Archive for the ‘work’ Category

QA Specialist in Unity Technologies

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

For a few months I have been working at Unity Technologies as QA Specialist, handling the publicly submitted bugs reports. I am very proud (even lucky as I have just graduated) of being a part of one of the worlds leading teams in game development.

Our issue tracker, FogBugz, is not feature loaded, but the FogBugz XML API has quite a few possibilities to it.

I am learning Perl to get an easy and versatile tool to work the API with. Once I am on top of that, I will look into how the API can be used to fill in some missing features of FogBugz. Then, in a near future when I have tweaked FogBugz to meet the needs of Unity Technologies, I will put my interests and experience into extending the product itself to make life even more easy for game developers.

Tags: ,
Posted in Game Design, Games, cph, work | No Comments »

Sapling game programmer

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Back on the blog.

Some 3d doodle guys from the DADIU projects I did have started a small game company called Sapling.

Another programmer and I are going to help them create some code that make their great graphics come to life.

For now we are doing a pilot project called Zumbi-e: a zombie shooter with some RTS/Puzzle elements in it.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Game Design, Games, cph, work | No Comments »

Game programmer on Exodroid

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

While doing my MSc in Medialogy, I took part in two productions at DADIU (Danish Academy for Digital Interactive Entertainment).

My second production was called Exodroid and was made in Unity3D using C# and Visual Studio Express. This production took place in March 2009 while I was writing my essay and master thesis , so these are somewhat interconnected.

As game programmer on this project, I gained experience using C# with Unity3D. Furthermore, I took an active part in developing the design and the production itself.

I participated in the project while writing my master thesis, therefore much of the discussion and conclusion is somewhat related to this project.

Official info and download page at dadiu.dk

Simple C# script to trigger theme music at certain points in the game:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public enum ThemeFader
{
FirstToSecond = 0,
SecondToThird = 1
}

// Put this script on the triggerbox that has to change the theme music
public class AudioThemeTrigger : MonoBehaviour
{
// enable these controls in the editor
public float fadeTime = 5.0f;
public ThemeFader themeFader;

private bool triggered = false;
private GameObject player;
private Transform AudioTheme1;
private Transform AudioTheme2;
private Transform AudioTheme3;

void Start()
{
player = GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Player");
AudioTheme1 = Helper.getChildByName(player.transform, "AudioTheme1");
AudioTheme2 = Helper.getChildByName(player.transform, "AudioTheme2");
AudioTheme3 = Helper.getChildByName(player.transform, "AudioTheme3");

switch (themeFader)
{
case ThemeFader.FirstToSecond:
AudioTheme1.transform.audio.volume = 0.7f;
AudioTheme2.transform.audio.volume = 0.0f;
AudioTheme3.transform.audio.volume = 0.0f;
break;
case ThemeFader.SecondToThird:
AudioTheme2.transform.audio.volume = 0.7f;
AudioTheme3.transform.audio.volume = 0.0f;
break;
default:
break;
}
}

void Update()
{
if (triggered)
{
switch (themeFader)
{
case ThemeFader.FirstToSecond:
CrossfadeAudio(AudioTheme1,AudioTheme2);
break;
case ThemeFader.SecondToThird:
CrossfadeAudio(AudioTheme2,AudioTheme3);
break;
default:
break;
}
}
}

private void CrossfadeAudio(Transform t1, Transform t2)
{
if (t1.transform.audio.volume > t1.transform.audio.minVolume)
{
//fade out
t1.transform.audio.volume -= t1.transform.audio.maxVolume * Time.deltaTime / fadeTime;
}
else
{
t1.transform.audio.volume = 0.0f;
t1.transform.audio.Stop();
}
if (!t2.transform.audio.isPlaying)
{
//start the new sound if it is not allready running
t2.transform.audio.Play();

}
if (t2.transform.audio.volume < t2.transform.audio.maxVolume)
{
//fade in
t2.transform.audio.volume += t2.transform.audio.maxVolume * Time.deltaTime / fadeTime;
}
else if (t1.transform.audio.volume <= t1.transform.audio.minVolume) triggered = false;
}

void OnTriggerEnter(Collider collider)
{
if (collider.gameObject.tag == "Player")
{
triggered = true;
}
}
}

A little C# helper for some tedious tasks:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public static class Helper
{
static AudioClip lastClip;

// Get the first child transform with the speified name
public static Transform getChildByName(Transform transform, string name)
{
for (int i = 0; i < transform.GetChildCount(); i++)
{
if (transform.GetChild(i).name == name) return transform.GetChild(i);
}
throw new Exception("Cound not find child " + name + " in " + transform.name);
}

// Returns a random audio clip from the specified array of AudioClips
public static AudioClip getRandomAudioClip(AudioClip[] clips)
{
if (clips != null)
{
// Create a list with available clips
List<AudioClip> clipsToChoose = new List<AudioClip>(clips);

// Remove the previous clip from the list if it is there
if (lastClip != null)
{
for (int i = 0; i < clipsToChoose.Count; i++)
{
if (clipsToChoose[i].name == lastClip.name)
{
clipsToChoose.RemoveAt(i);
break;
}
}
}

if (clipsToChoose.Count > 0)
{
int randomNb = UnityEngine.Random.Range(0, clipsToChoose.Count);
lastClip = clipsToChoose[randomNb];
return clipsToChoose[randomNb];
}
else throw new Exception("At least one audioclip has to be passed");
}
else
{
throw new Exception("At least one audioclip has to be passed");
}
}

public static float adjustVolumeToDistance(GameObject soundSource, float distanceToZeroVol)
{
GameObject player = GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Player");
//getting distance to camera
float distance = Vector3.Distance(soundSource.transform.position, player.transform.position);
//calculate newVolume
float newVol = 1 - (distance / distanceToZeroVol);
//scale according to maxVolume
newVol *= soundSource.audio.maxVolume;
//make sure volume is positive or zero
if (newVol > 0.0f) soundSource.audio.volume = newVol;
else newVol = 0.0f;
return newVol;
}

public static float adjustVolumeToDistance(GameObject soundSource)
{
return adjustVolumeToDistance(soundSource, 1000.0f);
}

// Sets layer for a given transform and for all its children recursively
public static void setLayer(Transform t, int layer)
{
t.gameObject.layer = layer;
for (int i = 0; i < t.GetChildCount(); i++)
setLayer(t.GetChild(i), layer);
}
}

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Education, Game Design, Games, work | No Comments »

This is who I am

Tuesday, December 27th, 2005

nico

With a background in music and theatre, my technical interests have always had elements of creativity, that being said, I possess an enthusiastic motivation to create technical wonders enriched with aesthetic considerations based on the user’s experience.

At my recently completed study, I have gained knowledge in creativity, natural and human sciences, along with skills in programming and media production. This knowledge enables me to understand designers’, users’, and engineers’ descriptions of the products.

The creative thinking and knowledge through education combined has proven useful in projects and internship when the need to structure innovative ideas.

In group work I have shown initiative and been a communicative motivator. When problems has occurred towards deadlines, I have often been in the role as a mediator and identifier of the problem in its simplest form, often followed by a role as a delegator of the tasks to solve the problem.

Posted in Education, Game Design, Games, Science, Thoughts, cph, work | Comments Off

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes