Developers, what are some of the craziest things you seen or heard about?

So, for all I've said about the creature's preconceived notions about our short-lived female coder, I don't think I've actually mentioned many stories including her. So it took me some effort to find this one, but it's a good one. It may also bring back some memories for some people, as I mention something long since forgotten.

It : So what's this mess you're reading?
Me : Just some publications on random shader tricks. DX9 is definitely picking up steam -- I mean, no commercial engines out there yet, but everybody's playing with it.
It : You figure it'll be status quo by the time we ship?
Me : Sure. That's a reasonable expectation. Didn't we have this discussion a few times?
It : I also figure we'll have 4 or 5 GHz processors by then.
Me : Mmmm... there's a lot of talk about more processors lately. People are pointing to this patent from Sony about a 36-core processor.
It : Yeah, but they've still got to make it run faster. I mean, we can already do pretty near 3 GHz already.
Me : Well, if you've got more resources you don't have to just go faster. and the big motion is coming from the fact that it may be cheaper.
Female coder : That and clock speed isn't the only metric. It just tells you a maximum rate for single operational segmentation. It doesn't tell you anything about latency and operation throughput by itself.
Me : Never mind the fact that you also have to feed the darn thing with data to make sure it actually has something to do, else it's just going to sit there and wait.
Female coder : ...and that's harder when you've got more cores because there's more units available to do work, and they all need to keep busy in order to get the most out of it.
It : ..... oh.... ummm... hm. *walks away*
Female coder : I figured that would confuse him sufficiently to make him want to leave.
Me : Do keep it up.
Female coder : Glad he didn't make the connection to all that "hive mine" junk he likes to spit out.
Me : Yeah, I don't think that level of understanding is possible for it.
Female coder : "It"?
Me : I've... gotten away from using humanized pronouns when referring to that thing.
Female coder : Wow. I take it a hatred has mounted?
Me : Well, I'm utterly loving you if you can manage to keep the swine away consistently.
Art Director : I think I can second that.
Character Artist : Me too.
Animator : If you can keep doing that, I'll f***in' marry you.
Female coder : Now I'm curious what earned him that.
Me : Check the server under the 'crapbase' folder.

And as you probably guessed, back then, the Cell BE patent was all we really knew with its 32 "APUs", and there was only speculation at the time that there would be a Cell CPU in the PS3. What a difference a few years makes.
 
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So I guess there's probably a demand for something weirder, and here's one that nearly escaped my mind until I was suddenly reminded of it while interviewing a candidate for an effects position.

It : "That black smoke particle thing, you really nailed it."
Me : "Rather odd that the first bit of texturing you appreciate is a texture made by a programmer, but thanks."
It : "Programmers don't make good textures?"
Me : "I'm just wondering what does it say about your impression of our artists?"
It : "Would be nice if we could get shadows through those volume lights you made."
Me : "Well, when [then-lead-programmer] is ready to roll in his DX9 conversion, we can actually start on that."
It : "What is it currently using?"
Me : "DX7."
It : "That's not the same?"
Me : "No... 7 and 9 are different numbers."
It : "Why didn't they use the 9 thing?"
Me : "It's an old engine that's had a community throwing new stuff onto it. I mean, it is a $100 license, so it's primarily meant for hobbyists."
It : "So one of the things I've been wanting to do when the engine is ready is have a particle system that emits meshes."
Me : "Wait... what?"
It : "I mean for like when things explode, instead of just little particles, you have whole meshes thrown out."
Me : "You mean debris? We already have that."
It : "Yeah, but these guys were saying stuff about having to break up the object into pieces and the pieces are thrown out."
Me : "... okay. So what are you thinking about?"
It : "Like whole new meshes, like more player characters and stuff."
Me : "You want to *emit* characters? From a particle system?"
It : "Yeah! I mean, just... think of it!"
Me : "I'm... that's... why?"
It : "Think of having an explosion and a whole bunch of guys fly out."
Me : "Well, that would make sense if the guys were near the explosion site before it happened, but you don't need to *emit* people for that."
It : "But then it'll only happen if there are people there. This way, it always happens, and you can emit hundreds of them if you wanted."
Me : ".......... Do you hear yourself talk?"
It : "The important thing is whether you hear what I'm saying."
Me : "The notion of emitting characters from a particle system is still weird to me. I mean if you were talking about some sort of decapitation or dismemberment thing, I'd see where you were coming from, but emitting a whole bunch of characters?"
It : "Well, that's good you're thinking."
Me : ".........................................."
 
It's impressive that he is able to be that detached from reality without resorting to class-A drugs or something. Some people spend a lot of money trying to get that way, and for far shorter periods of time too :LOL:
 
Honestly, if you'd made the game the way he wanted it to be made, you'd probably be world famous. This game would have been legendary, and I'm sorry it didn't get made. The guy-emitting explosions seal that for me.
 
fearsomepirate said:
Honestly, if you'd made the game the way he wanted it to be made, you'd probably be world famous. This game would have been legendary, and I'm sorry it didn't get made. The guy-emitting explosions seal that for me.
Click to expand...

Strangely I find myself agreeing with this. The ideas on their own are ridiculous and stupid, but when you put them together :oops: . I think there could have been a masterpiece there ;)
 
Since Oste specifically asked for something about "chrome", here goes. This is a very early one, back when the entire staff was a total of 8 people. The guy I've referred to before as "Character Artist" was not actually working on characters at the time, but for consistency, I'll still call him character artist so as to identify to the same person.

This gets into the point of really not being G-rated after a little while.

It : So I wanted to get you guys in together to go over these Stargates.
Me : Are we ripping off Stargate now?
Character Artist : Nah, he told me about them earlier, it's a different thing. He just calls them stargates.
Me : You mean we're ripping off something else...?
Character Artist : Yep.
It : Whatever... so the idea here is that instead of, like, picking up these things and taking health packs or weapon things from the ground, you have to fly through these Stargates to get it.
Me : That's it?
It : Yeah.
Me : This is actually one of the most normal things you've suggested... and it's pretty easy to implement. More work for him than me.
It : So because it's a futuristic warzone, these things have to be out there, you know, so I figure these things should be like a blue chrome donut that you fly through to get health and then you get this warm glowing effect around you where there's a...
Me : Well, that was a fleeting moment... Blue chrome...
It : Oh, the chrome. You can't have anything without the chrome. It's totally crucial to this game.
Me : Considering you wanted the vehicle with its two guns which... fire from the same point... to be made up entirely of bump-mapped chrome.
It : Yeah, well, when you showed it to me, it was like, the bumping was all strong and stuff, I think we overdid it.
Character Artist : I had to laugh.
Me : That's going to happen when you've got bump-mapped chrome.
It : That vehicle, we just need to get rid of the bump, and it'll really pop, you know! That's what draws your eyes to it. It's not this little speck in the sky, it's CHROME! You'll know what's killing you.
Me : ... from the same point...
Character Artist : ... using two guns...
It : So the blue chrome for these Stargates is totally crucial. I mean, it makes you want it. It makes you go there. You have to make something so that people, when they see it, they get a rise, you know what I mean? Hm? ;) Hm? ;)
Me : -____- Yow...
Character Artist : Speaking of boners and donuts, there's the little issue with that art pipeline. Like how I have to set up a scene with all these nodes and a central bone with a specific name that matches up with the name in the datablock that you read back...
Me : Oh, yeah, that's real hell... It's especially annoying when you've got stuff with debris markers and all the nodes have to have the right name, and the scene hierarchy has to be just right so that it will actually export.
Character Artist : I know, and it's so f*cking wrong that I can, like, model something in 30 minutes, but it takes me like 2 days to export it.
It : So you have to bone the Stargate in a million ways just so that you can get it into the engine?
Me : You know... I know what you mean, but it just sounds so much worse when you talk about boning a blue chrome donut.
It : Call it a "Stargate", man come on. How do you say "Stargate" in Hindu?
Me : *sigh* Ummm... why a "stargate"?
It : It's like, it's all bright and special and powerful, so it's like a Stargate, you know. It's worth the attention. You know, it's like *fingers spread, shakes hands* oooooh...
Character Artist : Yeah, There's definitely something "special" about it.
 
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Hooray! I was tempted to make a response lamenting the inactivity last week, but didn't. You must have mentally heard my cry of anguish and not hearing about YOUR cries of anguish! :p
 
Okay, so my co-workers are also asking for more, so here's a nice one (I might have mentioned part of it before in a condensed form)...

Couple of us going over geometry scripts --

Prop Artist : "Can we affect anything besides these few components, though?"
Me : "No, it's world geometry only, unfortunately. The world geometry goes through a different pipe, and the vertex format is a lot simpler, so there just isn't any other data to affect."
Env Artist [the one who shares the same first name as the creature] : "So we have the presets like time and camera position and all that, what else?"
Me : "A few basic functions like distance operators, sine, cosine, math operators, modulo. There's a pretty simple API for adding new ones as well, so if you need new ones added on, that should be easy."
Prop Artist : "Can we walk through a simple one?"
[creature walking by around this time]
Me : "Sure, so for a simple UV scroll, you'll set your output as the UVs for the first texture channel, and then we'll take the input UVs from the source vertex, and add a parameter for speed. Now inside the Execute block, we'll have--"
It : "What's this that's going on here? Everybody gathered in one spot..."
Me : "Oh, we're going over the world geometry scripting stuff. [Prop Artist] found something about them hidden somewhere in the docs, and I looked into them a little further to see what we could do with them, and... here we are."
It : "So... [Prop Artist], [My Initials]... you guys are teaching these guys how to do stuff."
Me : "Huh?"
It : "That's no good, there... I don't want to have to put you guys on a teacher's salary."
Prop Artist : "Oh, boy..."
Me : *sigh~~~* "yeah..."
It : "That's a joke, you guys. You're supposed to laugh, not look depressed."
Me : "It's depressing because it's so applicable."
Env Artist : "To think that most of us don't even get half that..." *groans*
It : "But that's a good thing!"
Art Director : "I know I'm going to regret asking, but... how?"
It : "That way I get to own more of you, so nobody has to suffer. Duh."
Env Artist : "Nobody except everybody."
Me : "Yes, 'duh'... I don't know what I was thinking."
 
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i am not a dev but i heard of Marvel Alliance being localised for korea, but was then unable to use translated stuff (subtitle i think) due to programming errors.
 
(not in the same league as some of the other stories here -'it' wins by far i think - but i'll make my contribution...)

Many years ago during a crunch time period, our office had been staked out by the police. Suspicions had been raised by the number of people coming & going at weird times. They thought it was a front for drug-dealers, and eventually came in to investigate .
 
One question, could someone show me what "bump mapped chrome" actually looks like? sould like another big laugh :LOL:
 
hah, looking back on that old incident does remind me of a joke that went round -

"Drug Dealers vs Software Developpers ... both refer to clients as Users; both have lots of strange jargon .. both make money from the 14-25yr old market... their product causes unhealthy addictions " etc etc. Sure you've all heard it.

furthermore we ended up letting the policeman's son do work experience with us ( or maybe he was in 'deep cover' to further check out our 'cover story' ... ).
 
#2
a screenshot of debug graphics/test code being used on the back-of-box art in one of the territories..
 
More quality stuff, as usual, from SMM! And thanks, ebola! Keep it coming! This thread was great even when it was just SMM sharing stories for awhile there, but it's even better when there's several people chiming in at once. Thanks again you guys. I'd love to hear more details about the 'drug bust' story. I think it's hilarious, since I once lived in a house full of drug dealers but, oddly, it never got staked out! That raid must have been pretty ridiculous... ;p
 
poopypoo said:
That raid must have been pretty ridiculous... ;p
Click to expand...
nothing so dramatic, although I'm missing the opportunity to talk it up for the sake of the thread :) It was more a 'visit' than a 'raid'. No MP5 weilding swat teams ... no laser sights trained on our foreheads.

heh although amusingly one of my colleauges did actually have his appartment raided after getting some photos of airsoft guns developped! They're sat in the office on the animators desks, they use them for mocap & reference.. The moral of that story being 'use a digital camera'.
 
Just went through the whole thread for the first time in the past couple of days. Funny stories all round, but I'm distraught the Creature's game didn't complete. :cry: Too bad no other investors will put their money in a game like that. I'd love to see the game in his vision materialize. :LOL: The guy really is full of interesting ideas. (Though he lacks a rational mind to make his raw ideas work.)
 
So since people are so in love with Creature-ian gaming ideas, here's one for you. I'm starting to lose track of which ones I've actually covered already, so here's one that I've long forgotten about and later transformed into a different problem upon several reiterations.

It : You know how there was that thing where you put a bunch of effects just kind of out there in space?
Me : Well, sure, since we don't have a very good visualization inside the editor, that's generally what I do.
It : So we need a level like that.
Me : Well... I made one already... it's just a simple box and all, but that's what I use for testing since the build ti--
It : No, no. I mean a real level.
Me : You mean with actual decent world geometry, or are you talking about something else?
It : I mean a game level that just shows all the effects.
Me : Huh?! You mean in the actual shipped version?
It : Exactly! I mean, the people playing this game, yeah they have the constant action, and that's important and all... oh my god, it's important -- you can't, like, make people do stuff... But, you know, they don't get to appreciate all the EFFECTS and the; and the; the specular maps and all the bump on the ragdolls and things, so you need a level that lets them sit back and, you know... MARVEL at the glory.
Me : Ummmm... how exactly would you fit that in?
It : What do you mean fit it in? It just has to be there.
Me : This game is still multiplayer combat and the stages are all warzones. How does a room of effects just go in there without looking out of place?
It : Nobody will care if it's out of place. Haven't I told you before? This game is all about the EFFECTS. So you have to have this one place where EFFECTS are EVERYWHERE so people can really enjoy them.
Me : I mean what are people supposed to do in there? How is it supposed to make sense to the player? If it's just an easter egg, that's fine, but a whole easter egg level with no real gameplay function will just be pointless.
It : Easter egg?
Me : Let's just say...an extra. Something that's just there for the hell of it. In this case, probably a showcase room.
It : What I want is it needs to be the same as any other multiplayer level.
Me : In the *genuine* levels where we actually use a lot of these effects, they're actually there for a reason. If you just have several varieties of --
It : And they're there for a reason here, too. If anything, it's the most important reason of all! You know... and making it so that multiple people can log in to it means they can all chat and share their thoughts on how spectacular the effects are. They'll all be in one place and say together, you know, "THIS is why games are made."
Me : I'd be shocked if anyone actually said that.
It : Prepare to be shocked, then. Mmm?
Me : After nearly 10 months working here, it takes a lot to shock me. -___-
It : What is with you and that look?
 
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