Oh man! Banjo-Pilot Voxel beta release on the 17th! Wow! Very cool!
http://www.rarewarecentral.com/banjo-pilot-voxel
Woah, I thought he wanted to stop for now! Are there even any other GBA betas aparts from the early DKP one left now?
Oh man! Banjo-Pilot Voxel beta release on the 17th! Wow! Very cool!
http://www.rarewarecentral.com/banjo-pilot-voxel
Woah, I thought he wanted to stop for now! Are there even any other GBA betas aparts from the early DKP one left now?
These GBA releases are cool and all, but...
Someone wake me when a BK beta or Project Dream is released.
Woah, I thought he wanted to stop for now! Are there even any other GBA betas aparts from the early DKP one left now?
There's not much of a story behind the actual project, apart from the obvious "it was cancelled". Up until that point, I remember development happening fairly smoothly and quickly.
Unfortunately, I cannot take any credit for the voxel engine (that was the amazing talent of Rob and his scary self-modifying code). The bits I do remember working on clearly were the frontend, object handling & collisions, and the HUD system.
The frontend wasn't as ambitious as Diddy Kong Pilot's (with its FMV & rotating light beam), but what I tried all along was to make the menu system as slick and flowing as possible. I remember even cutting down the size of the save file, so that the "saving" message was only displayed for the minimum allowed time. This frontend was then shoehorned into DKP for the final Banjo Pilot, since we knew exactly how the progress through our own game worked.
The object collisions all used vertical cylinders, which are extremely cheap on non-floating point hardware. I also kept a multiplexed sorted list, where it would sort all the objects (I think by X position) forwards on 1 update, then backwards on the other, doing one-way compares & swaps as necessary. This meant each object would only check against the adjacent one or two in the list, and stop as soon as it reached one that it wasn't touching. Every cycle counted!
The HUD needed to display large sprites, for which we basically did not have the remaining VRAM. So at Trevor's suggestion, he & I came up with a solution that divided the screen into 3 regions: upper (position & time), middle (message/icon to turn around + map) and lower (current item + lap counter), and rotated the sprite data in memory on 3 specific scanlines. This effectively gave the full quota of sprite memory allocated for the HUD, to each of the 3 regions.
The feedback from people who tried the game was that it looked a lot prettier, but still wasn't an enjoyable game to play. Perhaps that influenced the cancellation? One of the reasons we heard when it was cancelled was the low framerate, especially with multiple racers. However, considering the framerates of some of the N64 (and later Xbox 360) games, there are likely to have been other reasons behind the decision.
Hello,
Thanks for writing. As you may know, In order to diversify our portfolio of developers and projects, we sold our controlling interest in Rare, Ltd. to Microsoft back in 2002. While Nintendo's great franchise characters such as Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Star Fox remain exclusive to Nintendo systems, Rare retains the rights to franchises and characters they created, including "Killer Instinct," "Perfect Dark," "Conker," and "Banjo-Kazooie." For this reason, games featuring these franchises and characters will likely remain exclusive to a Microsoft platform now and for the foreseeable future.
That said, there hasn't been any announcements for the type of games you described to be released in North America. More importantly, we do not have any information that tells us this game will or wont be announced, but I will pass along your comments to the departments which make those decisions.
We often hear from excited fans asking if a particular game is going to be announced. I dont want to dampen any excitement you feel about these games, but I want to make it clear that until Nintendo makes an official announcement of a particular game there is nothing we have to share about itregardless of any rumors you may have heard or announcements from Nintendo subsidiaries elsewhere in the world.
If or when we do make an official announcement about any of these games, we will share all the exciting details on our website (www.nintendo.com). Until that happens, we appreciate your patience and ask that you continue checking the website.
Sincerely,
Gabby Allen
Nintendo of America Inc.
For anyone that hasn't seen the canned response from Nintendo about GE, someone posted it recently on the xbox.com forums.
Off Topic: I miss having new Rare Christmas cards.
The fact that the employees at Rare want to blame Microsoft for their own creative failings is astounding. No other company that had their output for the past 6 years would be left standing. They just really couldn't pull it together this entire generation. Perfect Dark Zero is a perfect example. Game lived only on name alone. There was nothing in that game creatively at all. Talk about a bankrupt company. Microsoft did the only thing they could with them. Have them crank out creatively bankrupt games, which is what they are really only able to do. Kinect Sports sold more games this entire generation for a Rare game by a mile.
They did a new card for this year. One where Scott actually addresses fans' concerns.
http://www.abload.de/img/christmasscottuwq0w.jpg
Dammit, Henson.
I see that Rare put the real one up right around the time I posted about missing the Christmas card. Pretty telling that they didn't feel like shoehorning any of their mascots in it. I understand that they're on a Kinect Sports kick, but wow. You'd think they'd at least hide a Jiggy in there or something.
They do not care about those characters anymore, they are doing Kinect stuff and thus don't need their old mascots. :/
They did a new card for this year. One where Scott actually addresses fans' concerns.
Is this real? Would be incredibly awesome.
And I agree that Rare has no one to blame but Rare for their failings. Lack of direction and focus hurt them. Took too long to develop games.
I like the one posted by Shiggy better. Feels more genuine.
Bjorn Toft Madsen said:My wish-list: Awesome senior hires to join us, a bright future for our new engine, more awesome for Rare and a happy New Year!
Role Purpose
Following on from the success of Kinect Sports and its recent sequel Kinect Sports: Season Two, Rare is continuing to push the boundaries of the Kinect hardware with our exciting new project. Were looking for an experienced and passionate rendering engineer to join us on this journey.
Based at our custom built Twycross site, this role will involve you working initially within the New Technology engineering team to produce a cutting edge extensible rendering solution that satisfies art direction, art implementation, pipeline, content design and business requirements.
Team/Department Mission
Develop early technology prototypes to prove feasibility of concepts.
Deliver advanced software in a format consumable by larger engineering group.
Work with partners in and outside of Microsoft Studios to push shared direction and avoid duplication of research efforts.
Provide technology intelligence to Rares senior leadership team.
Key Accountabilities
Understand, assess and be capable of implementing real-time rendering techniques made possible by DirectX 11.
Identify and evaluate non-interactive rendering trends and our opportunities to move these into the interactive domain in our future titles.
Implement the above in conjunction with other senior engine architects within the context of an evolving engine.
Communicate effectively with art vision holders, taking or suggesting direction as required.
Enable the technical artists to achieve the vision generated by non-interactive pre-visualisation.
Understand and streamline the activities performed in content-authoring tools that are required in order to generate input data for our rendering runtime.
Work with our content pipeline and build specialists to optimise the preparation of input data required by our rendering runtime.
Mentor junior engineers
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
Essential Experience
Previous rendering experience on at least one released AAA title in the current console generation or for high-spec PCs.
Technical/Functional Skills
Excellent C++ architecture, programming and debugging skills using modern C++.
Excellent math skills, particularly 3D math.
Strong understanding of the non-interactive rendering research space.
Strong understanding of the interactive rendering space.
Knowledge of C#, Mel Script or Python.
Knowledge of Maya and Z-Brush.
Understanding of UML and multiplatform development.
Ability to complete tasks in a timely manner, achieving compromises with other disciplines as required to hit deadlines.
Very strong problem-solving skills - ability to think outside the box.
Personal Attributes/Interpersonal Skills
Excellent oral and written communication skills.
Outgoing and pro-active personality who thrives on working with non-engineers.
Self-motivated with a drive for excellence.
Qualifications
BSc, BEng, or MS in Computer Science or equivalent.
Prior to these events, Rare had already publicly lost staff from other teams. In 1997, a small number of these employees (Oliver Davies, Oliver Norton, Steve Patrick, Jeff Stafford, Christopher Gage, and Adrian Smith) left and formed a new studio to be known as Eighth Wonder.
I don't know what they did after Eighth Wonder closed.Were they ever seen somewhere else?
RWC just posted some Pinata Paradise beta music! Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/user/RareWareCentral?feature=watch
RWC just posted some Pinata Paradise beta music! Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/user/RareWareCentral?feature=watch
The real Banjo-Threeie? Whatever it is, it probably will be tons of fun!
The real Banjo-Threeie? Whatever it is, it probably will be tons of fun!
The real Banjo-Threeie? Whatever it is, it probably will be tons of fun!
The real Banjo-Threeie? Whatever it is, it probably will be tons of fun!
I think he's just trolling Rare fans following him on TwitterThe real Banjo-Threeie? Whatever it is, it probably will be tons of fun!
I'm confused. He still works at Rare...?
App developer, illustrator, animator and videogame dinosaur. Quite literally living the dream whilst making great stuff at the Appy Factory that is Nosy Crow.
Current
Head of Apps Development: Creative at Nosy Crow Ltd
Past
Art Director at Rare Ltd (Microsoft Games Studio)
Lead Artist at Rare Ltd
Senior Artist at Rare Ltd