Contributor Biographies Contains bios for those contributors who submitted one. Dr. Doug Binks, D.Phil. Doug Binks is a senior application engineer with the Visual Computing Software Enabling group at Intel, working with game developers to assist their development on Intel architectures such as Larrabee and multi-core CPUs. Prior to joining Intel in 2008, he worked in the games industry in roles ranging from graphics programmer to head of studio, and more recently as R&D development manager at Crytek GmbH, where he oversaw development of the CryENGINE 2. Doug holds a doctorate in physics from Oxford University, and he undertook two postdoctoral posts as an aca- demic researcher in experimental nonlinear pattern formation, specializing in fluid mechanics. His earliest memories are of programming assembly on the ZX81. Udeepta Bordoloi Udeepta Bordoloi is an engineer at AMD working on GPU compute technology. He obtained his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University and has previously worked in the field of medical visualization. He has interests in image processing, graphics, scientific visualization, and GPU compute. Igor Borovikov Igor Borovikov graduated from the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology with an M.Sc. in physics and later completed his Ph.D. in math. His career highlights include senior researcher at the Institute of Microelectronics (Moscow); AnimaTek Intl, where he was one of the leads for World Builder; and SCEA, where he worked on a bestselling title. After working at Kerner Technologies as Chief Scientist on a novel video compression technique, he moved back to computer games. Currently, he is at Electronic Arts on The Sims 3 project. His research interests include differential geom- etry, computer vision, AI, and more. 1 2 Contributor Biographies Cyril Brom Cyril Brom wrote his first game on PMD 85, a socialist Czechoslovakia computer with a wonderful keyboard, at the age of 11. He spent the next decade persuading his friends to program games with him and to read sci-fi stories he wrote. Finally, Cyril graduated in computer science from Charles University in Prague, where he now leads the research group Artificial Minds for Intelligent Systems and persuades his students to finish their degrees. Cyril’s research relates to gaming AI, serious games, and com- putational neuroscience. The most recent game-related projects he was involved in include Europe 2045, a serious strategy game for teenagers about the European Union, and Pogamut, a toolkit for fast prototyping of AI of 3D virtual characters. Eric Brown [email protected] Eric Brown lives in North Salt Lake, Utah. He is currently employed at Rockwell Collins writing simulation software for commercial and military flight simulators. He has worked in the game industry for four years, working on physics and animation systems. He received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Utah Valley University and is currently working on a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Utah. Phil Carlisle Phil Carlisle is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Bolton in Bolton, England. He also runs a small independent game development company called MindFlock Ltd, which specializes in AI-based social simulation games. Prior to joining the University, Phil spent a number of years working on the Worms franchise of games for Team17, contributing to several titles in the multimillion-selling franchise. Phil has a BSc honors degree in computing from Leeds Metropolitan University and is currently researching the areas of emotional agents and “digital actors” for his Ph.D. He is currently engaged in establishing models of lifelike and believable game characters in order to spread the knowledge of how to incorporate emotion into game characters by example. Michael Dailly Michael Dailly is a veteran games programmer of more than 20 years. Having started his professional career back in 1989 on a Commodore 64 for DMA Design, he then stayed with them for almost 10 years, helping them create some of the most recogniz- able games ever made. Through his love of R&D, he can lay claim to having inspired both the Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto series of games. Enjoying all disciplines, he refuses to specialize in any particular field, and this general knowledge has allowed him to work as a simple games coder, a 3D engine architect, an AI programmer, a platform architect, a network programmer, a head of research and development, and a technical manager. He has a passion for older machines and believes they still have much to teach us on how to get the best from modern-day systems. Contributor Biographies 3 Peter Dalton [email protected] Peter Dalton is a senior engineer at Smart Bomb Interactive, leading a team of engi- neers to build and maintain their in-house game engine targeted at the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 platforms. Prior to joining Smart Bomb Interactive in 2005, he worked as the programming director for Glyphx Games and filled the role of tech- nical director for Beyond Games. In his past eight years in the industry, he has shipped more than six titles, including Advent Rising, Pac-Man World Rally, The Bee Game, and the upcoming Xbox 360 Live title, Snoopy Flying Ace. Peter was a contributing author to Game Programming Gems 2 and Best of Game Programming Gems. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a bachelor’s in computer engineering from the University of Utah. Go Utes! Kevin Dill Kevin Dill has developed AI for seven titles: Master of Orion 3, Kohan II: Kings of War, Axis & Allies, Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species, Zoo Tycoon 2: Marina Mania, Iron Man, and the upcoming Red Dead Redemption. He is currently working for Lockheed Martin on AI for serious games. When not coding, Kevin teaches classes on game AI and game programming, works as a technical editor for Charles River Media, and serves on the organizational committee for the AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference. He also writes articles and gives talks on the topic of AI for games and has in the past served as a section editor for the AI Game Programming Wisdom series. Jean-Francois Dube [email protected] Jean-Francois Dube has been working at Ubisoft Montreal since 1997 and is currently working on Splinter Cell: Conviction as a senior engine programmer. Previously, he held the role of technical architect on Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 and 2, which shipped on PC, 360, and PS3. He also worked as a 3D programmer on games such as Rainbow Six 3 on Xbox and many other Ubisoft PS2 games. His main interests are code opti- mization, software rendering, compiler design, and drinking a lot of coffee. He accepts emails at the above address to discuss his articles or other related topics. Dominic Filion [email protected] Dominic Filion is a senior software engineer at Blizzard Entertainment, where he has been hard at work on the upcoming StarCraft II for the past few years. He has worked for a decade in the games industry, acting as technical director or principal architect on three different commercial 3D engines at several game companies. During the rare moments when he is not obsessing about improving StarCraft II’s graphics, Dominic would enjoy feedback on the material presented here, so feel free to drop him a note. 4 Contributor Biographies Marco Fratarcangeli [email protected] Marco Fratarcangeli (Ph.D. 2009, Univ. of Rome Sapienza) currently works at Taitus Software, focusing on the development of cross-platform graphical modules, such as planet rendering and information visualization, useful in planning and analysis of artificial satellite missions. During his academic activities, Marco researched mainly on novel methods for automatic rigging of facial animation through physical simulation and motion retargeting. His current interests include physically based animation, game development, high-performance terrain rendering, and natural human-computer inter- faces. Nico Galoppo Nico Galoppo grew up in Belgium, the land of mussels, beer, chocolate, and frietzakken. He has lived and studied all around the world—from the tiny Tremelo and Chapel Hill to the bigger Leuven, Grenoble, and Zurich. Currently, he enjoys living and breathing in the sparkling city of Portland, Oregon, in the beautiful American North- west—filled with great eats and culture and close to gorgeous scenery in abundance. Nico currently holds a position as senior graphics software engineer with the Visual Computing Group at Intel in Portland, Oregon. He graduated with a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of North Carolina while collaborating with his advisor, Professor Ming C. Lin, and Dr. Miguel A. Otaduy. His Ph.D. research related mainly to physically based animation and simulation of rigid, quasi-rigid, and deformable objects; adaptive dynamics of articulated bodies; hair rendering; and many other computer graphics–related topics. He also has experience with accelerated numerical algorithms on graphics processors. Nico also holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and he has published several peer-reviewed papers in various ACM conference proceedings. He has given talks at several ACM SIGGRAPH and ACM Symposium of Computer Animation conferences. Benedict R. Gaster Benedict R. Gaster is a principal engineer at AMD, where he is the OpenCL architect. He obtained his Ph.D. from Nottingham University and has worked on compilers for both sequential and parallel languages for more than a decade. His interests are in pro- gramming language specification, compilation, and particularly in techniques for the emerging massively parallel processing offered by modern GPUs. Gero Gerber Gero Gerber started working in the games industry as a software engineer at Ascaron Entertainment in 2000, working on ANSTOSS Action. He later joined Phenomic Game Development, working on SpellForce 2, where he was responsible for UI and Contributor Biographies 5 network systems.