Posts Tagged ‘Nintendo Wii’

Ryan Wheeler, engineer in materials and processes at Rockwell Collins, manipulates a Wii remote as he demonstrates a virtual reality exercise used to develop manufacturing and maintenance processes. The images projected behind him on the screen are the images he is seeing in his head-mounted display / Gazette photo by Mark Tade

By Maggie Mills
For Gazette Special Sections

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to mix work and play in a productive and stimulating environment. For employees who work in the Advanced Manufacturing Simulation Lab at Rockwell Collins, innovative technology not only advances business – it also makes work a lot more fun.

Jack Harris, director of advanced manufacturing technology, describes the lab as one that uses virtual reality and a number of other types of simulations to create virtual product models and even simulate their use for testing.  The ability to do all of this in “virtual space” allows employees to develop, implement and debug projects before they are released, which can be a great advantage for the company.

The lab’s technology can certainly be described as futuristic, but according to Harris, the idea came about three years ago, when gaming technologies advanced to a point where using them for business just made sense.  The application of the technology, for Rockwell Collins, includes such techniques as having assembly operators use a Nintendo Wii remote control to navigate a virtual assembly of a product.

“We’re hoping to integrate less costly solutions, like the Wii controllers, to replace the existing more expensive equipment we have now so that we’re able to have cost effective multiple extensions of the lab throughout the company,” Harris said.

The more budget-friendly gaming technology, coupled with cutting-edge applications, is exactly what Harris believes will appeal to the next generation of professionals. “They’re a gaming generation. They play with this technology everyday and they can walk into our labs, pick up the equipment, and work with it right away,” he said. “This is such a familiar technology for them, so the skills are already there.”

Story courtesy: The Gazette, National Engineers Week Special Section, 2009

By Jan Clarke
For Gazette Special Sections

Budcat Art Director Matt Van Dinter reviews texture and wire frame models of Metalhead, a character exclusive to the Guitar Hero titles designed by the Iowa City gaming company / Photo by Jan Clarke

IOWA CITY – “Guitar Hero.” ” Madden.”  “Medal of Honor.”  ”The New York Times Crosswords.”  Some of the hottest titles in video games are being developed in southeastern Iowa.

Iowa City game designer Budcat Creations has developed about 20 of the hottest game titles, including Medal of Honor: Vanguard, several titles in the Madden sports series and several hugely popular Guitar Hero titles: Aerosmith, Legends of Rock and World Tour.

Genius works quickly at Budcat. Without any prior DS experience, the company was able to design, develop and ship Nacho Libre in four months. Without any prior Wii experience, Budcat was able to develop Medal of Honor for the Wii in less than three months. The company develops games for Nintendo DS, Playstation, Nintendo Wii, Gameboy Advance and Xbox.

When Budcat develops a game for different platforms, team members work on both games at the same time and share as much of the code and “art assets”-the 3D characters and environments-as possible, in order to reduce the workload. General Manager and co-founder Jeremy Andersen says it’s not unusual to have 20 people on a development team. The company now employs 62 people.

Isaac Burns, one of the managing partners of Budcat Creations, says hardware is definitely more advanced than when Budcat Creations was founded in 2000. As the scope of the projects for the next-generation consoles increases, game development requires more engineers, designers and artists.

Andersen agrees. “The newer systems have more room to fit more content on the disk,” he said.  Early games were only 16 or 32 colors, and the graphics were blocky and chunky. “Video games are looking more like TV shows now, and it’s a lot more work,” he says.

Currently, Budcat has three games in development: “Our House,” a compilation of homebuilding and remodeling-themed games for the Wii, and another (top secret) title for PlayStation 2 and Wii.

Who comes up with the game concept? It depends. When Majesco Entertainment wanted a game based on the movie “Nacho Libre,” the game idea and story came from Budcat.

“We made a concept pitch to Majesco, and then they took it to Paramount,” Andersen says.

A concept pitch is a two- or three-page document that lays out the game idea. When Budcat gets the go-ahead, preproduction starts: they detail a game design document; ensure that they have the proper staffing and tools for the job; and set out a timetable with milestones for deliverables.

“Once all that is worked out, the artists and engineers get to work,” Andersen says. The process is extremely collaborative.

When the Budcat staff isn’t under a crushing deadline, they hold a monthly “design day,” and divide into small groups to brainstorm ideas for new games.

After fleshing out several of the ideas, the staff whittles the list down to the concepts that fit Budcat’s development capabilities. They write a concept document, create a game design document, and design a prototype.

In the past, they would have pitched the concept to whichever publisher they thought would be the best prospect. In November, however, Budcat Creations was acquired by Activision Publishing, so now Budcat pitches exclusively to Activision.

The purchase allows Budcat to keep its roots in Iowa City, where co-founding brothers Jeremy and Jason Andersen grew up and where co-founder and managing partner Isaac Burns earned his BS in mechanical engineering at University of Iowa.