Alex's first fortnight

As is traditional now, we asked Alex to write a few paragraphs about his first weeks working with us here at Moviestorm Towers. We told him to be honest, so the bits where he says we're all great are not made under duress and are therefore admissible in court.

So I’ve been at Short Fuze for two weeks now and I’m glad to say that I’m surviving. Now I’ve got over those first week jitters, I’m feeling a lot more settled as part of the group. That's mostly due to the great hospitality of the Moviestorm team, who have welcomed me with open arms (and an open dev build). I began to feel at home right away, and fell straight into the work - despite having to make an hour and a half commute morning and night. Thankfully, today's Friday so I get a well earned lie-in tomorrow.
For the second week in a row, I’ve been placed firmly in the QA department. I’ve been giving new user experience input for the latest version of Moviestorm, finding bugs, submitting feature requests and generally trying to break the software. I have to say the work can be repetitive and sometimes frustrating, but if anyone knew my circumstances beforehand they’d know how much I’m enjoying it. As this version is close to being released I found myself somewhat thrown in at the deep end, but as we all know, beggars can’t be choosers and I love a challenge. Andrew has requested that I help him design some of his sweet-looking movie gifts so I’ve definitely not run out of things to look forward to. That’s much better than writing DVDs that each take an hour and a quarter to burn, yawn.
As my placement with Short Fuze is open-ended I have no idea how long I will be working here. I would very happily work here forever, so fingers crossed that investment starts flooding in and Moviestorm becomes bigger than The Sims! I guess as long as I’m making myself useful here there'll be a place for me, so its eyes down, tea in hand and tappity tap tap on the keyboard.
For me the significance of this placement is huge. Moviestorm isn't a game, of course, but I still consider this to be my first experience working in the games industry. It's built my confidence and taught me that I can work in one of the most competitive sectors of the media and make a name for myself. On a more constructive note it's inspiring me to start kicking down game company doors (metaphorically) to get my voice heard and my face out there for all to see (no matter how unpleasant).
In conclusion, this has been an amazing experience for me so far. Despite sitting in an office all day staring at a monitor screen, I’m relishing every moment of it. Perhaps it's because I’ve began working in the industry in which I want a career, or maybe it's because I’m working with a great bunch of guys (and one gal). Either way, I’m definitely richer for the experience.
That's got to be better than playing Counter Strike: Source all day. Hmm actually...

If you want something doing ... give it to Rhys

Software engineering is a weird thing. Even though the code language and libraries are usually well-established, on anything but the smallest of projects you'll find the need to write your own custom components, which you'll then use to construct something useful. Sometimes, you see, before you can get to work on the thing you really want to do, you have to spend some time making the tools that you'll then use to make the thing you really want to make. If you see what I mean. It's as if an archaeologist were required to make his own brush and trowel before he could start excavating, or a fisherman had to build her own rod. So software engineers would have us believe, anyway.

The Moviestorm Modders Workshop is a good example of this. Although it's enabled many of our users to create some fantastic addons for Moviestorm, the primary reason it exists in the first place is because we needed a tool to assemble all our art assets into something that Moviestorm could actually understand. The Modders Workshop is the tool that we use internally to build all of our Content Packs.

We recently managed to drag Dave away from working on his exciting new asset management system for Moviestorm 1.1.7, in order to produce this:



No, not the shed. The little pop-up window in front of it. It's a small addition to the Modders Workshop, but one which makes our life a lot easier. The thumbnails that appear in the Set Workshop Object Browser for each set object are automatically generated when the object is saved in the Modders Workshop. Dave's new tool enables us to pick the rotation, angle and zoom of the object in these thumbnails. That means that we create much better, more logical thumbnails for each object.

Of course, that means we'll have to go through our entire back catalogue of tables, chairs, doors, rugs, mugs, cars, trees ... everything. Every single asset needs a new thumbnail. It's going to be a tedious and time-consuming job. It's not a job I want, I don't mind admitting. What we need is a lackey of some kind. If only there was someone in the office to whom we could give all the boring and mind-numbing jobs that nobody else wants to do .... wait a minute!

Hooray! Rhys is back!

Yes, undeterred by his experience as my personal slave for a week of work experience last May, Rhys has returned for a whole month of work in the QA department. Maintaining the proud tradition we've established for all our interns, he's got the boring job. Today is his last day with us, but you'll be seeing the fruits of his labour in a future release of Moviestorm.

Johnnie's boots have never looked so clean

We're lucky enough to have found yet another deluded student who, for some unfathomable reason, wanted to do some work experience with us. Chris Heppell has been in the trenches with the QA team for the past fortnight. In what's now become a Short Fuze tradition, we asked him to write a short summary of his time with us.

‘1.1.6’, ‘Release candidate’, ‘Bug’, ‘Oh, #*%@!!!’ and ‘ARRGHH!!’ are all some of the phrases I’ve been constantly hearing at the Short Fuze office. That doesn’t come as a surprise though, as 1.1.6 is due for release very soon and everyone wants to get it out with the minimal amount of fuss and zero problems. This is where I come in … I’ve been breaking Moviestorm.

As soon as I started my Work Experience at Short Fuze, I was shoved into a chair by Johnnie who told me to "Break Moviestorm! And tell us what we did wrong!" ... Well, not really: I was shown around the establishment and introduced to the team first (who are all a bunch of great people!) and then shoved into a chair by Johnnie.

It wasn't too long until I found a bug. My first was noticing some problems with thumbnails. Johnnie was happy. But later on I found another bug which was originally marked as fixed, which meant it had to be reopened. Johnnie was no longer happy.

During the first week, I got a chance to see what was happening in the development of Moviestorm, and I have to say, it looks really good. The new Modders Workshop, Pyro Pack, Hairstyles and a couple of other things I’m not sure I’m allowed to mention are all looking fantastic.

The next week I was set on making some textures, and it wasn’t long before I got into the flow of texture creation, and made all sorts of different textures. The best thing? They’re going to be put into a free addon pack for anyone to use in Moviestorm.

These 2 weeks of work experience have been full of enjoyment and hard work. I’m going to miss it after I’ve left, but I know It's been one of the most productive things I've ever done. I now know what it's like to work in the software/computer industry, and I'm sure that this experience will definitely benefit me for my future, but most importantly of all: Unit Tests are a pain in the ____.

In which Johnnie forces another work experience student to blog

Saddened as we were to lose Rhys at the end of last week, we've been buoyed somewhat this week by the addition of Ivan. Like Rhys, Ivan is here at Moviestorm Towers on a work experience placement. Also like Rhys, he's a keen Moviestorm hacker, his particular claim to fame being getting Moviestorm running on a sexy little netbook.

Ivan has done some great work in the QA department, including finding a bug which had gone unnoticed by the entire team for over a year. We asked him for his thoughts about Moviestorm now that his week with us is almost over.

Well, this has been a fine old week, and I have become a seer into the future of Moviestorm. What will happen is [CENSORED] will [CENSORED] and *stops talking as is being punched in the head by the censor machine*

Okay, that's me in crutches. Well, my time here started off very friendly, albeit very quiet and a little awkward. I ended up bringing in a set of headphones just to listen to the hum of the magnets. I've been doing QA work since i arrived.

I completely and utterly blame Johnnie for the mistake on Wednesday in which I spent the entire morning installing an incorrect (and broken) version of Moviestorm and then the rest of the day logging bugs that weren't of any consequence. In so doing, however, I got to see something great that I can't talk about but have to be cruel and just hint at.

One of the most interesting things I looked at was the new "hair" pack (I had a small inkling that it might be something from the musical but looks like it's not) in which the new options for hairstyles were revealed, i.e. morph sliders, different skin-head designs (how? you ask? wait and see, mwahahaha!), some anime styles and most importantly ... pink hairdos for men! Gasp!

I wasn't allowed to see the Pyro pack save a few glances over people's shoulders and some whispered comments now and then, but from what I have seen, it should cause some "ohhhs".

I'm not going to go on for too long, so I shall wrap up by saying "Johnnie did it!".

As a special bonus, here's a video capture I made earlier in the week, showing some of the morphing options available with the new hair deformation sliders.

Breaking news: Work experience student forced to blog, threatened with no lunchbreak.

It's Rhys' last day with us. To celebrate, we thought we'd give him a treat. We know how much he loves blogging, so we asked him to write another blog post. After some kicking and screaming, and shouts of "You're not the boss of me!", "Yes I am", "Good point, well made", we can finally present Rhys' Work Experience Diary: Week Two.

In Week 2 of working for Moviestorm, its been slightly less ‘hardcore’ and more casual, in a sense. I've spent most of my time making videos for Andrew which may be used as templates for an upcoming Short Fuze project which I'm not allowed to talk about. Oh, and I went to Ipswich for a day with Johnnie to meet with Eddie Duggan – a lecturer at the University Campus Suffolk - and talk to his students using Moviestorm as part of their course.

This week has been a lot less erratic than last week, but certainly still changeable. Working with the latest development build of Moviestorm, often using features which are still being finished, has meant that I sometimes encountered bugs and errors which stopped me doing what I was trying to do. This has been frustrating but also relieving, giving me more time to help out with the website, watch some of the recently uploaded movies and give feedback, and submit feature requests and bugs.

The earlier part of the week involved yet more brain destroying, living with the (apparently dull) life of working in an office. But things started to turn up with my trip to Ipswich - it was very enjoyable, right down to the train ride for an hour and twenty minutes which I feel both destroyed my will of working, and bolstered it. Aye, ‘twas a very philosophical and thought filled journey.

No meetings to speak of this week though, which was a disappointment. The design meeting last week was a big insight into how Short Fuze gets things done (or not done - that’s a mystery which remains to be solved).

Undoubtedly, I have enjoyed this experience; all aspects of it. Perhaps for the fact that I haven’t been in school, or possibly because I feel it’s a glimpse into my future - though hopefully by then we'll have thought-powered computers which will make office life much less of a bore, and internal brain HUDs so I can tweet and (maybe) work at the same time. Damnit man, I’m a student, not an office worker!

I will miss this office. Maybe.

We'll miss you too, Rhys.

Maybe.

Moviestorm at University Campus Suffolk

The students on the BA(Hons) Computer Games Design course at University Campus Suffolk have been studying (and creating) machinima during one of the modules on their course. We were delighted that they chose to use Moviestorm as one of the machinima engines, and we've been keeping an eye on their progress for a while.

Yesterday, I hopped on a train to Ipswich and headed over to UCS to chat to some of the students on the course. I took Rhys with me, in an attempt to stop him attacking his own eyes with selected cutlery.

It was a very worthwhile trip. Chatting with the students on the course, and with Eddie Duggan the course tutor, gave us a lot of very honest and constructive feedback. We'll be adding all of their comments to our issues database.

My honed and trimmed physique, captured in full educational ebullience by Rhys's sneaky camera skills

It's great to see Moviestorm being put to use like this, and it's always great to talk face to face with people in the Moviestorm community - especially when, like the students at UCS, they have a lot of complimentary things to say!

Workin' for the Man

As Matt mentioned earlier this week, Rhys is here at the moment on work experience. That means that I don't have to make my own coffee and my shoes have never looked so polished. In between serving as my valet and personal alarm clock (I make him shout "Johnnie is the king!" on the hour, every hour), he's also been hard at work as the newest co-opted member of Moviestorm's QA department.



We asked him to write a few words about his first week working for Short Fuze.

In my first week at the Moviestorm office, I’ve worked on various things: screenshots, user testing, the dreaded unit testing, making templates for videos and tests. I even attended a design meeting.

Working for Moviestorm is very changeable. Parts of it have been fun (making shorts etc.) and parts have been so dull I wanted to gouge my eye out with a wooden spoon just to have something more interesting to do. All-in-all it’s been enjoyable, though, and a lot more interesting (at times!) than school.

On the Wednesday, and half of Thursday, my entire view on Moviestorm changed. I was switching constantly between Moviestorm and Excel, testing every single aspect of the soon-to-be-released version 1.1.6 to see if it all worked. It destroyed my brain, and made me want to, as I previously mentioned, gouge my eye out with a wooden spoon.

The Meeting was enjoyable. It was focused around proposed improvements to the Cutting Room View. I decided to add my two cents where it could apply, which included discussing what effects, if any, should be added to make it easier to work entirely in Moviestorm, without the need to export to movie maker or Vegas. It made me feel slightly more important than I actually am. Sitting among people debating whether to go with “A” or “2” (which gives some idea of the contrast), was both daunting and fun.

I will admit, I have been learning a lot about Moviestorm as a user and understanding the way its developers see it, which makes being a lackey for Johnnie, Ben and Andrew bearable. I do sometimes feel intimidated being surrounded by what seems like accomplished individuals, who have their own fortés, be it programming, developing, or whatever – whereas I am average Joe Public on work experience. On the upside, I feel that an adequate amount of responsibility and pressure is placed on me, which I think makes me work better.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing next week, and frankly, I don’t mind: work experience is shaping up to be quite enjoyable.

Bring on Week 2.

New faces at Moviestorm

In the midst of the absolute chaos of the day, somewhere between rolling out a Web site and releasing a patch, we'd like to say hello to two new people in the Moviestorm offices.

First up, please say hi to Paul Sumpner, who's joining the software engineering team. (Or programming team, as the rest of us call it.)


Paul says: "I've been making 3D editors for artists and designers in the games industry for about a decade. These editors allow users to create 3D content like terrains, roads and place objects. In the last few years I've concentrated on making cinematic editors for interactive cutscenes." Which, we reckon, makes him pretty damn perfect for what we're doing. We're expecting some amazing stuff from him as soon as he gets up to speed. So, no pressure there, Paul...

The other newcomer is young Rhys Kelland, who's spending the next two weeks with us on work experience.


Rhys was responsible for making Moviestorm run under Linux, which, we reckon, qualifies him for making coffee, helping out with filing, and all those other jobs that nobody else wants to do. Oh, OK, we'll let him do some testing, and make some movies, and so on as well. We'll also get him to blog about his time here. So far, all we could get out of him was "Just finished my first day of work experience working for Moviestorm . Its been a long day."