Sacrifice

With less than 9 days to go, we are in a state to sacrifice new features in order to be able to increase the quality of the existing parts just a bit more .. hmm... the balancing needs a lot of attention.

Sacrifice is THE keyword here since it is happening all around our team. The guys are sacrificing their lives to make sure we reach what we wanted for the exhibition. Alas we are working on a mythological title and sacrifice has got lots to do with mythology.

The team has done an excellent job so far and real work has been done. REAL work has been done, which is based on love, determination and belief! Time has had no meanings and the circulation of the Sun around us hasn't had the conventional meaning of "Oh.. it is night time and time to rest !!" ... probably the most we got out of it has been .. "Oh.. so that is how a real specular and HDR effect should look like ... " and seeing the sun in our little game level has been what has kept the team awake all this time.

The past month has been a month to remember for years to come, I don't know if such an experience will be repeated ever again but it was a little spark which showed what a tiny team can do if their hearts get aligned and if they are real.

I'm sure there were colors in this spark which are rare, colors such as the 3D modeler's continuous focused work to make sure every polygon looks the way it should, the lead technical guy's 27 hours non stop work to make sure the shadow system is implemented the way it should, the concept designer's will to thrust all his visual and musical talents towards the team's goal, the junior programmer's day and night struggle to enhance every aspect of the already spectacular level designer tool (Iranvij), the animator's efforts to tweak all the animations and add new ones and make sure the movement of these creatures in time is as stylish and in harmony with their looks and finally the UI and web developer who despite being all occupied with marriage arrangements has been able to find those extra seconds that usually slip by and construct the interface of this little work to the world. Lack of time, lack of hardware and problems in hardware and software or either personal issues have not been able to de-rail this team. The dream team.

One more week to go full force, hope to be able to update and reveal some information here in about a week. Right now all we need to do is to focus on the remaining days and tighten all the remaining bolts.

And by the way if you're interested in Soshiant posters, collector's cards and a T-shirt, don't forget to plan to visit the booth at the exhibition.

Spiral

Well, now that adoosh and xerxes have reflected some valuable meanings which have always emotionally been said by Maynard, here goes the one which always hangs around me,

"Black then white are all i see in my infancy.

red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.

lets me see there is so much more and

beckons me to look thru to these infinite possibilities.

as below, so above and beyond, I imagine

drawn outside the lines of reason.

Push the envelope. Watch it bend.



over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind.

Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.

Reaching out to embrace the random.

Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.



I embrace my desire to

I embrace my desire to

feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow

to feel inspired to fathom the power, to witness the beauty,

to bathe in the fountain,

to swing on the spiral

to swing on the spiral

to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.



With my feet upon the ground I move myeslf between the sounds and open wide to suck it in.

I feel it move across my skin.

I'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.

what ever will bewilder me.

And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.

We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going.

Spiral out. Keep going."

Seconds

Every second can be lived better... every moment is a life ... every thought and every action while a spark lives can change everything ... oh all these seconds ... focus ... focus ... the time is now ... life is now!

Today is Tomorrow

pheww.... the past week was a blast ... the focus of the team was on bringing Soshiant closer to our ambitious goals... we were able to pour in as much time as we can with a few ultra all nighters (sometimes all-day and nighters in fact) ...and the results have been satisfactory ... although some diabolic risks showed that they have in fact the ability to de-rail us for a while but the overall effort and focus of the magnigifient crew on board the Soshiant-Game ship recovered and fought back. Everybody tried their best and has shown super support up to this point. We were able to register parts of the demo for the exhibition today which meant meeting a big milestone for us. Of course still much needs to be done and the time remaining is two weeks.... when you aim for the horizon and set sails, no matter how far you go, still much more needs to be travelled!

Among the major striking waves towards us so far have been, Hard Disk crash, not any hard disk, the major resources data base server hard disk which hosts the main AlienBrain repository, decrease in performance for a few days before the crash, decrease of performance for our modeler which needed to load the memory hungry level into 3D max.

A very low level memory bug which was caused by constructing 3D mesh geometry in OGRE for a cloth representation coming out of the PhysX engine. A random bug which surfaced at the worst times and the most guiding hint the debugger showed us was a problem in one of the main windows assembly files related to memory copy!

Un-expected behavior in the libraries and un-synchronized code and induced complexity because of developer code base sharing were among the others. Not to mention blue screen crashes on the main development PC due to installing the new NVPerfHud studio from Nvidia.

Thrusting features pushing the team have been Mojos made by Syros, loud heavy metal and the team passion as usual.

Among the major achievements this week have been the ability to test and compose the level elements and see the mechanics by using the integrated editor/engine tool (Iranvij) that we have. Trying out visual studio remote debugging showed to be very useful and fun too.

Crunch mode and the intense level of work brings you to a new state, a new state of the mind and senses, every normal day after that seems like the world in slow motion. I feel that meeting the extremes and living on the edges can provide higher quality for the rest of the moments and enhance the overall consciousness. The time which you really live! You will reach this state early in the morning when the sun presents itself once more and someone around you says:"Today is Tomorrow" ... On the social side, you get to know the people around you much better in crunch mode, and man, I've been lucky .... these guys around are warriors.

We would like to thank the following brands and products for supporting our crunch mode: Lavazza Coffee, Crunchips, Jever - Fun (... you can only find out why under the label says fun when you drink it at 4 am on the cold ground tile while nothing is working and everything is crashing !), Istak, Maz Maz, RoastBeef and CheeseBurgers(from Ghermez!!),Tabasco, Spinach-Chicken Pizza (72), Tobbaco in Rizla papers, Fruit Yoghurt (Kaleh), the things that go into Syros Mojo (... actual products omitted due to license restrictions!), Hype, Abbas agha's Haleem, and Sir Jack Daniel's.

Boot camp

The exhibition has been postponed for about a week, which is an excellent news for us.

We've started a boot camp already to see how much we can have done in this week and the first night of this camp was highly valuable, another spark from the team with lots of nice things done. The main scene was assembled together and rendered using 1600x1400 resolution for the first time on full screen which was quite exciting. Polishing and making sure every part fits together very well and ensuring solid game play is probably the highest risk we are facing right now and the plan is to play test as soon as possible, although there is still lots to do. The ocean is cold, dark and there is storm all around but the group is still hanging on and patience, focus, passion and again patience is what can lead us to dry land.

Off we go...

Comeback !

Metallica has comeback! Their new album is much stronger and heavier than the last few albums, rebounding from the downfall which started by the release of the Black album.

It is very fun to see experienced dudes come back strong... inspiring, although uber bands such as Slayer never decreased altitude but this comeback is appreciated ...

Hail Poseidon

Every time I stand in front of the sea or the ocean, I get a special feeling. A feeling of freedom, a feeling of weightless-ness, a feeling that reminds you that you are nothing and breaks all the grudge. A feeling of being possessed by the ultimate power of the sea, witnessing chaotic harmony blending into the beautifully choreographed motion of the waves over the unique music they make.

If I lived in the old ages, I would have for sure worshiped the sea instead of anything else. Assuming the fact that I didn't live in some distant desert somewhere.

This year, I had the chance to take Mohyar with me to the sea front. He ignored the thing initially, then tried to have a glance, the high intensity light in the horizon bothered him having him look away a few times and then he finally looked at it and clicked ...he clicked ... gazed into the kingdom of Poseidon mesmerized ... dazed and confused just like his father holding him ...