User:CloudScorpion

Basic Information

My name is Joseph Patrick Hughes II and I was born on May 19, 1989 in Hamilton Ontario Canada where I spent most of my life, only recently having moved to Toronto. The two passions that have persisted throughout most of my life have been computers and video games, having been deeply interested in both for as long as I can remember. My interests in computers are not only being limited to software development, I am also an avid computer hardware enthusiast actively following new hardware technologies as they emerge, particularly hardware related cutting edge gaming.

3D Development

My main field of interest in programming is advanced 3D gaming, particularity hardware accelerated graphics. I have experience using the Ogre3D graphics engine having integrated it with a custom 3D game engine (more info on that below). The bulk of my low level 3D programming has been using DirectX9 and hlsl shaders, having written particle emitters and dynamic cube mapping systems from scratch. I also have some experience with other aspects of game engines (sound, input, physics, AI, etc), some experience with existing game engine/modding tools (Unreal Editor 3 and various Blizzard editors) and with 3D modeling tools (3DSMax and Blender).

Other Development

I acted as the webmaster for the School of Information & Communications Technology (formally School of Computer Studies) from Summer of 2010 until Fall of 2011. While there I honed my skills in javascript and PHP and became very familiar with the Drupal CMS which is used by many of the sites in the school. One of the largest tasks I took on while I was there was a javascript animation engine, which took an animation script and was able to dynamically control appearance of the web page. The script can be accessed at https://scs.senecac.on.ca/sites/all/themes/seneca/ani.js it isn't overly well documented, and can be a bit of a mystery, but the script that controls the SCS site can be seen at the bottom of the source page of almost any SCS page. My goal with this was to make it easier to dynamically control your entire web site and to make it easier to quickly assign animations to components of your web page. Unfortunately, other than a few project, I never made great use of this system and I eventually stopped developing it, as it was operational enough to do what it was originally designed for. If anyone is interested in using the script or perhaps further developing it, feel free to contact me and I'll be glad to help you with whatever I can.

After Seneca

I finish my diploma at Seneca at the end of this semester (Fall 2011). I am the co-founder Last Shot Studios Inc. and I will be moving on to operate it with my business partner Hasan Kamal-Al-Deen. Last Shot Studios Inc. is a video game development studio that will be dedicated to making 3D computer games, our first product expected to be completed in early 2012. Our custom game engine uses many open source components such as Ogre3D and ODE to provide our game engine with high quality, stable, and cutting edge technology that would otherwise not be available to a small team. It is our hope that once our first products are shipped that we will be able to give back to these communities that helped make our endeavors possible.