Hi Everybody,

Just thought before we have another meeting we could talk a bit about what we are either up to or are looking to do with gamedev. I'll start...

Lately I've been looking heavily into the Unity engine (http://unity3d.com).... Unity has gotten really hot lately because it's one of the easier ways to build an iPhone game, but I like it because it combines awesome authoring tools with a very game specific scripting system all in a visual 3D authoring tool. Plus it can spit out Mac, Windows EXE's, has a great web player (see good examples at http://blurst.com)..., and of course, the iPhone thing.

I recently put up a portfolio site at http://variancetheory... and have been slowly building it up. My wife and I just had a baby 3 weeks ago so I'm not looking for anything fulltime yet, but I just took a contract with a company called Infrared5 to lead the art effort for an unannounced iPhone title that they're doing that, guess what, uses Unity. It all happened kind of by coincidence.

Anyway, I'd be happy to do a presentation on Unity (what I know of it) if anyone's interested. I really think it's a great way for a small group like ours to work in a common environment.

So, anyone else dabbling in anything? Or have any particular areas of interest?

Hey congratulations on your newborn and the Unity work.
I have noticed mentions of Unity popping up here are there recently. Though I haven't looked into it, from what I've heard it seems pretty cool.

As for what I've been up to... I've been on an "extended break" from everyday life, also commonly referred to as unemployment, hahah! Though I did manage to bang out a very simple evolution simulator in XNA (inspired by a few YouTube videos). I also built a nice new Core i7 920 based machine, which is running Windows 7 64-bit for the moment. I dread shelling out the stack of cash required for a retail copy. But they don't sell XP anymore (only OEM) and I'm still wary of Vista, so a gamer's gotta do what a gamer's gotta do I guess. Then I went to visit the family for a week and give my little brother his first computer, w00t!

Currently I'm strongly considering going to school full time at MCC with a part time job. *shrug*

Most importantly (okay, maybe not) I've begun playing a few really good games:
Mass Effect
Far Cry 2
X3: Terran Conflict
Garry's Mod - Prop Hunt

I also taste tested Call of Duty: World At War, which came free with my new video card. I hate ultra linear games and it doesn't help that it's yet another WWII game. Apparently not everyone shares my opinion, because they keep pumping them out. I endured the first mission and haven't touched it since. In short, yuck!

I wouldn't mind a Unity presentation as I know nothing about it. I think it would be fun to work on something together with a small group for a change, whether it be in Unity, XNA, or anything else.

Anyhow, I look forward to the next meetup and for the time being my schedule is WIDE open, heheh. If you want, I can transport some of my XNA projects to my awkwardly oversized laptop and bring it with me. *throws laptop a contemptuous glare*


EDIT:
Additionally, I've been reading an excellent book called "Macrolife" by George Zebrowski. It's supposed to be one of the 100 best science fiction book of all time according to Library Journal and so far I agree. Pending any weirdness in the second half of the book, I definitely recommend it to any fan of the genre.
I think it's got some important ideas to consider on the subject of the long term survival of human kind. Specifically it's about the widespread propagation of self sustaining, reproducing, interstellar travel capable, hollowed out asteroids, housing individual civilizations of people. Ensuring through redundancy and dispersion, that humans can not be extinguished by a single catastrophic event. Incidentally it takes just such an event to set these things in motion (in this story).

Irrelevant I guess, but I figured there had to be at least one other SciFi fan among us.