My Experience

Experiences

Project Manager at Iodem Medical Services (September 2010 - May 2012)

Key Skills: Time Management, Project Management, People Skills, Admin Skills

Technical Skills: PHP, MySQL, Drupal, MSSQL, Access

During my time at Iodem Medical Services, I have been involved in the following:

Development of a podcasting project, including the development of an e-commerce website, where the podcasts are aimed at educating both medics and non-medics in various fields of medicine and surgery;
Development of a webcasting project, including the development of a webcast delivery website, for a client to deliver their own webcast content to their employees internally;
Development of additional revision projects, including further development of the e-commerce website, where quizzes are created which are aimed at Otorhinolaryngologists (ENT consultants/surgeons) for revision for their Intercollegiate Examinations.

Additionally, I have been involved in the day-to-day running of the office, and also been involved with assisting Iodem Health, a health regulator provider.

Tools Programmer & Mission Scripter at Ubisoft Reflections (July 2008 - August 2009)

Key Skills: Scrum, Agile Programming, Time Management, Team Integration, Cross-discipline skillset

Technical Skills: C/C++, Win32, MFC, C# .Net, Lua, Python

During my time at Ubisoft Reflections, I helped to develop the game Driver: San Francisco in two ways:

As a Tools Programmer
As a Mission Scripter

Tools Programmer

As part of the Tools Programming team, we are tasked to maintain the in-house toolchain in use for asset development for the titles in production. This included:

Troubleshooting user problems with the tools
Developing solutions to bugs that arise in the tools
Develop new solutions and new tools to meet the requirements of the users as assets are developed

This involved working within a scrum team, working on a specific amount of tasks during a scrum iteration, and then pulling in new tasks for each next iteration.

The toolchain consisted of tools developed in C/C++, C# .Net, Python, and a mixture of all 3, some of which also interface with the scripting language of Lua.

Mission Scripter

As part of the Mission Scripting team, we are tasked to maintain and add to the collection of in-game missions for the titles in production. This included:

Troubleshooting user problems with the missions
Developing solutions to bugs that arise in the missions
Implement new missions designed by game designers

This involved working within a scrum team, as before.

The scripting work involved working with C/C++ for the game executable, and Lua for the missions.

Near the end of my internship, I was tasked with helping develop a User Interface to allow non-scripters and non-programmers to create missions for the game with no scripting required, as the mission scripts would be generated from the tool itself. This required working in C/C++, C# .Net, and Lua simultaneously. By the end of the internship, the tool developed was working and could generate missions and playtest them all from the UI of the tool.

Specialities

C/C++ (started 5 years 37 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Advanced Proficiency

Duration: September 2006

First experience with C++ was in Sixth Form at Bourne Grammar School, as a way of demonstrating polymorphism, however I did not understand this concept then. My first real learning experience with C++ was in the C++ Programming modules in the first year of my university course. There I learnt from the basics of C/C++, up to classes, pointers, object-oriented programming, polymorphism, and many other concepts. This was then further solidified over the second year for all of my programming modules (they all used C/C++), and then developed throughout the internship at Ubisoft Reflections, and my final year at university.

Some examples of my C/C++ work:

Python AI
Bowling Physics
Matcha
Maestro

C# (Windows .Net) (started 3 years 46 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Intermediate Proficiency

Duration: July 2008

First experience with C# for Windows .Net was at my internship at Ubisoft Reflections, for developing and maintaining their toolchain, which was slowly starting to migrate all their old C++ MFC/Win32 tools over to C# for their UIs. This year developed my knowledge on C# very well, and I continue to use C# to develop tools today.

Some examples of my C# work (Windows .Net):

Maestro
Qubizm

C# (Microsoft XNA) (started 2 years 37 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Advanced Proficiency

Duration: September 2009

I started to work with C# XNA in September 2009 purely to trial the XNA framework, and see if I can develop anything for XBox360 on Live Indie Games. This work ceased whilst I worked on my university projects, but then resumed at the end of the university year, and now have a decent amount of knowledge on the subject area. Additionally, I worked in a team of 4 people on a C# XNA project in under 48 hours at X48, and from then, now have a greater understanding on the framework. I am currently working on a project called Qubizm that will use XNA for .Net 4.0 and will be developing for launch on PC and XBox360 on Live Indie Games.

Some examples of my C# work (Microsoft XNA):

Sensor
Qubizm

Python (started 4 years 28 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Intermediate Proficiency

Duration: November 2007

I started working with Python when EventScripts initially announced the compatibility with Python scripts. Over the time working with EventScripts Python, I had gained a small understanding of the Python scripting system. My knowledge in Python helped out in my placement year at Ubisoft Reflections, since there were only a few people with Python experience, including myself, and one of the 3rd Party tools used Python for its scripting system.

In my final year at university, I used Python for my Games Artificial Intelligence project with Boost.Python, and now have a much greater understanding about the innards of Python and how Python interacts with C/C++.

Some examples of my work with Python:

Python AI
Make-Your-Own Achievements
Dominated for Counter-Strike: Source
SoundManager

Lua (started 3 years 37 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Some Proficiency

Duration: September 2008

I started working with Lua during my internship at Ubisoft Reflections; they use Lua to script the game and the missions within the game. I helped to develop some of the missions. Near the end of the year, I also helped to develop a tool that could allow non-programmers and non-scripters to generate missions for the game through a simple and intuitive user interface. The tool takes Lua tables as input for the different varieties of missions available from the mission scripts, and the output of the tool is a set of Lua tables that define the behaviour of each developed mission.

There are currently no examples available for my work with Lua.

Lisp (started 2 years 37 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Basic Proficiency

Duration: September 2009

Learned basics of the Lisp language as part of the Games AI Course at Teesside University in my Final Year. Only learnt to demonstrate simple AI techniques without the need for C/C++ experience (the module included programmers and non-programmers from various courses), and not used to any great extent otherwise.

HTML/XHTML/CSS (started 5 years 50 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Advanced Proficiency

Duration: June 2006

I started working with HTML/XHTML/CSS at the beginning of my university course at Teesside University, and slowly developed that knowledge over time, working from small website projects, all the way up to more major projects, including this website.

Some examples of my work with HTML/XHTML/CSS:

This website
Ska-Boom! UK
Live Injection
ATBGamer

PHP (started 5 years 28 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Intermediate Proficiency

Duration: November 2006

Drupal (6.x and 7.x) (started 1 year 28 weeks ago)

Proficiency: Intermediate Proficiency

Duration: November 2010

My first experience with Drupal was 6.x and was when I was trawling through different CMS's to try out, moving away from the likes of Joomla! and Django. My initial experience with Drupal was very confusing and I didn't quite get it then. However, since developing modules with it, and attending a course on Drupal 6 development, I now have a good understanding of Drupal 6.x, and increasingly so with Drupal 7.x. I am currently applying my knowledge of Drupal 6 on a web project at my current employment to develop an e-Learning website for medical and surgical practitioners, and my Drupal 7 knowledge on developing a module for generalising tournaments and exposing entities to manipulate complex tournament designs with zero programming required.

Some examples of my work:

MeduCast
Tournament Module (currently in development, will release to public once a working prototype is available).

Education

BSc Computer Games Programming (Bachelors Degree with Honours, Lvl. 6)

Dates: September 2006 - November 2010

Institute: Teesside University

Result: Second-class Honours, upper division (2:1)

This course was a 4-year Sandwich Course provided by the School of Computing at Teesside University. The 3rd year in the 4-year course consisted of an internship at a games development company.

1st Year Modules (all passed, 0% towards final result):

C++ Programming (2 modules)
Professional Studies
Graphical Mathematics
Games Technology
Technical Asset Creation

2nd Year Modules (all passed, 20% towards final result):

Games Software Development (custom API and DirectX)
Visual Simulation (OpenGL)
Algorithms and Data Structures
Tools Programming for Games (MFC)
Music APIs and Libraries (Windows MIDI and OpenAL)

3rd Year (passed, 5% towards final result):

1-year internship @ Ubisoft Reflections as a Tools Programmer, and a mission scripter.

4th Year (passed, 75% towards final result):

Advanced Games Software Development (GP2X & PC, SDL)
Games Physics (PhysX)
Games Artificial Intelligence
Final Year Project [awarded a BCS Prize for Most Innovative Project on the BSc Games Programming]
Games Development (Team Project)