André Jacobs - Blog

Happy Birthday!

2008-08-29T19:59:00.002+01:00

It is my birthday today! Hooray!

Gerry made me a fat breakfast and got me ice skates as present. Later tonight we will go and have a massive steak!

Lionhead

2008-06-02T09:29:00.002+01:00

Today is my first day on the new job.

I am now working for Lionhead and is officially a Microsoft Employee. I am really excited about the new job and company.

GTA IV

2008-05-15T18:03:00.002+01:00

Got my copy of GTA IV last weekend and I have been playing almost none stop! I have always been a fan of the GTA series and thus I just had to play the latest one.

I have to admit a think San Andreas was the best one so far. Don't get me wrong, GTA IV is very good and I would highly recommend you get a copy. What I liked about San Andreas was that the world was a lot larger and had a lot more variety (cultures, buildings etc.). Also you could do a lot more in the game. I loved having my own airfield that I could just stock up with different airplanes and helicopters.

The latest one have a very good story line and a good set of characters.

Yikes!

2008-05-15T17:13:00.003+01:00

It has been a very very long time since I have posted to my blog. Not to make any excuses but lets just say I have been very busy.

Right here is the summary of what has happened since my last post.

Burnout Paradise was published in January and it was a BIG success. It was number one on the charts and a lot of people absolutely loved it! I am very proud about this title since it is my first published AAA game.

Here is a screenshot of the credits with my name in it.

We have started redecorating our house and this is the main consumer of all my free time. Basically the entire place was covered with woodchip wall paper and painted with really ugly colours. So the main mission is to strip off all the wall paper, fix the cracks, holes etc. and then paint the place.

We have had a couple of issues with the plaster in certain places where by a big section of the wall will just start bulging out and crack. Thus we had to stop using the steamer and rather do it the old fashioned hot soap water and sponge method. Let me tell you, plastering a 1m square hole in the wall is not fun!

Once the place is done I will upload before and after photos.

I will soon be starting to work at Lionhead (yes the guys that made Fable, Black & White etc.) and I am currently just waiting for my visa. Yes that means I no longer work for Criterion / EA.

COD4 Screenies

2007-11-10T13:32:00.001Z

Call of Duty 4

2007-11-10T10:41:00.000Z

Wow! This game is fantastic!
I have always been a fan of FPS games, but the market has started to stagnate a bit.

I have never played any of the other Call of Duty games just because they were all WW2 based. I am sick of WW2 first person shooters.

Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare is truly an awesome game! The action is fast paced and you have to make sure you listen carefully to what your commander and comrades say, because it could cost you your life.

If you are a FPS fan, make sure you play this one!

Venice!

2007-09-04T18:36:00.000+01:00

For my birthday Gerry took me to venice for the weekend!

It was awesome! Venice is truly a unique city and I am glad I was able to see it.

Make sure you go and check the photos in my gallery (link is on the right).

House update

2007-09-04T18:28:00.000+01:00

Right, so to keep a very long and very stressful story short... We ended up getting a morgage from another company. Unfortunetly we lost quite a bit of money on this and couldn't get as good a rate as we would have initially.

After a long and dreadful time (including sleeping at B&Bs, Hotels, in the car and in a Stable [not kidding]) we finally got the house! Yay! I went to fetch the house keys today and will be sleeping in the new house tonight (even though it will be on the hard and cold floor, at least it is ours!).

Out on the street!

2007-08-13T18:04:00.000+01:00

House buying is probably the most stressful thing you can every do in your life.
Gerry and myself decided that it would be a better investment to buy a house than to rent
and pay some one else's morgage.

Not only that but the interest rates have gone up 5 times already in the last year here in the UK.
Thus if we don't get onto the property ladder now, we might never be able to climb the first rung.

We started the process in the middle of July and knew that it will be cut-throat to get a house
before the 23rd of August, the date we need to be out at the place we are currently renting.

Things were going smoothly and we couldn't have hoped for better, that was until today.

Our solicitor has received all the results from the searches being carried out and all that remained was
that she is waiting for the morgage instructions to come from Halifax. I phoned her this morning to see how
things are going, she urged me to phone our broker at Countrywide and find out what is up.

After speaking to our morgage broker, it turns out that the offer was send to the wrong solicitors and not only that
but the offer is only valid from Halifax if we use their recommended company, Hammonds Direct.
During the whole process we kept saying that we would like to use our own solicitor, our morgage broker was aware
of this at all times. Not once were we informed or our broker that the offer is only valid if we use the recommened
solicitors.

As it stands now, it seems our only option is to use Hammonds Direct and thus paying twice for solicitor fees.

Not only that, but since there is about a week left, it is more than likely that we will be sleeping in the streets
next thursday.

Burnout = Best racing game of E3

2007-07-19T08:23:00.000+01:00

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22517.html
Acording to Gametrailers.com

Keep it burning!

2007-07-13T08:53:00.000+01:00

Here is some more game-play footage:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21780.html

Another interview:

http://uk.gamespot.com/video/...

More Burnout goodness!

2007-07-12T09:04:00.000+01:00

And here is some more Burnout goodness:

http://uk.gamespot.com/video/933706/6174018/...
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/850/850815/vid_2045087.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21521.html

Time for Paradise, Burnout style!

2007-07-11T09:26:00.000+01:00

Ok folks, here you go http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21413.html

The E3 Trailer for Burnout Paradise!

I am so proud to be working on this game. It is truly amazing!

OpenGL

2007-07-11T09:12:00.000+01:00

Small update:
Ok so in me free time I am still crafting away on a small little project that uses OpenGL.

I am getting closer to finishing the first release.

Will keep you up to date as soon as I make it available.

On another note, I just received my copy of the Orange book today. It seems to very good. Will let you know what I think after reading it.

Gothic 3 sucks ass big time!

2007-07-11T09:05:00.000+01:00

Right, so do you remember the post I made last year just as Gothic 3 got published?

Do you remember how excited I was about the new "episode"?

Well guess what, the game sucks big time! Why? Well for one simple fact, the game is buggy as hell.

When I bought the game, I only had a laptop, quite a powerfull one. I had a very hard time trying to get the game to run smoothly. In the end I decided to shelf it until I bought a new PC.

About 2 months ago I bought a new PC, Dell Dimension 9200, 2GB Ram, Geforce 7800 GS, Intel Duo Core 2 2.8Ghz, etc. So I decided I will try out Gothic 3 again.

Guess what? The game is still a bitch to run. After spending lots of time on forums to find out what values to tweak etc. in the INI files, the game was still sluggish.

So I finally decided that no matter how much I tweak it, it still sucks! As far as the game it self, ala game content, story etc. it is still very good, but the technicallities of just trying to play it got me down.

In the end I opted out for Oblivion which is truly an amazing game.

House

2007-07-11T09:01:00.000+01:00

Gerry and I have decided to climb the first rung of the property ladder.

We got sick of having to pay some one else's morgage of each month. So we decided it would be a better investment to get a little place of own.

We have put an offer in for a nice 2 bedroom masionette in Farncombe, Surrey. Now we are just dealing with the morgage application and solicitors.

Hold your thumbs that we get it!

Life, etc.

2007-05-13T20:57:00.000+01:00

Ja ja ek weet!

Ok so my blog has been standing still for a couple of *ahem* months. I have no reason other than that I am lazy and have a girl friend ;-)

Quick update:

Me and Gerry went down to South Africa for about 3 weeks during March/April. I really enjoyed being back in my own country. I had a great time there with Gerry, she really loves the country.

She also thinks that it is a real shame of all the crime. She would love to one day return back to South Africa with me, if and only if things get better over there.

As to how it is going at work. Since I got back from Holiday, I have joined the Game play team on Burnout. I can't wait for the game to get published. This is actually the first time that I work on a game and can't wait to play the finished product once it has been released.

Blog rename:

I have decided to change the name of my blog (yes yes, boring blog) from "Journey of a Game Developer" to just plain simply my name.

There is a couple of reasons for this:
1. My biggest life goal from the past was to one day own my own Game Development company. Making great games, etc. etc. That goal slowly changed over the years, just as how the game industry has changed. My goal shifted from having my own game company, to work for a big game developer. I have completed that goal.

2. My goals in life have changed. My life is not just all about Game Development any more, but to have quality of life, for myself and my future family.

3. I set out to make this blog all about game development. Write tutorials, release source code, etc. etc. That changed since I have barely any free time, and I choose to spend that time with the person of my dreams.

I have a couple of great plans for the future, keep checking in here from time to time (maybe once a year :-p) to see what I am up to.

A Day to Remember!

2007-01-24T22:03:00.000Z

Today was a remarkable day in my life, one to remember. I was in a rush this morning, only having 10 minutes to get ready and leave for work. I got quite a shock when I opened the door and found that the whole world turned white. For a moment I thought that it was massive amounts of frost...but then it hit me...it was snow!

Why am I making such a big deal about something as trivial as snow? Well it is due to the fact that this is the first time in my life that I actually came close to snow. Growing up in the warm and sunny country of South Africa meant that I didn't really had a chance to experience snow. Don't get me wrong, it does snow in South Africa, but only in certain regions and mainly in the mountains.

The first thing I did was grab a whole hand full of snow and realized that it isn't as cold as I would expect it to be. I can now also understand why people normally say that it is too cold for it too snow, since it wasn't that cold outside. It was quite a nice feeling. The snow felt like a "fluffy" material. Squeeze it a bit and you have a ball of ice in your hands.

I got such an excitement from experiencing snow for the first time in my life. I felt like a child on Christmas day.

But wait the day gets even better.

Today was also my probation review at Criterion and I am now a permanent employee for EA. Me and Gerrry can now finally move to Guildford and live on our own. I am really excited! I have wanted to move out of the current house share (me and Gerrry are sharing a house with 4 other people) for a long time.

Merry Chrismas and a Happy New Year!

2007-01-12T23:14:00.001Z

Beautifull Scotland!
Originally uploaded by André Jacobs.

I would like to say merry Christmas and wish you all a happy new year.

I spend two weeks in the beautiful country Scotland with Geraldine's parents. Her parents live in Ellon, about half an hour's drive from Aberdeen.

Scotland is amazing! It is really beautiful and tranquil.

We went down from Aberdeen to Edinburgh for Hogmonay (New Year's Party) but unfortunetly the Royal Street Party got cancelled due to 70mph winds and rain :-( I was really looking forward to it.

Edinburgh is currently my most favourite city in the world. It might not be big, or as modern as London, but it has a "fairy" feeling to it. I wouldn't mind moving to Edinburgh maybe at a later stage in my life.

I returned back to work this week. Criterion Games have moved over to the new EA building in Guildford. Even though there is still a lot of construction going on, the new building is very nice. I love my new desk!

I have just setup an account with Flickr where I will be posting my photos for you guys to see. So without further a due, head over to http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrejacobs/

Cheerio
AJ

Clearance sale

2006-12-10T13:12:00.000Z

You will notice that I have removed almost all of my posts from my blog. The reason to that is plain simple, it got too personal. For now I will just try and keep this as boring as hell, hey it was boring and dull to begin with.

I am still working on my side project, very very slowly though (since my free time for programming is maybe 2 hours a week at this stage). So once it is in a state to be released, then I will give the link and info for it.

Buy a 360 day

2006-11-17T12:01:00.000Z

Ola,

Seems like today is "buy a xbox 360" day or better yet buy Gears of War. Ok I know this post is a bit weird but it is interesting for me to see just how much advertising was done in the newspapers today on xbox and GoW.

For example the Metro almost has an advert for either 360 or GoW on every page!

[insert] just found an article about this on GamesIndustry.biz

Gears of War looks awesome! And to be honest I think this is another "console seller", hell I am even considering buying a 360 just so that I can play GoW...not really though since I know my productivity will go down the drain...erm what productivity? Aah yes almost forgot to mention that I am planning on starting a new simpler project called SandBox. Will post the details maybe a bit later today.

Well that is my 2cents for the day.

First day at Criterion

2006-10-23T20:48:00.000+01:00

So today was my first day at Criterion!

All I can say is that the company is wicked! I am really proud to had the oppertunity to join them and I will be giving my best.

Well I know you are all dying to hear everything about the company and the game I will be working on, but unfortunetly as you guys know the Games Industry is very secretive and you have to sign almost a dozen NDAs etc. Hell the games industry is almost like the CIA or MI5! So your luck is out. All I can say is that Criterion know what they are doing.

PS. I was quite impressed when I heard that my lead used to be a programmer at Bullfrog and he has worked on some of my most favourable games, like Hi-Octane, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital, Theme Park. He said I made his day since he met some one that actually loved playing Hi-Octane.

OpenGL

2006-10-21T22:38:00.000+01:00

Aaaah I have forgotten what a joy it can be to use OpenGL as a rendering API.

Yes, the people that know me, you read that correctly. When I was getting into 3D I was using OpenGL, then I moved over to Direct3D and have only been using that since. However there where always certain points in time when I got a craving to just do something again in OpenGL. Alas that day never came until recently.

I must admit the main reason I switched over to Direct3D was that back in "those" days, Direct3D was supperior to OpenGL. It had a very nice helper library (D3DX), in general Direct3D at that time was just more up to speed with the latest technology. For the last couple of years however OpenGL is just as good as Direct3D, and in the end both of them are just an API to access what the GPU can offer (well you know what I mean).

About 3 weeks ago I got a real craving for doing a personal project or two. Since it has been about 2 years (the 2 years I have been in the games industy thus far) since I last did any personal 3D programming (engine, game, etc). I mainly got the craving for learning shaders again, since it has been "years" since I last touched them and what the heck I had the free time on my hands since I was waiting to get my leave to remain in England before I can start at Criterion.

My only real problem was to decide on which API to use this time, Direct3D or OpenGL. In the end I decided to not use Direct3D until version 10 comes out with Vista and I decide to switch over to Vista. So because I don't want to play around again with D3D 9 and since MS have changed quite a bit of the stuff, I decided to go with an old time favourite...OpenGL. Well ok that is not just the only reason, the other reason aswell is that since I will be doing Maya tools at Criterion and Maya uses OpenGL, I figured I can't go wrong.

So I changed my libraries (well just me graphics library) a bit and decided to not write an engine this time (well just another one that gets made half way and then get paused and eventually canned). Instead this time I made my goals for myself very clear. No engine, no game just a couple of demos for learning purposes. For example, I have never implemented parallax mapping, so viola one of my demos or samples would be to implement parallax mapping. I am currently just writing a small framework that I will be using to write my demos or samples. At this stage my framework uses my code base (a couple of general libraries that can be used for any general 3d programming). When my framework and code base is at a decent stage then I will release the source code for anyone to use as they please.

EA here we come!

2006-10-19T13:43:00.000+01:00

Yipee for Skippy! I finally got my limited leave to remain granted by Home Office and my visa is now valid until 2011!

I will be starting to work at Criterion on Monday, can't wait!!!

Gothic 3

2006-10-13T15:38:00.000+01:00

Yeeha! Gothic 3 was released today and I made sure I buy myself a copy.

Gothic is one of those briliant games that didn't have excellent advertisement, well maybe only in SA. I never even knew the game existed until I once saw Gothic 2 at a friend's house. Without even knowing that it was an RPG a borrowed it from him. Instantly after installing I was hooked to the game. In my own words it is one of the best RPG's I have played.

So based on that experience I was thrilled to see that Gothic 3 was going to be released today and vowed to buy it as soon as it hits the stores.

The only anoyance so far is that I have installed it and it already requires you to download a 60MB patch, that even before I could get a glimpse of the game. Well I guess it has to be down to the fact that the gold master was scraped and that the game wouldn't have even seen release today. But I guess they decided to ship the scraped version and just require you to download the patch. Luckilly I am now in the UK and actually have a thing called broadband internet, so it isn't as bad as the time I had to update and register Half Life 2 over a 56k modem back in SA...it took me 3 hours before I could play the game after installation.

Anyhows I am off to go and play it now ...