considered an alternative reality where AC4 has its explorable world and mission count slashed in half. The subsequent millions in development savings are invested into smarter enemy AI, AI that strategizes and retreats from fights when they are overwhelmed for backup. I’d also add in a GTA-style “wanted” level on land that ensures you could be ambushed any time (to the game’s credit, this already exists for ship combat on sea) as well as some extra consequences to dying.
These gameplay changes could have huge upsides for users: repetitive gameplay (and thus boredom) decreases significantly. Hand to hand combat is more difficult and varied. Because enemies can flank and ambush you at any time, there’s a undercurrent of tension to otherwise mundane in-game tasks. And as enemy AI gets smarter, players will be forced to rely more on stealth and “hit and run” assassinations, even when artificially set mission objectives don’t explicitly require it.
Sadly, I doubt Ubisoft is listening to my suggestions; there’s a perception among AAA studios that better graphics and long, safe single player campaigns keep sales high. That attitude has to change for AI to be prioritized, but given the millions at stake for large studios that’s unlikely. So I’m hopeful smaller indies will keep iterating on AI. With their strong showing from 2013 (e.g. Brothers, Gone Home, Gunpoint) and increased presence on powerful next-gen hardware, here’s hoping it’s just a matter of time before game AI dazzles us.
02.11.14 |
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Travis Miller writing on Medium:
You would think this goes without saying, but one of the stigmas designers and developers have in our industry, no matter how low they may be down the experience list, is that we tend to be full of ourselves. You don’t have to be a headline speaker to give some advice. If someone needs help, help them out. Don’t be a jerk.
02.10.14 |
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I’m finding fullscreen overlays increasingly common as websites tackle a universal look that’s applicable to a wide range of browser viewports. But there’s a lot more than a simple opacity fade to give the overlay effect uniqueness. Mary Lou’s examples over at Codrops flesh out a few examples.
02.07.14 |
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This Eurogamer article on the trouble launch of the Wii U has been passed around for a few weeks in gaming communities. But especially in light of Nintendo’s poor financial results and their need to shake up their business, it’s worth revisiting. This particular passage was flat out shocking:
This was surprising to hear, as we would have thought that they had plenty of time to work on these features as it had been announced months before, so we probed a little deeper and asked how certain scenarios might work with the Mii friends and networking, all the time referencing how Xbox Live and PSN achieve the same thing. At some point in this conversation we were informed that it was no good referencing Live and PSN as nobody in their development teams used those systems (!) so could we provide more detailed explanations for them? My only thought after this call was that they were struggling – badly – with the networking side as it was far more complicated than they anticipated. They were trying to play catch-up with the rival systems, but without the years of experience to back it up.
02.06.14 |
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The actual content isn’t super in depth, but there’s no way I could pass up sharing a twenty minute interview and discussion between two of arguably the most talented directors today. It’s always interesting to hear Kar-wai talk about his near obsessive, rigorous shooting schedule and his long working relationship with Tony Leung.
02.05.14 |
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Very simple, smart Javascript based tweening engine. Looks useful for extremely details animations where traditional CSS3 won’t cut it.