Synaptic Sugar

And here are finally some of the details that were missing from my previous post. It’s taken a while, but I have at last moved to a different city, where the sun shines less hot but no less bright; I like this region quite a lot, and I can see many improvements over my previous location. It is here that, a while ago, I started working as Gameplay Programmer for Double Helix Games, the Foundation 9 Entertainment game development studio that was born from the merger of veteran studios Shiny and The Collective. As imaginable, the people I’m working with are smart and very talented and I’m more than honored to be part of such an active and energetic team; I’m looking forward to learning as much as possible from all of them and gaining more experience in the game industry.

I’m already helping with the development of a game that is, as of yet, unannounced. All I can say is that I do like the ideas that the designers are placing together, and how it’s coming along; I may be able to talk more about it after it’s announced to the public, something that should happen in the near future. For the moment, I will just remind you that Silent Hill: Homecoming, another game developed by Double Helix and published by Konami, will be released soon and you should check it out.

And so it begins. New job, new city, new everything, now very very soon. It’s the result of quite some time spent in preparations, and that partly explains the lack of posts here in recent times. A whole new world opens now, and I believe in cases like this it’s customary to do the following:

• thank the people who made this possible: check;
• toast to the future: check;
• post about the news: in progress.

I’m aware I’m not disclosing many details, but that is part of my habit. I hope to return to this blog more often in the near future though, to get closer to the frequency and variety of posts that it had before, and maybe soon offer a broader vision of what’s going on. Come visit me again and maybe we can chat over some coffee.

Though posts have become scarce around here lately, there’s always time for my roughly bi-seasonal column of reading recommendations. On this occasion I will expose what I’m currently reading or planning on reading this Summer; either way, the quality of the following books is apparent even before getting any close to the final chapters. Without further ado:

Death by black hole and other cosmic quandaries, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, 384 pages, published by W. W. Norton - ISBN-13: 978-0-393-06224-3 - this book is a collection of essays on the cosmos written by an astrophysicist who has the gift of being able to render complex concepts, such as the inner workings of black holes (or what is currently understood about them) or the Doppler effect, very clear without trivializing them in the process. And, as the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, he also knows what he’s talking about. I find his presentations always enlightening and at the same time very user-friendly.

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development, by Fletcher Dunn and Ian Parberry, 476 pages, published by Wordware Publishing - ISBN-13: 978-1-55622-911-4 - for some reason I did not have a specific, introductory book on 3D mathematics, and although I have managed to live without one by studying information in other books and/or the Net, I’ve been wanting for some time to find all such information neatly collected in one spot. This book may be what I was looking for, as it spans from the basics of coordinate systems up to and including space partitioning techniques, and contrary to similar books on 3D math it explains the concepts rather than just presenting results. Moreover it intermixes formulas, figures and code samples (rather than relegating code to a CD for example) in a way that I find useful for keeping the focus on the matter that is being read at any given time.

More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs, by Scott Meyers, 336 pages, published by Addison-Wesley Professional - ISBN-13: 978-0-201-63371-9 - there is not much to say about this book than is not already known. If you really want to learn C++ (much beyond simply syntax), and you’ve liked the previous book by Meyers on the subject (”Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs” - wait, if you really want to learn C++, then you must have read that one and loved it by now), then this is for you, too. Covering more advanced techniques than the first in the series, it will be a useful addition to your library.

It’s hot outside, stay home and read a book. Unless it’s Winter where you live, in that case you can start over with my wintry recommendations ("Books for the Fall of Winter").

This post and additional consideration are brought to you by the number 1.

Actress Isabella Rossellini recently wrote, directed and starred in a number of shorts for Sundance Channel describing mating processes in insects and various invertebrates. The series is called “Green Porno”; here’s a trailer. On first impression one might comment with “WTF?”, but if one has the patience to watch the trailer multiple times, his or her opinion is likely to change to “Huh?”.