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| Interview with Dave Baranec |
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I called upon my awesome summoning powers and asked Volitionite
Dave Baranec if he wouldn't mind answering some questions. Since it wasn't
going to be graded, he didn't mind. Here is what transpired:
Please tell us a bit about yourself. Where you went to
college, your major, other stuff you like to do in your free time, things
like that.
Well, I went to college at the University of Illinois at the suggestion of
one of my math teachers in high school. He did professional college
advising on the side but for his students it was free. And he was 100% on
the money. I knew my major was going to be computer science at that point
and the U of I was a huge upcoming school (this is pre-Netscape by a year
or two, keep in mind). So, I went and had a great time. I graduated in '97.
I still love to play games in my free time. I'm a hardcore QuakeWorld
fanatic, but I'm generally playing 2 or 3 games at any given time. I also
like to do hobbyist programming at home (mini graphics engines, game idea
experimentation, etc).
How did you first get into programming?
Well, oddly enough, when I was in 11th grade a friend of mine, who I had
taken AutoCad with, suggested that we take the AP computer science class. I
was kind of dubious since I didn't know a thing about programming (I know I
know, I'm some kind of freak not having started to program using a
soldering iron and jumper wires on an Atari 800 :p ). The last time I had
even attempted to program anything was _way_ back when I used C64 basic to
write D&D character sheet generator/printers (Neeeeeeeeeerds!). At any
rate, he talked me into it, and I was very quickly hooked. It was a Pascal
class, and I immediately went out and picked up Turbo Pascal for DOS, and
the rest is history.
Tell us exactly what it is you do at Volition and your main job on
Summoner.
Well, like it says on the nametag, I'm a programmer :) On FS2 the
situation was kind of strange, and I actually became a
designer/lead-programmer, which was difficult but rewarding now that the
game has been getting such high praise. But in general, yes, I'm just a
programmer. On Summoner, I'm working pretty much exclusively on the PSX2
with James Hague. James is one of those unknown superprogrammers. He's
every bit a Carmack or a Sweeney (we hav a couple of those types here,
actually), but he's a bit more mellow and quiet than those guys. I've never
done console stuff before so the PSX2 is _really_ different for me. Luckily
James is a complete expert and is a patient teacher so things have been
going very well. I'm really enjoying working on a different platform than
the PC.
Ok... you're a programmer. We all know that means you drink countless
cans of carbonated liquid (hey, I've seen a picture of your desk!).
What's your favorite drink?
Pepsi. No doubt. Although any of your top-of-the-line Orange sodas are also
good substitutes.
How much are Mr. T's gold chains worth? Is it enough for a pirate to
retire on?
Pirates don't retire.
Why the hell do programmers always have a messy desk? Its a proven
fact, don't try and deny it.
Quite simply, because programmers are the laziest people on earth. That's
our basic nature. [ed. I'll vouch for that.] Plus extra clutter
helps act as a shield from the high radiation levels emitted from the various
RF sources in the office.
Pop Quiz: A pirate of the high seas leaves Maine headed to New York in
his pirate ship. Mr. T leaves Florida headed for New York at the same time
in his turbo charged van. Who gets to New York first?
Mr.T's van is helluva fast. No pirate ship could hope to touch it.
Damn you're good! I wasn't expecting you to get that trick question
right! You really do know your stuff :) Ok, moving on...
A much heated debate: Halo or Tribes 2?
Well, I actually don't know much about Tribes 2. I played Tribes for a bit,
but the action wasn't really to my taste. Halo, on the other hand looks
kind of neat. I think the movies they've been making are completely
framerate-faked though. Meaning, each frame, increment the frametime by
1/30th of a second and render. This way your movie comes out at 30fps all
the time, no matter how long it takes to render one frame. The graphics are
impressive looking but remember the old adage : "There are lies, damn lies,
and rigged demos". Interesting to see where they go with it, since it looks
to be quite impressive in scope.
Ok, lets get serious now. Up to this point, what would you say is the
hardest thing you've had to implement in Summoner?
Well, just getting used to the console/PSX2 way of thinking was challenging
enough. But one of the primary things I've done is "optimize" the character
animation and rendering system to run on the special PSX2 hardware.
Essentially a total rewrite which had to stay in sync with the original
code. Very challenging, but extremely fun.
You guys always seem to have a lot of crazy stuff in your games along
its development. What's the craziest thing so far in Summoner?
Well, we keep a temporary bitmap around in memory so that whenever an
object tries to reference a texture that doesn't exist, we can substitute
the temporary one in. That bitmap is John Slagel's head, straight off our
employee bio page. As James observed, when you look at the bitmap its like
looking at the Mona Lisa. You can't tell if he's happy, sad, angry, or
what. But he's definitely thinking, and staring right at you. He's looking
at your soul. [ed. Scares me just thinking about it :shiver:]
What would you say is the single-most limiting factor of programming
your 'dream game' for the PC?
Time. Which translates to feasibility. Theoretically everything's possible.
But time constraints really limit you. First you have to prove out the
concept. It may very well turn out that your dream game just sucks when you
get down to it :) Then, you have to develop the technology, and submit to
publisher requests. The games industry being what it is these days, pushing
technology is unfortunately a major focus. Doing it takes time and
inevitably drains away design and effort from gameplay. Some of the most
addictive games I've ever played were on the C64. So why now does
super-ultra-mega-graphics now translate to "better game"? These are the
mysteries.
Explain some of the advantages/disadvantages of programming for the PSX2
over a PC?
Well, one of the main advantages is that its a static platform. It doesn't
change, and if you make it work once, it works everywhere. In this age of
broken and substandard video and sound card drivers, this can be a godsend.
The PSX2 certainly has a monster graphics engine, way beyond anything
available on the PC, so its a nice cozy feeling knowing you can rely on it.
At the same time though, its a totally new platform which makes several
radically different assumptions about the a game's architecture. You have
to compensate for this quite a bit. Also, it doesn't have nearly as many
tools or available help since its so brand new.
What is the main base of the Summoner engine? Is it based heavily on
Descent, or is it something totally new? Does the engine have a snazzy name?
There's nothing from Descent or Freespace/Freespace2 anywhere in the
Summoner engine. There's no real "engine" per-se, since we are using a
combination of a company-wide "VSDK" (which is shared with Descent 4), and
custom code for Summoner itself.
I asked for some reader submitted questions and let Dave answer any of them
or none of them. He was gracious enough to answer all of them with at
least something! P1mp!
Will water be partially transparent? As in life like so you can see to
a certain depth? Or will it be a simple water texture like Descent3?
Water will be a fully transparent, animated effect. Adam's got some serious
plans for it.
In the PC version, are weapons and objects controlled by tables or
similar method? Will they be editable by users upon extraction from a main
VP or similar file? If so, will models be importable and allow the
addition of new weapons/objects?
Many many aspects of Summoner are table driven. It makes it a lot easier
for designers and level artists to drop things in without needing
programmer assistance. So while MOD'ing is not a direct objective of the
project, I suspect in the end it will be pretty mod-friendly.
Will there be any sort of level creation? Though limiting, possibly a
plug-in for MAX released after Summoner to allow users to add new areas to
the world?
I don't know about this. Most of our stuff is MAX driven, along with
several post-MAX tools. Its a pretty complicated artwork pipeline. I
wouldn't count on things being released for quite some time.
Is there any other customability? Possibly the ability to re-texture
players? Or add entirely new characters possibly via a user or house
plugin? How about adding new monster and creatures?
Again, this is all table and artwork driven, so any enterprising soul
should be able to modify this stuff pretty easily.
Will it be possible to add scripted events to the already built
world?
It will be possible to add scripted events and the like, but only in
limited fashion. A good deal of the events that happen in the real game are
reliant on custom C code and level data. So you won't likely have the same
flexibility as our designers. As I said earlier, this was not really one of
the goals of the project.
Thanks again Dave!
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