As a game programmer trying to find a job I finally found the time to create my professional website. I have the index page mostly finished, and would like some feedback from people who have an eye for things.
I am still waiting for a few urls, screenshots and release dates on some of the other projects I've worked on, though I hope you enjoy the site. I will buy my own domain someday, but for the time this will work;
Yea go ahead and spell check, I reread it all a few times and spell checked in OpenOffice, but some grammatical errors are not pointed out all the time.
Thanks for the find!
Edit: Changing to: "The confederates are coming, wait now come the allies!" "it is" didn't seem to flow right.
Firstly the eye is drawn straight away to the pictures - that's good, but it meens I read through before I realised where your skills where.
I'd also consider a seperate listing of the concepts you are strong with to the tools you are familiar with. XCode and Physics / Mathematics don't really belong on the same list.
I left feeling a little unsure just what you where strong in, your top of page lists networking and physics but I dont see where you used these in the given projects.
Be careful too to avoid being derogatory about previous jobs - "xxx's inability to task me" isn't a very tactful way of saying you where unhappy in your job.
On my last CV I listed my last two jobs in a very terse format, and then devoted a page to a list of sub-projects each with corresponding screenshot and when appropriate a URL to view it too. The task descriptions detailed what my brief was, how I over-delivered, and the tools I used.
In programming the concepts you are strong in is more important than the tools - any idiot can learn a programming language (and many sub-contracting programmers from a particular continent have got this far) ... but knowing (for example) that n=1-n is a quick and efficient meens of a boolean toggle without having to do a switch statement or structured conditional if check comes from experience - showing this expertise is the most important facet of a programmers CV, in my personal view.
Be a little clearer about the sub-projects/tasks you did on the various projects. You joined the last title mid-way through and therefor had little involvement in the creative design of the game, but the description you gave is trying to sell me the game.
Don't sell anything, instead, detail what you can bring to your employer... The very first thing a salesman learns (and CV's are a selling tool) is to talk about the customer and not the product... if i'm selling you a car I dont tell you my car specs and price and leave you to make a decision, i'd tell you how the car would make you feel - what it can do for your life - i'd sell how the car would make the customer feel.
Emotion is the second rule of salesmanship. We all like to think we make purchasing decisions on a rational basis, performance compared to price, but we're not all driving Skoda's ? We preffer Audio's to Skoda's even though they're more expensive, and yet underneath the skin the cars are almost identical.
I mention this because your site is not very emotive. There's little use of images. If you really want to sell yourself with an online portfolio take a look at some ecommerce sites like http://www.astonmartinclothing.com/ - see how it uses emotion, and how the title talks about the customer not the product.
That's because Tim is in no way a web designer, it looks like it's been created in Frontpage or something equally shit. What you need to do is write the content in notepad, add the required semantic html markup tags (h1-h6, p, ul/li, img etc), create the html page, add the css and then javascript if required.
Thanks Becky for the honest and straight forward piece; out of all the coworkers and some people that should have spotted some of the more obvious mistakes; like me not displaying my skills properly, no-one has mentioned this until you. Though, the page isn't only for job hunting, it is also to list the projects I've done. As far as more pictures, I am still waiting for more information from Stratogon before I can gather that.
No, I am not a web-designer, this is the best, furthest and most content filled web-site I have ever made. I didn't make it with front-page or anything except notepad and my; very basic, html 'skills'. Which included h1-h6 (although I only used h1 here), p dl/dt instead of ul and li and img, tables and i, u, b appropriately (imo)... I don't like WYSIWYG editors on most things when they over complicate things later in the process. I'm not a web-develioper, correct but I did plan on making this layout so it would work when I wanna blog about personal projects later. Just paste the template table at the bottom of the page, add a date and the content of the entry. Which would be simple.
hyntty - thanks for the notice. I developed the website to be 1024 wide, I didn't realize that I needed to be smaller than 1024 in-order to fulfill that requirement. Does anyone know what width is actually used to support a width of 1024px without creating the bottom scrollbar?
The site is missing a huge component, which is the top menu to navigate the site and to go to a personal projects page and other things that would further show area's where I've learned networking.
Also the list of skills were broken up the best I could into; APIs/Libraries, Interests (and VS is obviously a dev environment that didn't fit here or elsewhere), and languages. Perhaps the list should be languages, api's and interests. However I think that you're point will still stand about some of those not being displayed in the projects I've worked on as I've only yet worked with networking on my personal projects; from LFS with InSim, to a current Prototype project I am working on to many other including a voice-communication that worked surprisingly well considering.
Though, Physics, not so much, there are no real projects to back this up. The concepts of linear physics; gravity, friction, and spring-like forces are easy, and I've implemented that several times. Rotational physics have bitten me. I have a strong desire to learn this, and get passed it since I attracted to and pulled towards the physical side of games and more importantly simulation. I mean, I understand how crucial it is to have a fixed timestep, and the flaws with Explicit-Euler Integration (which is the most basic, and I still believe is accurate enough for games but I will figure that out another day). That said the most impressive physical thing I've worked on is my Tire Simulation, which is a neat deformable object, and was a great project.
And finally, I wanted to ask where you saw the negativity on the page? Where you got the feeling that I didn't like the project/work environment? Because I would say on all those projects it wouldn't have been the case. I was a little disappointed to only come in mid-way through the big project, but that proves I have the ability to catchup to speed quickly in unfamiliar territory.
Thanks for all the feedback, I will see if I can fix somethings, although I wonder how the content is for just a general, professional developer page. I still need to add personal projects, but I think this page is long enough already and that personal projects needs to go onto a separate page.
I know exactly where you are coming from, i'm a total code junkie. My co-workers are still dumb founded by me typing out SQL queries instead of using the nice simple point and click query builder ... which takes me 10 times as long to get at what I want
Hrmm, i'm not sure of the wisdom here. If you want to blog i'd seriously suggest making a wordpress site, it's got more tools and functionality built in than you'd ever get around to coding in yourself, but if you want to learn web development skills then go for it - just drop the html in favour of a language such as php (my personal choice because there's most jobs for it), or asp / ruby.
It's down to the width of the scrollbar which is different for every browser, as soon as the vertical scrollbar appears the visible window is reduced. Off the top of my head I think the largest browser scrollbar is 24px but i'll readily accept correction.
Perhaps changing the way this information is displayed might work better, a vertical sidebar section could group them more logically and they could then be different lengths and it would not break the page design.
Personal projects and prototypes are absolutely valid sub-projects to list, remember that sub-projects are more rellevent than the overall project - as they represent the things you've actually done and can do.
I saw that, I did a very similar one a couple of years ago and got it to about the same stage, but then realised I couldn't get lateral wobble in without a rethink of how i'd gone about it.
I must have imagined it! I just skim read back through and tried searching the text body for some of the words I remember it having and couldn't find it. my sanity always has been in question...
Honestly, I think you've taken the wrong tack with it. If you want it to generate work opportunities then you need to show projects that show your skill.
I've written lots of software over the years, most of it crap and dated now, but I still show some of my older stuff in favour of newer stuff even though the newer stuff is better code in every respect - the reasoning is simple: I can't list every project, I have a limited time to make a good impression - so I selected sub-projects which showed my diversity of skills and emphasises the skills rellevent to the jobs i'm going for. I'll sometimes even swap a few sub-projects out to appeal to different job descriptions.
The main point is that you need to be very clear who the page is focused toward, and consider everything they'll be considering when they look at the page.
My personal website was written a few years ago, the code on it is dated and makes me shudder to think about - but I included it in my last CV to show that i'm profficient in ajax, it also shows proficiency in javascript and some jquery, and is written in php: http://beckyrose.com. This site isn't really about anything and I made it at the time to play with ajax (note how the page doesnt refresh, that's ajax). If I had the time I could rewrite it now a thousand times better but the point is it demonstrates I can do what I claim I can do - so I include it on my CV.
Ideally I should put some actual content on the site that would further support my job hunting campaign - but luckily last time I was out of work I found employment again before I had the chance to do this.
My point is that you need to provenance your skills and strengths, and this is much more rellevent than the names of projects you worked on and what they where about.
You and I both know that the game industry doesn't employ programmers for their ability to come up with novel gameplay ideas - they employ people who can do engine coding, or lua scripting, or texture art etc and you need to stand out from the hundreds of other people who can also do those things and go for the same jobs.
You stand out by showing your strengths, not by saying "I worked with the guys who came up with the game idea for a civil war game".
It really isn't crucial, there are other ways I run most of my game logic on variable timing and use fixed rate maths only for multiplications and divisions, so I have developed this way of programming that mostly seperates the simple maths from the complex and allows me to only run much of the game logic once per vsync. It's a technique called delta timing.
I find different solutions to problems quite interesting, and i'm not foolish enough (anymore) to assume I use the best methods as every situation is different but one that always amazes me is how most programmers automatically do network games with a fixed packet interval.
I don't know how you feel about it, but to me it seems like madness. If I have 5 packets per second and I press a control just after a packet is sent it's not even going to be sent for the best part of 200ms, and then could take another 200ms to get there... That's a 400ms delay! Crazy, yet it's the blight of most indi games and indi coders are always saying networked games are hard to write.
Personaly I find it easier to do multiplayer than AI, and I send my packets when the controller state changes (backed up by a timed interval packet incase of lag or lost packet).
AI, oh how I loathe AI coding. If there is a good way to do AI coding then it beats the hell out of me! I did a strategic FPS when I first moved over to the PC platform that had a pretty good tactical AI - unfortunately it was strategically stupid. Strategy Gamer magazine thought so too and refused to review or coverdisk it... It's as far as I go these days to modify A* to favour roads.
I suppose, thinking about how modern games play, most AI these days is scripted and scenario specific?
It's broadly accepted in the web development sphere that a target page width should be 970px. At 970px, all mainstream browsers and OS skins are accommodated. Exceed it and you'll get the horizontal scrollbar across the bottom, which is a no-no.
As time passes, you'll be able to move up to a higher width but with the advent of popular netbooks, the 1024px max screen width is likely to be with us for a lot longer than it should.
There are a few schools of thought on personal websites, and each have merit. I would say that, if you're not a graphic designer, don't try to pretend to be (because unless you have graphic talent, you won't fool anyone - also, don't pretend to be an opera singer. People who ARE can tell a faker. Boy was that embarrassing...)
You're not required to be multi-disciplined, nor are you expected to be able to turn your hand to web scripting languages. Obviously, if you CAN do that - i.e. if you have time in the day to learn it - it might serve you well.
There's nothing wrong with an honest, basic website that looks tidy and presents your information in a very simple, clear résumé format. In fact there's a lot to be said of that. Step outside of your abilities on your website at your peril. You'll get bogged down with browser compatibility errors that needlessly consume your time and undermine the presentation of the thing you're promoting. i.e. you.
If you do want to experiment with presentation and web2.0 technologies, I strongly recommend creating a private development website to cut your teeth on. There's nothing worse than exposing your learning curve to the people you're hoping will hire you.
Yea, I am not really interested in learning more web development, and there is a reason the website is not very graphically oriented. Screen shots are really going to be all the art. Thanks on the magical 970 number. I will fix it when I get a chance. I am trying to stay as basic as I can since I do not want to deal with browser incompatibilities and that sort of thing...
@Becky - I don't want to use wordpress or such because the blog I am creating is just an outlet really, I don't need people posting comments; though if I ever do decide to get more advanced I will look into some pre-made thing. My goals are not to become a web designer, I already know I lack the graphic design side of things; I don't deny that. Actually web development is extremely boring to me, I'd rather something more interactive.
About the physics thing, my comment "I understand how crucial it is to have a fixed timestep " was meant to be more of "I understand how crucial it can be to have a fixed timestep " My current project is a turn-based game with physical simulation between the turns, it needs to be 100% deterministic. Just in case it's misunderstood; by fixed time-step I do not mean fixed frame rate, or making physics run differently on faster computers; Just to say the physics are locked to 100hz, and the framerate can be 60hz to 1200hz or whatever it might be. Anyway that is slightly off topic, and with a little more artistic ability I will be posting screenshots and a description of the prototype project here.
Cool, I look forward to seeing it. You can see my latest project on Twitter it's literally just started production: http://Twitter.com/bekkahax
the web was a means to an end for me for many years too, it never interested me but now I really enjoy it. It turns out all these web development companies have been waiting for a real programmer all these years ...
I am surprised, shocked... ASTONISHED that the little bit of web-development I've learned; both by myself and _ages_ ago in high-school; had not taught me the importance, usefulness or flexibility of CSS. Within the last 30 minutes I have opened a lot of doors that can make the editing of the visual / color scheme of a site with GREAT flexibility... I seriously am dumbfounded how when I took TWO classes in highschool (which would be a full year), they never mentioned the importance of CSS... Sure I had heard about it in my own learning process but figured it was more advanced than I wanted to get; pfft. This stuff is almost as easy as the HTML itself with flexibility of 100 times better!
:doh:
I have made a few adjustments, and fixed a spelling mistake. Majority of the content is the same, although I am contemplating redoing this page and moving the current project information to another page. Which would have two places where my 'work history' is; however one would be displayed more for employers and the other more for general public... I was hoping that it could be combined, but maybe Becky is right...
Any thoughts on trying to keep those combined Becky? Or do you stand by your previous points till the end? (Previous point being that the current information is not aimed at my target very well and thus could be aimed a bit better)
- Time to go add CSS to this little web-site for additional flexibility and learning purposes.
I work for a firm with approximately 100 web sites selling the same stuff, all targetted differently.
When you realise that php and MySQL can do for your content what CSS can do for your layout, it's not too much of a leap to see how the two things: content; and presentation, can be made to drive as many sites as you wish all designed to appeal to a different niche - and all running from the same code.
The art of selling online does not change from the real world and if you apply the same business and marketting logic on the net then you will understand why it's important to know who you are talking too before you say anything.
You would say "hiya mate" to a friend, but not to the President of America (the fact that I would is beside the point).
CSS is pointless when you don't have the underlying content and html markup to support it. Try the following code (which even without any styling is better than your current page, but remember to create smaller images - don't resize them in the html) as a base for the styling, and compare how easy it is to make it look better than your current html:
While I will agree with the point that it conveys the same information; and that the html code you wrote is likely better in some aspects (especially considering you're adding alternate text for images that don't load like I should be but am not in the habit of doing . . .) So while I agree with those points I think the layout I've done is more aesthetically pleasing; at least in my opinion. It might not be a fancy layout or anything but I think it is working minus a few quirks.
My new found enjoyment with CSS is the fact that when (more like if) I decide to change the color/format of the text say for all the "Shipped Dates" I don't need to search through that file anymore, just open up the CSS file and change FONT.game_shipped { }, and voila all of those are updated. That is what gets me excited and makes this much more flexible than before.
And about the pictures being resized in html, I don't know what is so bad about this; besides the browser/rendering code will scale it down to perhaps less than desirable results. However, those images are thumbnails (probably not as obvious as it should be) that you can click on to make the original size; therefor I didn't think I needed two pictures. Although thinking about it from this perspective it makes more sense to have both copies to allow faster page loading. Since even if it is displayed as a small image all those bytes need to be transferred. So with the exception of that performance issue, and visual quality I don't understand/know whats so bad about IMG WIDTH=Xpx HEIGHT=Ypx.
Like I said, I am not a web-designer/developer and never cared much for it. I know enough to get my own things done, but probably more brute force than some would... As you probably noticed.
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I do thank-you for taking your time to do that, and I will use some of your more browser/user friendly ideas... By the way are you trying to sell me on the idea of making a page with limited to no layout for this style?
This stuff sucks... I remember exactly why I dislike webdesign and I wished I had stopped this site while it was still functional. Of course I could grab the code from the web and use it here but that has no CSS at all... and the current page is just broken...
For the last 3hrs I've been trying to take the page from a width of 1024 to a width of 960 as mentioned above by SamH for being the 'magical number'. After fighting with the layout for a long time, I finally decided doing it with the newly learned CSS would be best; whats funny was when starting I noticed that IE was not compatible with my site; pictures threw it off. But FF was. So now I test in both IE and FF and guess what, now IE is compatible and FF is not! Web-design... Grrr! That said I still don't have my page width down to 960 and can't quite figure out why. Course within the 100 tables I have it and the seriously shit code that I've somehow made work, there is probably a value that is keeping the page 'too wide'. I've done search and replaced all 1024s and other magical numbers that I used but still no luck...Not that I can easily tell if it is 960.
Annoying stuff, the next time I get it where I want I will stop there and fill the website with other pages of content.
There's this whole net argument about not using tables, but sometimes thy are the right thing for the job. Supposedly were only meant to use them glfor data and not layout. That's grand and all - but sometimes a dynamically resizing column view (or table) happens to be what layout needs. So sod the rules and do what works (which tables do, on all browsers).
Personally I preffer to use divs, they're usually less typing and result in cleane code - but I also swear by the maxim that something which works in practice is infinitely better than something which works in theory.
Getting web pages to work in all browsers can be a pain, it's a lot of the reason why web designers charge so much money (well I do), and when doing your own site it's so easy to give up and just focus on your own browser of choice - but that then defeats the purpose of having a programmers web site.
So you are left with a choice, master this whole web dev thing - when really you're a game coder... Or keep it simple.
When I wa making freeware games I had the most rubbishest website ever, the first few versions where made in Frontpage - because my interest was games. The thing is, hoe far do you really want to take this?
As a programmer you should know full well what feature creap doe to abpriducts development cycle, so thing about this - so you want a kick arse HTML 5 web 2 site with databases and jquery and fancy bells and whistles? Or do you just want to deliver some content.
My point being, unless you want to learn about this stuff (in which case there's some browser toolbars you need) stick to getting the content right (using p or div tags, whatever floats your boat it really doesn't matter.).
Ultimately it's the content you need to get out there.
Re site design, I didn't look at the one suggested but don't be under he illussion yours is pretty. Art is for artits, accept your not an artist . On the plus side it doesn't really matter, your site is about delivering information to potential employers... That's the bit you have to satisfy.
Becky - I'm not an artist, I accepted that a long time ago. If you saw the one provided; it basically takes all the tables out (for good or bad), takes all colors away so that ALL text is black, and background is white with absolutely nothing else including the title graphic; which I agree needs improvement.
Also as a note I am not making this to be the most beautiful, fancy or otherwise next best website of the world, just looking to display information about myself, projects I worked on, projects I am working on and possibly even a few tips/tricks I stumble on along the way. I took your advice Becky and looked at wordpress. Sure by default it seems nice, as far as a blog place goes it looks great and has a lot of options. Made my own; which has a lack of complete everything so I won't post it here. Anyways I had the design I wanted but all the layouts are too damn thin and (actually that was what prompted me to learn CSS in the first place).
So I don't care much about being a web-developer, at this time. And I don't care much about making the prettiest web-site; I realize and accept that I am not an artist but I should be able to display the information in a nice way, which in my opinion the original (and current site I have up) is done in a nice fashion except I built it for 1024 and that is too wide for a 1024 setting ... Stupid me, never make that mistake again.
I know my HTML skills are not the best, and that page you showed me is something I had been wishing existed for a long time!! That will help fix some of those silly issues... Also thanks for catching that error!
I managed to clean up the code a little bit, after reading that tags and attributes should be lowercase rather than uppercase - something I never knew/thought was important. I also removed some unneeded tables that I was using, I haven't quite figured out the purpose of <DIV> tags yet, but some people here seem sold on them, I have ready about them a bit more but still don't know how they useful...
In either way, the new coding is easier for me to read and maintain and is using CSS to help keep things more flexible with the overall page look. Does anyone know of a way to get text left-aligned "Blah Blah" and then some text right-aligned "Ha Ha" but both of these on the same line?
"Blah blah" "Ha ha"
Something like that so I can do my project name/ship date on the left and the dates I worked on the right - but to do this without a table? Maybe that would be a better implementation than adding tables to do what I want there. Sorry for the noob like question, but you guys have already helped quite a bit!
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