Chris Vossen

There is only one word to describe the people of the gaming industry: awesome. Maybe it’s because we work on projects we love, maybe it’s the lack of sleep, it could be the countless hours we’ve spent perfecting our twitch reflexes, but I think the bottom line is we are 1337 (It’s probably because of the robe and wizard hat). This past weekend members of the Leadwerks team journeyed out to the Sacramento Game Developers Meetup Group http://www.meetup.com/gamedeveloper/ to rub elbows with the local game dev community. The meeting kicked off with a presentation by Robert H. Oats III (pictured above) the associate technical director at Bioware Sacramento. Robert gave a refreshingly unedited account of his time in the game industry reciting stories of his career path which started at Gas Powered Games, moved to Telltale, and ended up at Klicknation which was acquired by EA and given to Bioware. After the presentation finished, came a brief Q & A session in which Robert offered advice on a myriad of subjects ranging from “What questions do you ask in an interview?” to “What is it like working for EA?” My favorite question came from my boss Josh when he inquired “Do you ever regret hiring an employee” this is not a question you want to hear your boss ask when you are the newest intern. Josh later assured me this question was not directed towards me but it certainly made me smile during the QA session. Overall it was a great group of game developers talking about their personal projects and a fun a welcoming community. Basically game developers rock.

Thank you everyone for your lovely welcomes! DeadCrow you had over 2k elo in season 1!? That is very impressive. I feel very welcomed to the Zoo.

I cannot explain how much I enjoy particles! Thanks for the link DigitalHax, I'm going to go play with that particle system. If anyone else knows of powerful and user friendly particle systems send them my way!

Hey everyone, My apologies for being so late to respond! Here is my current list of particle system requests (in order posted): 1. Soft particles (quick explanation: http://blog.wolfire..../Soft-Particles) 2. Physics responsive particles 3. Trail particles 4. Fillrate control 5. 3D Verlet physics for particles 6. Attractors & deflectors 7. Mesh based emitters 8. Particle events (Particle Born, Particle Death…etc) 9. Multiple emitter areas (square, spherical, cylindrical…) 10. GPU based particles using geometry shaders 11. Visual editor for matching particle effects to object motions (example: flames on a sword swing) 12. Particle over time texturing 13. Formula to describe the flying path of a particle I like this idea because I’ve come across a couple times in which this function would have made my life a lot easier. For example here is a video of a portal I made with spiraling particles. Since I didn't have access to the particles flying path I had to make 8 emitters positioned in a circle and activate them at different times in a clockwise order. If I could manipulate the flying path it would have only taken one emitter with a unique particle flying path. 14. Color blending 15. Sound triggers All of these ideas are great and it will be exciting to see how many of them I can incorporate into the engine and at the same time make the system as user friendly as possible (Because there is no point in having awesome features if no one can figure out how to use them).

In the recent weeks Leadwerks has leveled up by joining the Sacramento State University Center for Entrepreneurship (CBA) and after much scanning of the talent tree, Leadwerks has recruited a new intern. With that, I am proud to introduce myself (the intern) to the Leadwerks Community. My name is Chris Vossen, I am a recent graduate from the University of California: Santa Cruz with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science: Computer Game Design. During my senior year, five programmers and I joined up to create Journey to the Sun (JTTS) a three player puzzle adventure game for the PC. By the end of the year, our team had expanded to twenty three members (6 programmers, 13 artists, 4 sound designers) and we went on to win the UCSC game awards for audience choice and best audio. When I wasn’t wrangling artists, I was in charge of our games AI, pathing, particle effects, and designed half of the levels. It was an amazingly fun project that will be ported to the Xbox 360’s Indie Game section in the month to come. Here is a brief look at JTTS: It is such a pleasure to be aboard the Leadwerks team; I have only been here for one week and my brain already hurts. It will be a challenge to uphold the high coding standards set, but I’ve never been one to give up. My first of many tasks will be implementing a mind blowing particle system. Particle effects hold a special place in my heart, to me they are the glitter of videogames. Don’t have a 3D model for your enemy? Make it a particle effect smoke monster! Characters punch animation looks off? Throw a crazy particle effect in to cover it up! Trees look bland? Make a falling leaf particle effect! I cannot count the number of times my team used particle effects to add a burst of magic to our game. I am currently researching existing particle engines and finding a load of fun features to implement but I would love suggestions and input into what other users find exciting. Please post these on the particle systems’ feature request page: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/4687-particle-systems-feature-requests/ I have been an avid gamer my entire life. As a child my parents were adamant in their stance of “We will never buy our kids videogames.” Thus my gaming career began on my uncle’s hand-me-down Atari 2600 playing endless hours of River Raid, Combat, Pitfall, and Warlords. Then one faithful day in 1991 my parents purchased a one dollar raffle ticket for a school fundraiser with an unknown prize and gave the ticket to my older brother. Little did they know that the grand prize was a new Sega Genesis with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog and as fate would have it my brother won that raffle. Ever since then my path has been set. Videogames are my career now and I would have it no other way. It is amazing to be here working at Leadwerks and I’m excited to hear from anyone and everyone in the community! Favorite Games: League of Legends (MOBA) [My main champion is Janna…the power of the wind] Hero’s of Might and Magic III (Strategy RPG) Flying Dragon 64 (Fighting) Super Smash Brothers Melee (Fighting) Gladius (Strategy RPG) Perfect Dark (FPS) Ogre Battle 64 (Strategy RPG) Shinning Force (Strategy RPG) River Raid (Best Atari Game)

Hello Leadwerks Community, I'm Chris Vossen a Leadwerks Intern and I am currently trying to gather as much information on what features Leadwerk users would like to see in a particle system. No matter how crazy or basic they sound I'd love to hear all requests. Please sandbox all ideas on this thread and I look forward to seeing what ideas spring up!