1997 - 2004
NAMCO Hometek Inc.
San Jose CA.
Technical Director and
Snr. Producer,
R&D (External Development)
& Technical Director and Senior Software
Engineer, R&D (Internal Development)
Initially hired as Snr. Software Engineer in 1997, I became Technical Director for R&D in Spring of 2000, and became part of the External Development group in Fall 2002. NAMCO Hometek Inc. is the United States division of NAMCO Ltd., responsible for the sales, marketing and R&D of home videogame products.
Technical Director / Production, External Development
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Reviewed external development concept submissions, negotiated development contracts, created milestone schedules, reviewed technical documentation, reviewed milestones, monitored product progression through the QA process, and provided marketing support within the organization.
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Evaluated developer competency - analyzing manpower and technology on a per-project basis.
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Shepard project from green light into full production.
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Responsible for evaluating external development projects for technical merit and suitability for publication.
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Provided technical expertise and development support to both the External Development department and the rest of the company.
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Provided Technical guidance and support to developers.
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Visited developers to manage project design and development.
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Evaluated movie and art houses for contract work.
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Researched technologies and middleware.
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Provided product archives and source code to developers for port projects, handled follow-up technical questions.
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Product development presentations to senior executives at parent company.
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Reported directly to the Executive Vice President for R&D.
Untitled Franchise Product [2004 / 2005]
Technical Director and Snr. Producer
Worked as both Snr. Producer and Technical Director for an all-new high-profile franchise title for Namco. This project followed a remit to bring back a popular videogame franchise character with a strong re-launch product for 2005, under tight fiscal guidelines. I worked closely with both the developer and animation legends Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. An original design concept, together with a complete playable prototype product, milestone schedule, budget, and technical design document (and review) were all packaged within a three month period. This project has now been received positively within the group. As Producer for this title, I was solely responsible for steering the product design and direction to green light. Due to NDA, this title cannot be named.
Title Porting to PC and GBA [2003 / 2004]
Technical Director and Producer
Oversaw a number of profitable opportunities to port existing Namco
Hometek titles to both GBA and PC platforms. The PC version of
Dead To Rights was published in Fall 2003, with Pac-Man World 2 and
I-Ninja coming for Spring 2004. Further titles cannot be disclosed
due to NDA. I acted as Technical Director and Producer for all
these titles, supporting the developer, co-publisher, and marketing
department within Namco. I simultaneously worked on 7 porting
titles during Spring 2004.
I-Ninja [2003 / 2004]
Technical Director
I-Ninja
is a weapons-based platform game, of the old-school hack-and-slash
variety. Following the death of his Sensei, Ninja must seek
revenge on his assassin using a variety of martial-arts moves, Ninja
weaponry, and gutsy acrobatics. Running at a constant 60fps, this
title was developed under a very tight production schedule, from design
to completion in 9 months. Argonaut (Edgeware, England) were the
primary developer on this title.
Worked as Technical Director and design advisor with the
Snr. Producer on this title. Outlined requirements for Technical
Design Documentation, performed technical reviews and analysis of the
engineering and implementation plan for this project. Provided
regular reviews of currently product builds, cited existing problems,
identified risks with development, and approved milestones. Worked
with the developer to improve game design, technical implementation, and
overall product quality. This product was released in Fall 2003
for PlayStation2, GameCube and Xbox. PAL relea
se followed in
February 2004.
Produced PC version, working directly with the developer to port the title from consoles to PC. Worked with PC compatibility and language translation house to perform QA and additional translation services. Researched and coordinated copy protection technology. The multi-lingual PC version of I-Ninja releases Q1 2004, co-published by DSI and Namco Hometek Inc.
I also coordinated the production on a GBA version of this title, developed by Coyote (Croydon, England). This version will be published in Summer 2004.
Technical Director for R&D / Technical Services Group
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Responsible for enabling and encouraging inter-project communication and shared development effort across multiple platforms.
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Managed development system deployment, product licensing, and tools deployment for programmers and artists.
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Managed Tools and Technology group to support multiple internal projects. Performed annual reviews of engineering staff.
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Advised and assisted internal teams with engineering efforts, debugging and QA process.
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Worked with QA, Producers, and APs to assist with final submission process.
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Evaluated technical risks and communicated with NAMCO management on engineering process.
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Evaluated third-party product submissions and milestone reviews.
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Provided reports on status of development on all internal projects.
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Managed relationships with middleware vendors.
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Recommended technical solutions to engineering teams.
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Worked with I.S. to ensure network and server infrastructure met the needs of internal development.
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Coordinated attendance to developer conferences.
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Assisted management with Wireless gaming initiatives.
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General fire-fighting on all NHI projects. Reported directly to Vice President of R&D and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Dead To Rights [PlayStation2, Xbox, GameCube 2002 / PAL and PC 2003 ]
Technical Director for Core Technology Group
Dead To Rights is NAMCO Hometek's high-profile
film-noir action adventure game. This ambitious project was
started in Spring of 2000, using technology developed and shared from
NAMCO's other PS2 product, Pac-Man World 2 (see below). To
coordinate such an effort, I spearheaded the Tools and Technology
group to further develop the tools chain, art pipeline, and engine
subsystems used on both products. I worked closely with my own staff, the Director of Core Technology, and project staff
directly. As Technical Director, I was responsible for
coordinating shared engineering efforts across both projects. In
Spring of 2002 engineering focus changed rapidly to the Xbox, which
became the lead SKU for publication. At the same time, PlayStation
2 and GameCube versions of the same engine technology was maintained in
order to provide a shared code base across all three platforms.
Supervised "level editor" effort within Tools and
Technology group to allow level visualization and just-in-time tweaks to
scene data. Coordinated feedback from team to development group.
Maintained art pipeline tools previously established for Pac-Man World 2 project.
Provided significant engine support (all platforms) and implement requested
features. Enhanced various engine components and provided ongoing
technical support to the team throughout the entire project lifecycle.
This project was published to critical acclaim in August of 2002 on Xbox, and subsequently on PlayStation 2 and GameCube for the Thanksgiving / Christmas season. International versions are planned for Japan and Europe on all three platforms.
In Summer of 2003, I worked with HIP Games, LSP, and Bitmap Brothers as Technical Director and Producer to port the title to the PC. The PC version of Dead To Rights took approximately 3 months, and was published in Fall 2003. The PC version was published as a 5 language version for Europe and North America, with a new Russian version also available in the Eastern-bloc countries.
Pac-Man World 2 [PlayStation2, Xbox, GameCube 2002 / PAL and Japan 2003 ]
Senior Software Engineer & Project Technical Director
The
natural successor to the Pac-Man World (see below), and a good
kick-off project for the PlayStation 2, this project was the seed for
NAMCO
Hometek's internal tools and technology. Following research in
late 1999, this project was started early the following year and was the
company's first foray into PlayStation 2 development. Art pipeline
was supervised by myself, working closely with a small tools and
technology
group to produce the graphics engine. I also wrote the animation playback system, scene loader, model loader,
hierarchy math, collision data formats and loaders, and various engine
components. Work on this technology also formed a small group of
staff to support a second internal project (Dead To Rights, see
above) and eventually spawned GameCube and Xbox versions the art
pipeline and graphics & animation engine.
Wrote full 3D art and animation pipeline from Softimage|XSI dotXSI file format to all engine formats for PS2, GameCube and Xbox. This included all hierarchical model data, animation f-curves, material definitions, scene layout and collision data. This complex tool supported a large variety of output formats for all three target platforms. Wrote accompanying scene loader, model loader, animation playback and matrix math components for the cross-platform engine. Supervised engineering staff to bring engine from PS2 to GameCube, and later to the Xbox.
This product shipped in the United States for PlayStation 2 in January 2002, and shortly thereafter for GameCube. Formulated 3 month porting plan for Xbox. The Xbox version was published in Ocobter 2002. Pac-Man World 2 was also published for the Japanese market in August 2002, and will follow for PlayStation 2 and GameCube for Europe in fall 2002.
This title has sold over 1,000,000 worldwide.
Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary [Sony PlayStation 1999]
Senior Software Engineer
Shortly before
I joined in 1997 the
long running Pac-Man Ghost Zone project was rebooted. As
one of a team of four programmers, I was responsible
for significant portions of this product. Pac-Man World
brings back one of videogame's most famous icons in a
fully 3D environment. The game features many varied
worlds to explore as Pac-Man sets about rescuing his
friends and family.
Implemented new ghost logic, movement,
and characteristics; status displays (health, Pac-Dots,
score, letters and fruit); inventory system, scoring and
score effects; collectible objects - fruit, letters,
power-pellets; teleporters and warp tunnels; maze logic;
ghost effects; checkpoints and restart sequencing; font
effects and color blending; bonus room sequencing; global
game states; game completion and defeat sequencing.
Programmed in C for the Sony PlayStation.
Maintained and improved in-house level editing tool. Added convenient editing features - polygon subdivision, triangulation from quads, quad combining, quadify, object merging, object orphaning, coincident face removal, face crack elimination, vertex welding, 3D studio import and export. Also added infinite undo and redo. Programmed in C and C++ for Windows 9x and Windows NT, with OpenGL.
This game has shipped across the world with full localization in 7 distinct versions - American (NTSC), British (PAL), French (PAL), German (PAL), Spanish (PAL), Italian (PAL) and Japanese (NTSC). The graphics engine and art pipeline for this title were later reused on the sister-product Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (I acted in a support capacity on this second title).
In September 1999, Pac-Man
World 20th Anniversary received a stunning 98% review in
PSXtreme magazine.
This title has sold over 1,000,000 in the United States and retails as a
"Greatest Hits" title on the PlayStation.
Debut - Atari ST and
Amiga
