Insomniac Games

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One Patch 1.03

Vitti — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:14:33 +0000

We are happy to annouce the release of Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One Patch 1.03. We have listened to your feedback and have made some fixes and additions. The patch should be going live in all territories as you read this or very soon after. More

Happy Holidays from Insomniac!

jstevenson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:04:08 +0000

Hey everyone,

As you may know, we usually take a long break every December.We like to take a great break to recharge, hang with our families, and get ready to hit next year and continue making great games (read: we’re … Read More

Full Moon Show – Mastodon

Vitti — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:33:37 +0000

The guys from Mastodon stop by the Insomniac offices to talk Brutality Pack with Ted and James in this special video episode of the Full Moon Show. Check out this exclusive interview from Insomniac, along with behind-the-scenes footage of Mastodon going hands on with Resistance 3. Brutality Pack is available on the PlayStation Store for $3.99 More

Fan Game of the Week Winner – Dec 9th

Vitti — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:08:38 +0000

Another week, another playlist. We have had some fun ones so far, but none like this week's Fan Game of the Week. There is a full breakdown below, but the main things to keep in mind are: You will have only 5 lives and respawns are set to 1 sec! That means not only will it be fast and furious, but you will have to be more cautious. We are excited to check out the appropriately named Survivor Strike! More

Fan Game of the Week Winner – Dec 2nd

Vitti — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:38:19 +0000

It is that time again. You voted for it, so we are going to give it to you. Starting this evening the Game of the Week will look like this:

16 player Team Deathmatch
2 Rounds
HIGH DAMAGE!
First team
… Read More

Fan Game of the Week Winner – Nov 18th

Vitti — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:48:20 +0000

Thank you to all those who participated in our first ever Fan Game of the Week competition. For those who missed out or didn’t get their playlist voted up, fear not. Playlist submissions are now open again and you will … Read More

Update on Patch 1.05 and Changelog

Vitti — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 23:52:40 +0000

Patch 1.05 is complete… and it’s huge. We know many of you have been waiting for this patch and the time for deployment is almost here. Sony is combing through it one last time and as soon as it’s live … Read More

INSOMNIAC WINS 13TH GREAT PLACE TO WORK AWARD

jstevenson — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:46:03 +0000

Insomniac has once again won a Great Place to work award, placing 16th on the Small Company list (http://www.entrepreneur.com/greatplaces/). Once again we’re the only video games company ranked on the list. This marks our 13th “Best Workplace” award on either the National, State, or Local level. Not only do we get to make great games like Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One and Resistance 3, but we get to do it at a great workplace. Want to learn more? Looking for a new job? Find out more here: http://www.insomniacgames.com/careers/ More

Insomniac supports Extra-Life! Play with us!

jstevenson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:58:33 +0000

Fans! Have you ever wanted to play games with the Insomniacs? Today’s your lucky day! We're supporting Extra-Life, (http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?) meaning we'll be playing games to raise the well deserved cash for children in need. By supporting our team through a donation, you will get to play games online with the Insomniac Games team. If we're playing R3, you can come and play with us. If we're playing Ratchet & Clank beta, you can come play with us too...if you have it installed. More

How I got into the Games Industry…

abaker — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:37:52 +0000

Often at shows, or in chatting with candidates here at Insomniac, people ask “How did you get into the game industry?” It’s becoming more and more a common question – and I’m not sure if I should be flattered or confused by it. Is it because I don’t seem like the typical gamer (I’m not- but what is that today anyway), or is it just because there is a lack of information on how one really does break into the industry? I will be the first to say I am not involved in the creative aspect of the games- I don’t program, my art skills are laughable, and if asked to design anything – I would break out in a cold sweat. But I do love to work with creative people, and I knew that I could handle the world that is game development. More

Core Coding Standard

macton — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:41:27 +0000

Coding practices are a source of a lot of arguments among programmers. Coding standards, to some degree, help us to put certain questions to bed and resolve stylistic debates. No coding standard makes everyone happy. (And even their existence is sure to make some unhappy.) What follows are the standards we put together on the Core team, which have become the general coding standard for all programming teams on new code development. We've tried to balance the need for creating a common, recognizable and readable code base with not unduly burdening the programmer with minor code formatting concerns. More

Update on Patch 1.04 and Double XP Weekend

Vitti — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 02:16:22 +0000

Hey everyone,

We wanted to thank all of you for your patience while we iron out the remaining kinks in the Resistance 3 Multiplayer. Many of you have been playing with no issues, but there are also some of you … Read More

Lunar Lessons #7: Lessons from the Lunar

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:00:46 +0000

Four months. That’s how long I’ve exercised my ignorance inside the walls of Insomniac Games. Fortunately, during my time here much of that ignorance has been exorcised. Thanks to the fantastic people here who are vastly more knowledgeable than me, I’ve learned more about the games industry than I ever would have while endlessly browsing the litter of popular game sites. I’m here – in the thick of game development. I could skip five feet and annoy a designer about the level he or she is working on for Overstrike. This has been an unparalleled first hand look at what goes on inside a top developer as they create AAA titles. I’ve been a fly on the wall - A fly with the uncanny ability to put halfway amusing words together in Microsoft Word. More

Badges? You do need some Stinkin’ Badges

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:40:40 +0000

Hopefully you got the Blazing Saddles reference in the title – or else it was completely random. Either way, badges are a pretty significant factor of this post. Why? Because we have teamed up with Machinima and RespawnArmy.com to create unique Resistance 3 unlockable badges. That’s right! Simply sign up for an account with the RespawnArmy.com Facebook app and you’ll be on your way to garnering unique badges specially designed for R3. The first eight are up now – and if you want to be entered in for a chance to win some pretty swag swag – I’d get off your tush and start killin’ some Chimera. More

Lunar Lessons #6: Comunicacion es Importante

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:48:14 +0000

Sometimes, I like to categorize myself in the “not-so-intelligent” column. My most recent foray into stupidity was deciding that taking a Spanish 2 class - at 8 A.M. – 4 days a week – was remotely a good idea. Since I haven’t taken Spanish in four years and mirror the sleeping pattern of a Northern Hawk Owl, every morning is a little slice of tortura. More

An update on Resistance 3 Patch 1.03

jstevenson — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 06:58:32 +0000

Hey folks,

As you know by now, we’ve been hoping to get Patch 1.03 out to you this week. Unfortunately it looks like the patch may not deploy until early next week (Tuesday, September 20th). We apologize for the delays, … Read More

Resistance 3 Patch 1.02 Notes

jstevenson — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:42:44 +0000

Hey folks,

Patch 1.02 for Resistance 3 is now available worldwide. We apologize for having two large patches this close to launch, but as you know, we’ve had a lot of issues to address from the Public Beta, and this … Read More

#GDC12 Insomniacs share

macton — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:39:25 +0000

We submitted a few proposals for next year’s GDC here at Insomniac. I’d like to share those with you. We’d love to get any feedback you might have so that we could make them as interesting and useful as possible! … Read More

Resistance 3 Reviews: “Best Resistance Yet”

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:02:53 +0000

Resistance 3 has finally been unleashed upon the world. But you already know that don’t you? Heck, you’re probably playing it right now! If you’re not, however, allow me to usher you around some of the glowing reviews from the … Read More

Resistance 3 Abilities and Attributes: The List

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 22:23:35 +0000

When I was six years of age, I had a life changing moment. I watched Spiderman: The Animated Series for the first time. I was mesmerized. A simple spider bite completely changed Peter Parker for life – it made him faster, stronger, swingier. I wanted to be changed too. So, for the next few weeks I did nothing but poach spiders. When one was within my grasp I would force it to bite my hand – hoping, praying that it would be the one to initiate me into the Swingers Club (don’t read into that). Unfortunately, the only thing I reaped from my arachnid hunt was a highly infected wound and a medical bill. Dejectedly, I abandoned my super-human dreams. Maybe, I’m just going to be a “normie” forever. More

Resistance 3 Caption Contest

Vitti — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:55:35 +0000

Want a free copy of Resistance 3? How about getting it 4 days early?!

Here is your chance. The rules are simple. First and foremost this is for US residents only. Send your best 140 character caption for the following … Read More

Patch 2.05 for the Resistance 3 Beta

jstevenson — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:01:19 +0000

Very shortly from the time of this writing (5:45 pm, PST on 8/30/11) - Patch 2.05 will rollout to the Resistance 3 Beta servers. This may be our last patch to the beta, as all of our efforts are focused on ensuring that our final game runs as well as it can next week. Keep in mind that our beta patches have been meant to address critical issues, MANY more polish, optimizations, bug fixes and tweaks have gone into our Day 1 patch (including things like death cam fixes, additional lag fixes, menu bugs, etc). More

Insomniac Games at PAX

jstevenson — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:26:40 +0000

This weekend we'll be up at the Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle in full force. With booths for both Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One (and the very sexy arcade cabinents) along with Resistance 3 - you won't want to miss swinging by. More

Friday R3 Beta Update, Patch 2.03

Vitti — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 01:02:43 +0000

Hope you have an awesome weekend planned. We would like to think part of your plans involve a little Resistance 3 Beta mayhem. Just wanted to update you all as to where we stand. More

Resistance 3 Beta Update, Patch 2.02 and beyond

Vitti — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:56:10 +0000

While JS is over in Germany enjoying Gamescom (Read: Beer) I wanted to update everyone on the Beta. First up, patch 2.02 should be available within the next day. More

R3 Thursday Beta Update: Current issues and upcoming 2.02 update

jstevenson — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:50:01 +0000

As you know, yesterday we released update 2.01 for the Resistance 3 beta. While this has definitely improved matchmaking (as players are no longer being matched into empty games that no one ever joins), we still have some issues that are giving you an unacceptable experience. More

An update on R3 Beta, Matchmaking and Patch 2.01

jstevenson — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:53:07 +0000

Hey folks,

As you are by-now well aware, we hit a rough patch over the last week with the Resistance 3 Online Beta. The expansion to the hundreds of thousands of SOCOM4 users revealed some bugs that we’ve been rapidly … Read More

Can You Beat Resistance 2 Fifty Times?

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:21:18 +0000

Show of hands – how many of you have seen Cool Hand Luke? Wow, okay – two of you? Come on, people! It’s a classic! The reason I ask is because at a critical point in the film, Luke … Read More

The Art of Choice in Resistance 3 Multiplayer

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:23:10 +0000

As kids we really don’t have a say in a lot of situations. My youth was filled with phrases like, “Brandon, go to bed now!” and “Brandon, you can’t eat 15 Twinkies in a row!” I was limited by the bonds of parental care. However, those chains have shattered. Now I stay up till 3 A.M. watching George Lopez try to be funny as I warm myself with a blanket of Twinkie wrappers. Why? Because I can. It’s what I choose to do. More

Lunar Lessons 5: Game Making – 100% Organic and Gluten Free

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:53:36 +0000

I don’t think I’m built for a normal 9 to 5 job. I came to this realization during the summer of my sophomore year in high-school when I landed a small job at a local newspaper doing data entry. Now, if you know anything about me – you know that “data entry” is the exact opposite of what I should be doing. I’m far too – uh – eclectic (read: scatterbrained) to be anywhere near efficient at the task. More

Resistance 3 Preview Build Coverage Wrap-Up

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:22:42 +0000

Last week a slew of new previews for Resistance 3 descended upon us. We gave the journalist full rein over the first few hours of the game. You think that would be pretty scary, right? Well, not for us! We think we’ve … Read More

Episode 60 – Resistance 3 Update

Vitti — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:07:38 +0000

Join senior community manager James Stevenson, creative director Marcus Smith, lead designer Drew Murray and senior designer Cameron Christian as they headline the 60th episode of the Full Moon Show. We discuss Resistance 3, what 3 years meant to the project, our favorite weapons in the game and much more. Plus, a whole segment devoted to your questions. And a special guest appearance from our intern Brandon Winfrey on his 21st Birthday. More

Expanding the Resistance Universe to Multiplayer

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:44:00 +0000

Insomniac Games welcomes its summer community intern Brandon Winfrey, more commonly known on the internet as Mucudadada, or as “that guy who baked the Ratchet cake for Insomniac’s Community Day.” Brandon will be spending his summer away from the University … Read More

Update on Resistance 3 Beta

Vitti — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 01:00:04 +0000

Hey folks,

Wanted to give you a head’s up about the Resistance 3 beta, when it’s launching and how you can get access. Starting next week, you may begin to see some of your favorite Insomniacs and others on PSN … Read More

Lunar Lessons #4: Can Read My Poker Face

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 22:59:20 +0000

Lunar Lessons #3: Surprise! It’s About E3.

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:24:50 +0000

Guidelines for Creating Good Design Materials

macton — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:35:22 +0000

Before you explain your design, state what it is that your aiming to achieve. Whether it be a design problem you’re aiming to solve or a new twitch mechanic you have an idea for, tell the audience what is at the heart of the matter. Then they can think on the subject in the same way that you are and have a grounding point for their ideas and feedback. This is a core part of our ‘state the problem, not just the solution’ philosophy. More

E3 2011 Wrap-Up Video

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:32:41 +0000

I like E3.

I tend to get excited at E3.

But, I don’t like to keep all that excitement to myself. That would be rude. So, I have decided to share it with you!
Join me in our E3 2011 … Read More

Lunar Lessons #2: Pokemon Snapped

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 07:00:31 +0000

I swore myself I would never write about taking screenshots. In my jaded mind I thought there was no way my trek though the lovable (read: half-lovable) land of screenshots could possibly inform y’all of the trials and tribulations of game development. Heck, what could I learn from taking screenshots? It’s like Pokemon Snap, right? You just point and click. More

Resistance 3 at E3 Trailer and Demo

admin — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:30:29 +0000

We hope you just had a chance to watch the PlayStation Press Conference that just wrapped up at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena! We were extremely excited to be a part of the show with our live gameplay demo of Resistance 3. You may have also heard about that announcement of the Doomsday Edition of R3 - containing the game, the PlayStation Move controller, the Nav controller, the PlayStation Eye Camera, and the Sharpshooter - everything you need to have the complete Sharpshooter Resistance 3 experience at home on September 6th. More

EA and Insomniac Games Reveal New Four-Player Co-Op Action Game OVERSTRIKE

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:19:25 +0000

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – June 6, 2011 – A shadowy organization has threatened to take over the world and there’s only one team that can stop it: Overstrike 9. This afternoon during the Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), EA and independent developer Insomniac Games (creator of the Ratchet & Clank™ and Resistance™ franchises) announced the first details of the highly-anticipated game, Overstrike. Combining Insomniac’s knack for imaginative weaponry with immersive and witty storytelling, Overstrike is a four-player cooperative action game featuring a team of elite agents called Overstrike 9. Comprised of an ex-mercenary, a lifelong thief, a gifted young scientist and a decorated detective, the members of Overstrike 9 are considered outcasts within their own organization, but are the best team suited to stop a global terrorist group from attempting to wipe out humankind. Overstrike 9 uses lethal teamwork and an arsenal of fringe-tech gadgets to infiltrate and destroy enemy strongholds. Overstrike marks Insomniac’s first multiplatform release and will be available on the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. More

Lunar Lessons #1: Cake in the Ocean

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:41 +0000

I thought I knew about the game industry. For many years now (or as many as a 20 year old can have) I have dedicated myself to learning the ins and outs of the business that I see as the future of art and entertainment. I’ve checked news sites daily, poured over the latest NPD numbers, and even put a few books on the subject under my belt. My knowledge on games was quite vast and, man, was I proud about it. More

Introducing the Resistance Dual-Pack!

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:52 +0000

Missed out on the first two Resistance games? Don’t worry, I’m not mad. I’m just here to tell you that soon there will be a way for you to catch up on the war with the Chimera before the epic third chapter, Resistance 3, comes out on September 6th. All the cool kids are doing it. Plus, you’ll get some pretty sweet exclusive bonuses, as well. More

Help Save Insomniac Games

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:37 +0000

First days at a new job are a lot like first dates. Sure, you’ve met her and proved that you have the social competency necessary in order to be rewarded with a date, but you never quite know how compatible you’ll be until it’s nothing but you, her, and a table full of Thai food and awkward conversation. Thankfully, my first date with Insomniac Games was a success. We chatted for hours, took a long walk around campus, and I didn’t even spill curry all over my shirt. It was everything I expected and much, much more More

The @insomniacgames Core team weekly (brain) exercise program!

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:13 +0000

[Updated: 13 Dec 2011 - Additional exercise examples from 2011.]

Each week in our Core team meeting, I give the team an exercise. I roughly target them to take between 5 and 15 minutes. I’ve found the process to … Read More

A Little Help For Our Friends

admin — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:45:33 +0000

We love our fans. We love giving back to them as much as we can. Never was that more evident than at our most recent Community Day event in Hollywood. At the end of the show we gave away all kinds of swag. We also decided to give away most of the artwork that was posted throughout the event. We did, however, decide to keep a few pieces for ourselves. Why you ask? More

Navigation #GDC11

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 07:00:34 +0000

Navigation of the level is increasingly becoming one of the necessary components for an immersive and fun AI. In this presentation given at GDC this year Reddy Sambavaram shares how Insomniac's AI navigation evolved while satisfying our needs in the … Read More

Insomniac Games song (pin)Ballz comes to Rock Band Network

admin — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:52:46 +0000

Do you remember our infamous recruiting music video called pin(Ballz)? It featured our very own Chris Stathis singing a new song about how awesome it is to work here. Thanks to uber-fan Colin Lenzen, we now have the track authored in Rock Band Network. Colin worked tirelessly to create the Rock Band tracks from our original stems. We're hooking sir Colin up with an epic swag pack with various items from Community Day and a few other speical items. More

Insomniac Games Fan Kit

admin — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:38:11 +0000

Big fan of Resistance or Ratchet & Clank? Maybe just Insomnniac Games in general? Here is a link to get a bunch of assets to use on your website or fan site. More

Insomniac Community Day March 29th Schedule of Events

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:39:19 +0000

Hey everyone,

We wanted to give you an update on our Community Day in Hollywood next week, March 29th, 2011 at the Egyptian Theatre. We are locked for 3:30-8:30pm!

If you’d like to attend, please RSVP at the Facebook page … Read More

The Limited Edition Al Hastings Award

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:03 +0000

Today I introduced the Limited Edition Al Hastings* Award in our Core team weekly meeting.

Of course Al was the first recipient:

It will be awarded for one of:
• Technical excellence
• Silently waiting… then NINJA ATTACK!
• Passing … Read More

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One to support 3DTVs

admin — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:53:33 +0000

We’re excited to reveal that Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One will support stereoscopic 3D televisions when it releases this fall. This marks the first 3D game from Insomniac, and we’re really excited to support folks who are excited about … Read More

PTOM: The (un)official All 4 One cover!

admin — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:00:45 +0000

Today PlayStation the Official Magazine announced that it’s April issue (on shelves this week!) features a cover story on Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One.

You can find out more about the story and the cover by heading to the … Read More

What the Click?

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:00:23 +0000

Introducing Insomniac Click

Brian Hastings is Insomniac Games’ Chief Creative Officer, a partner at the studio and one of its first three employees.

Insomniac Games is proud to introduce our newest division: Insomniac Click. It is dedicated to creating new … Read More

New generation of @insomniacgames tools as webapp

admin — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:00:19 +0000

This year at the Sony GameTechConference (GTC11) I spoke about the next-generation of Insomniac Engine and Tools development. One of the biggest changes we shared was our move to develop our new suite of tools as a web application.

Applying Usability Lessons from Resistance to Engine

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:00:13 +0000

Over the last 18 months or so, we have been making major changes on the Core team on our approach to usability with our Tools and Engine. We now conduct regular (both formal and ad hoc) usability tests on every … Read More

Creating Satisfying Combat Experiences #GDC11

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:00:10 +0000

It was really awesome to see hundreds of developers interested in Insomniac’s combat experience! I was a bit nervous with the technical difficulties at the outset, but cheers to the AV team for coming through!

One important thing to

South by Southwest Interactive

admin — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:58:03 +0000

We are going to be at SXSW Interactive in Austin! Stop by and check out our games. Insomniac will have a booth on the floor where you can play both Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One as well as Resistance … Read More

Booth #2536, 10,000 resumes and you…

admin — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:48:19 +0000

Is it the most wonderful time of the year? I think it might just be. It’s GDC time again! How does this happen? It seems like we just closed the booth, packed it up, got the labels on the cases, … Read More

(5 Minute Show & Tell) John Fiorito: My First Game

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:33 +0000

Every week here on the Core team we have a 5 minute show and tell. Where someone shares something interesting to them.

I’ve shared some of these on our R&D pages before as well:
* Carl Glave spoke about Minecraft… Read More

Intro to Perl

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:00:53 +0000

s(elf) exploitation

admin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:00:12 +0000

How Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2) hacked in patching using a common security exploit.

Episode 59 – December 29, 2010

Vitti — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:00:17 +0000

During our PlayStation Blog takeover, we wanted to bring you a behind the scenes look at Resistance 3, what we’ve been doing the last two years and what the last year of development will bring us. We also discuss our … Read More

It doesn’t have to suck. #gamedev

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:00:39 +0000

Actually, AAA Game Development *can* be a dream job. It’s certainly mine.

By some measure, I am one of “them” when we talk about management decisions affecting the lives of developers in our industry. As the Director of our Core … Read More

(5 Minute Show and Tell) Rotoscoping

admin — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 08:00:03 +0000

Scott Michalek (Engine Support Technician) recently did his own 5 minute show and tell for the team. He shared a bit about the the history of rotoscoping. A classic, brutally and mind-numbingly tedious animation technique. (Which can largely be automated

(5 Minute Show and Tell) 5 Minutes to a Better Bowler

admin — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:00:42 +0000

Giac Veltri (Engine Programmer and expert bowler) shared his experience with the team in a recent 5 Minute Show and Tell.

PDF… Read More

Review Questions

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:21 +0000

Recently we’ve gone through our annual review process here at Insomniac. I wanted to share a bit about my process this year.

In the past, my own review process felt a little unstructured and mostly focused on the individual tasks … Read More

(5 Minute Show and Tell) Simplicity

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:00:11 +0000

Here are the slides from the 5m presentation about simplicity.

As a follow up thought, another article I came across talked about the difference between Doom and the Modern FPS. The main idea being that modern games have things like

(5 Minute Show and Tell) Minecraft

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:00:10 +0000

Tasked with thinking of something I’d like to talk about for five minutes in front of the rest of the core team, I wracked my brain trying to think of something that not only I, but others would actually be

Make it fun!

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:00:41 +0000

Lately I’ve been thinking about how we can make game development itself even more fun. As a rule, we are experts in taking something which is not inherently fun or even interesting (e.g. pushing a bunch of buttons) and making … Read More

Lombax Anatomy 101

admin — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:58:13 +0000

Ever wonder exactly how big Ratchet’s brain is? Well, artist Jason Freeny is about to show us. Working out of a studio in Manhattan, Freeny has created an amazing portfolio of anatomically-correct vertical cross-sections of many beloved pop-culture icons. Creating … Read More

A Challenge to the Press

admin — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:50:29 +0000

Hi everyone,

Yesterday an article appeared on a popular games website (which has since been picked up by other sites) with the headline “We’re Best on PS3 Insomniac Boasts”. The website reprinted an erroneous story that extracted two sentences from … Read More

Part Deux for Etiquette 101

admin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:49:43 +0000

Last time I talked about etiquette for interviewing. Topics were – what to wear, how early is “too early”, etc. In my follow up – I’d like to put my two cents in on some other tips/tricks/nuggets of info that … Read More

Useful Results in Spherical Harmonics (mainly 2-band)

admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:00:30 +0000

See attached PDF for a writeup of some handy results in spherical dynamics.

PDF

Episode 58 – R2 Retrospective audio

Vitti — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:00:14 +0000

Check out the latest episode of the Full Moon Show - the full hour of discussion as we looked back at Resistance 2 before the release of the Game Informer cover story on Resistance 3. Listen in as Ted, Drew, Jake and James discuss development of R2, and you might even get a sneak listen to some new R3 music. More

Episode 57 – R2 Retrospective

Vitti — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 07:00:39 +0000

This week on the Full Moon Show, we take a look back at the development and reaction to Resistance 2. Join President and CEO Ted Price, Lead Designer Drew Murray, Lead Multiplayer Designer Jake Biegel, and Senior Community Manager James Stevenson as they have a wide-ranging, frank, and revealing conversation about the development of R2. See never-before revealed footage of our 2008 hit-shooter, and hear never-before-told stories about the development of the game in this special video edition of the Full Moon Show. More

Game Informer November cover story: Resistance 3

admin — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 20:45:35 +0000

Finally! Resistance 3 revealed!

The new Game Informer issue will be hitting mailboxes and newsstands starting next week. Inside you will find an information blowout on campaign, the new main character, locales, weapon systems, and more!

Check out GameInformer.com all … Read More

Episode 56 – September 17, 2010

Vitti — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:00:21 +0000

It's Internapalooza 2010! Join our newest class of interns on a whirlwind tour of the Burbank office and catch a fleeting glimpse of the magical intern experience! More

Episode 55 – September 10, 2010

Vitti — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 07:00:26 +0000

Here are some highlights from our panel at the Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle where we had our very first demo of Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One! Special thanks to Adam Sessler for moderating and to all of our fans who came out! More

Chad answers YOUR questions about Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:16:32 +0000

Hey Ratchet fans!

This is Chad Dezern. I’m the Studio Director at the North Carolina studio. We hope you enjoyed our announcement of Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One at GamesCom, in Cologne, Germany last week. We’re ecstatic to finally … Read More

Insomniac Once Again Ranks on Top 20 “Best Small Companies to Work for in North America” List

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:00:10 +0000

Insomniac Games is very happy to report that we once again are officially considered one of the Best Companies to Work for in North America.

Today we earned another Top 20 ranking on the prestigious national list, this year presented … Read More

Episode 54 – September 08, 2010

Vitti — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:00:06 +0000

The latest episode of the Full Moon Show is here, and was recorded live at the Penny-Arcade Expo on Sunday, September 5th, 2010. Listen in as we discuss the founding of the North Carolina studio, the desicion to create Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, and talk about the build-up to revealing the game at GamesCom. In addition, we talk about what it takes to get a job at our North Carolina studio, and take a ton of your questions! More

Welcome Resistance 3 and Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One to the Insomniac Family

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:01:29 +0000

After months and months of speculation, we’re excited and relieved to FINALLY reveal Resistance 3 to the world while unleashing an explosive surprise with the surprise introduction of Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One.

We have everything you need right … Read More

JSON Exporter for Excel

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:00:15 +0000

Lately we’ve been using JSON as our text-based interchange format of choice internally. While most of our tools are internal and save this data in a way that’s invisible to the user, we still do work with a lot of … Read More

Etiquette Matters!

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:51:56 +0000

Etiquette. It may seem old fashioned, and maybe some of the ways that etiquette is thought of are antiquated, but there is still a reason why it is around. Etiquette here at Insomniac Games includes “Coffee Etiquette”… if you finish … Read More

Procedural Content Generation in RCF2

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:00:11 +0000

Procedurally generated content has the potential to add interesting, replayable content to our games while avoiding spiraling development costs. Here is a presentation from Gameplay Programmer Chaz Pratt about his research into procedurally generating arena challenges for RCF2. Chaz describes … Read More

Insomniac’s Best of E3 2010

Brandon Winfrey / Mucu — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:07 +0000

Now that the dust has settled from E3 2010, you might be wondering what all of us here at Insomniac HQ thought of the show. Well this is the blog post for you! Over the three days of E3, lots … Read More

Beyond the Game: Drew Murray

Vitti — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:00:14 +0000

Join us on the latest episode of the Full Moon Show for a new edition of Beyond the Game. This week, one of Insomniac's lead designers, Drew Murray, discusses his path into the game industry. From trying to become a chef, to completing law school and starting a career as a lawyer, Drew's path proves that it's never too late to start following your dreams. More

FMS 52: RFOM Retrospective (audio)

Vitti — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:00:42 +0000

This is the companion to FMS 51, an unabridged version of the retrospective discussion about Resistance: Fall of Man. The Full Moon Show is back with a very special episode looking at the history of Insomniac's best-selling PS3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man. Join Insomniac CEO and Founder Ted Price, Chief Creative Officer Brian Hastings, Lead Designer Drew Murray, and Concept Artist Carlo Arellano as they discuss the beginnings of I-8. From its journey as a futuristic space opera, to World War I invasion, to its final form as an alternate history 1950s Resistance, I-8 came a long way during its development process. More

FMS 51: RFOM Retrospective

Vitti — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:00:43 +0000

The Full Moon Show is back with a very special episode looking at the history of Insomniac's best-selling PS3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man. Join Insomniac CEO and Founder Ted Price, Chief Creative Officer Brian Hastings, Lead Designer Drew Murray, and Concept Artist Carlo Arellano as they discuss the beginnings of I-8. From its journey as a futuristic space opera, to World War I invasion, to its final form as an alternate history 1950s Resistance, I-8 came a long way during its development process. More

What TO DO – if you want to get a job in gaming

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:56:10 +0000

Insomniac Games’s HR guru Angela Baker blogs about working in the industry, getting jobs, dealing with recruiters and all sorts of other cool things that are great to know if you are considering a career in the gaming industry. Here’s … Read More

Full Moon Show #50: The I-5 Session

Vitti — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:00:31 +0000

After last week's popular first look at Insomniac's cancelled PS2 game, I-5/Girl with a Stick, The Full Moon Show brings you the rest of the session in audio format. Listen as Ted Price, Brian Hastings, John Fiorito, and Brian Allgeier discuss the game from its beginnings, to its untimely cancellation. An additional 20 minutes of stories, commentary and insight into this cancelled project! More

A Dynamic Component Architecture for High Performance Gameplay

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:00:54 +0000

Delivered at GDC Canada on May 7, 2010, this presentation details a dynamic component architecture used in the Resistance franchise to represent aspects of entity and systems' behavior. This component system addresses several weaknesses of the traditional game object model … Read More

VIDEO: Episode 49 – Girl With a Stick

Vitti — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:00:36 +0000

During the development of Spyro: Year of the Dragon - Insomniac began concepting its first new IP for the PlayStation 2. The game was eventually cancelled, and Insomniac created Ratchet & Clank. This is the story of I-5 (aka: Girl with a Stick). Tune in next week for the complete audio of the discussion. More

Insomniac Games Selects EA Partners For New Publishing Agreement

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:02:32 +0000

INSOMNIAC GAMES SELECTS EA PARTNERS FOR NEW PUBLISHING AGREEMENT

New Franchise Marks the Independent Studio’s First Multiplatform Release

Redwood Shores, Calif. – May 25, 2010 – Today, Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced a publishing agreement with independent developer Insomniac … Read More

Our new partnership with EA Partners

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 01:22:09 +0000

Hey guys, Ted Price here,

I wanted to speak directly to you, our fans, about some big news for Insomniac. Over the last 16 years, you’ve supported Insomniac by buying over 35 million copies of our games. You’ve explored with … Read More

Message from Ted to our fans about our new partnership

Vitti — Tue, 25 May 2010 07:00:34 +0000

Ted Price taped a special video message to you, our fans, to tell you about our new relationship with EA Partners to bring you a brand new franchise on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. More

What’s happening with the podcast?

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:00:02 +0000

Hey folks,

James Stevenson here. By now you’ve seen last week’s initial episode of “Beyond the Game,” (If you haven’t checked it out – click HERE!) a new series of video podcast we hope to bring to you … Read More

Beyond the Game: Beekeeping

Vitti — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:00:22 +0000

The Full Moon Show returns with the first episode of the Beyond the Game series, where we profile what Insomniacs do outside of work. This week, we talk to Environment Artist Steve Ratter who has a hobby that will get you buzzing. More

TGC – MEL Scripting for Animators

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 07:00:51 +0000

With a little coding knowledge you can turn repetitive tasks in Maya into the click of a button. This presentation will show animators the basics of MEL scripting by introducing MEL commands, variables, syntax and the script editor. Walking through … Read More

The Calling Card

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:57:34 +0000

Recruiting can be a shocking, interesting, fascinating and always entertaining aspect of my job. Add in the creative and the artistic elements, and you have a fantastic storm that is recruiting in the video game world. I have to say … Read More

How to become a videogame VO Actor (Part 2 of 2)

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:00:07 +0000

(Community Manager's Note: This is part 2 of Insomniac Games Senior Writer TJ Fixman's blog about how to make it as a voice actor in the videogame industry. You can read Part 1 by clicking here.)

Step Four: … Read More

How to become a videogame VO Actor (Part 1 of 2)

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:00:03 +0000

Hey everyone, T.J. Fixman here. I’m the Senior Writer at Insomniac Games, and I’ve had the privilege of working here for almost four years. That’s four years of ridiculous Qwark one-liners, Nefarious cackles, Ratchet witticisms, and Hale… well, Hale never … Read More

Three Big Lies: Typical Design Failures in Game Programming (GDC10)

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:00:59 +0000

Recovering from another inspiring GDC. This presentation went pretty well I think. Unfortunately we had to turn away something like 200 people because the room wasn't big enough. And quite a lot of those people were exactly the folk I … Read More

Community Update Blog: What’s going on at Insomniac? (Part 2 of 2)

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:00:56 +0000

Hey everyone, thanks to the great response to the blog last week. We’re sorry if you believed that teasing our upcoming projects meant that a Gametrailers TV reveal was imminent. Though hopefully you enjoyed the announcement of SOCOM 4 from … Read More

Community Update Blog: What’s going on at Insomniac? (Part 1 of 2)

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:00:49 +0000

Hey folks, James Stevenson, Senior Community Manager here. Over the last couple of months, the burning question amongst all of our fans out there has been, “what’s going on?” As far as I can remember, this is the longest stretch … Read More

Synchronizing Bots

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:00:08 +0000

Here’s an introduction to a method for synchronizing AI in multiplayer games. It addresses an implementation that uses the Sync Host system that was described in the previous presentation as well as outlining the methods it uses to synchronize the … Read More

Booth 2312….

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:04:33 +0000

Well…the first posting went well! Got positive responses, so I see this as a smashing success!! I’m really excited to be writing this next blog posting – and I feel more in the groove, I kind of get why people … Read More

Introduction to Sync Host

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:13 +0000

Online functionality has become a fundamental component of our games. This is an introduction to Sync Host, a system developed to address some of the tougher issues we’ve encountered when implementing network synchronization.

PDF… Read More

You got questions… we got answers

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:12:03 +0000

It’s a new year, and a new decade so in honor of that, we are starting something new here as well. HOORAY! Welcome to the inaugural edition of a new blog here on the Insomniac Games website, called “Baker’s Dozen”! … Read More

Insomniac Donates a Starlight Fun Center to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:55:50 +0000

This is the press release from Starlight Foundation that shares what went down:

INSOMNIAC GAMES DEDICATES A STARLIGHT FUN CENTER TO
PROVIDENCE SAINT JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER

BURBANK, Calif. (January 29, 2010) Joy and laughter were brought to Providence Saint Joseph’s … Read More

Lombax…. Scrabble?

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:01:39 +0000

Some of our fans have a lot of free time on their hands. And that is AWESOME.

Exhibit A: this amazing stainless steel, laser-engraved Lombax Scrabble set crafted by Insomniac forum member and font creator Paul Grzelak.

Grzelak went above … Read More

An Algorithm for Lockless Processing of Sound Data

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:00:46 +0000

An algorithm has been developed to asynchronously load, unload, play and relocate sound files without the use of locks. The algorithm allows the programmer to arbitrarily assign different logical subsections of the underlying system to different threads, all while remaining … Read More

Wavelets for the Layman

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:00:39 +0000

Here's an internal presentation I gave just about a year ago on using wavelets for image compression. A nice and gentle introduction to a subject that's really pretty simple that is often buried under so many details that people don't … Read More

Top 5 things you might have missed while playing RCF: ACIT

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:40:12 +0000

Hey guys,

James Stevenson here, bringing you a cool video that Paul Featherstone put together about the Top 5 things you might have missed while playing A Crack in Time. Check it out – and maybe you’ll see a couple … Read More

Episode 46 – November 19, 2009

Vitti — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:00:13 +0000

We're back with the finale of Season 3! We look back over the development and reaction to Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. We also talk about your reaction to the reviews and fan feedback, as well as our recent community day and launch of the new site. Thanks for listening to Season 3! We'll be back soon! More

Beyond the Game: Dave Guertin & Greg Baldwin Talk CreatureBox

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:21:37 +0000

Hi all,

This is the start of a new blog series where we’ll be profiling various Insomniacs and their special talents beyond the world of videogames. We’re kicking things off with two long-time Insomniacs: Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin. Dave … Read More

Video: Episode 45 – October 30, 2009

Vitti — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:55 +0000

Community Day 2009! More

Creepy, Spooky Awesomeness at Insomniac HQ

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:27 +0000

Hey, it's Ryan Schneider, Community Director. Today, we were treated to a parade of videogame characters (Pacman, Nathan Drake, Bowser, a battlebot from Ratchet & Clank Future), "Inzombiacs", TWO Jesuses (Jesi?) from Big Lebowski, and an assortment of spectacularly dressed folks … Read More

How much does framerate matter?

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:00:02 +0000

Recently we've been asking ourselves some hard questions:

What is it that we want to focus on?
What's most important to us?
What do we want to make?

And the answer is simple:

We want to give you … Read More

Having Our Cake & Eating it Too

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:43:15 +0000

Hey there, Ryan Schneider here, Community Director. One of our awesome fans who joined us at Full Moon Festival this past Friday told me before the big event that he was going to bake Insomniac a cake. I didn’t realize … Read More

Color Spaces and You

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:00:34 +0000

A basic introduction to the concept of a colorspace for artists, programmers, and anyone who's just curious about the meaning of terms like "sRGB, "gamma," and "color profile." Talks about where colorspaces come from, what they look like, and why … Read More

Backwoods Mayhem!

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:34:12 +0000

Hello everyone,

Greetings from Durham! Welcome to the inaugural dispatch from Insomniac’s studio in North Carolina. I’m Studio Director, Chad Dezern. We’ll use this space to keep you updated with the latest news from our top-secret game lab in the … Read More

Social Media & Me: A Confession

admin — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:46:28 +0000

Recently I’ve been feeling like a big hypocrite. Since Resistance: Fall of Man I’ve been extolling the virtues of the community features in our games. And a few weeks ago I mentioned in an interview that I think that community … Read More

Episode 44 – October 1, 2009

Vitti — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:00:18 +0000

Bryan and James are back with Insomniac Games senior writer TJ Fixman, and we welcome Paul Featherstone to the podcast for the first time. We talk about finishing Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and everything that has been going on for the past few weeks at the show. We also let you know what will be coming up as we approach launch, and ask TJ your questions from the forums. Plus we'll say a fond goodbye to Bryan on the show, what's he up to next? You'll have to listen to find out! More

Three New Systems of Dynamic Components

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:00:42 +0000

The Dynamic Component System is now firmly established in our gameplay architecture. We’ve realized substantial benefits in workflow and performance from implementing gameplay as Dynamic Components. In this presentation, I provide a brief introduction to a few gameplay systems of … Read More

Video: Episode 43 – Sep 18, 2009

Vitti — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:00:48 +0000

Join us on this episode of the Full Moon Show from the 2009 Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle, WA. We bring you a look at what was going on at the showfloor with Ratchet, and some exclusive footage of Brian Allgeier's Weapons 101 Presentation (and of course, a look at the three new weapons we announced there). We also wander around the floor and hang out with our community friends, Matt Grandstaff from Bethesda Softworks, Sean Baptiste from Harmonix Music Systems, and Arne Meyer from Naughty Dog. More

Episode 42 – September 2, 2009

Vitti — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:00:36 +0000

The full gang is together for this brief show between game retail events and PAX in Seattle. We discuss the final push to gold on RCF:ACIT, and talk about some of the replay mode and skill point features going in. We also discuss Brian Allgeier's upcoming Weapons 101 presentation - as well as where you can find see new content from the game in the next couple of weeks. More

Down the concurrency rabbit hole

admin — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:00:36 +0000

This presentation was an introduction to solving concurrency problems. In particular it was about breaking down previously held beliefs and approaches that in fact make multi-threading and multi-core problem solving seem much more difficult than it actually is. The key … Read More

Episode 41 – August 14, 2009

Vitti — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:00:35 +0000

James and Bryan welcome back Ryan to the audio side of the Full Moon Show. Your three hosts discuss what's going on with Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, as well as what you can expect to see from GamesCom and PAX in the next few weeks. We also welcome back two former Insomniacs as our mystery guests and they discuss their new iPhone game, Cubit. Finally, we take some time to answer your burning questions! More

GDC09 – SPU Wrangling

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:00:22 +0000

Here's a GDC presentation outlining our SPU job-manager and some tried-and-tested SPU debugging practices – it touches on details such as job-layout, the job-building process and some of the debugging assistance it provides – it concludes by walking through two … Read More

Video: Episode 40 – July 30, 2009

Vitti — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:00:28 +0000

The video podcasting continues with a very quick recap of what happened at Comic-Con. See all the folks Ratchet hung out with, exclusive footage from our party for the weapons contest, some video from our panel as well as the many folks who came by to grab inflatable wrenches. Plus, find out what's coming up next for A Crack in Time. More

Episode 39 – July 2, 2009

Vitti — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:30 +0000

We return and discuss our recent major deadline and what's going on with playtests of Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. We also discuss what we'll be showing at Comic-Con and where you will be able to find us during the show, and see brand-new exclusive content. Finally, we answer a ton of questions from the Insomniac Forums as well as MyResistance.Net. More

Video: Episode 38 – June 15, 2009

Vitti — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:00:53 +0000

Our first regular video podcast directly from the studio wraps up E3, and we talk about what games we loved, as well as some of the crazy questions we got asked. We also bring you exclusive footage of what happens when Ratchet gets loose on the show floor. Plus find out where we'll be next with Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and what we will be showing there. More

Episode 37 – May 21, 2009

Vitti — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:00:30 +0000

The Full Moon show returns! James Stevenson, Bryan Intihar, and Brian Allgeier discuss the E3 prep for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. We also welcome Brian Fleming from Sucker Punch to discuss the upcoming PlayStation 3 exclusive, Infamous. And in our community update, we talk about our favorite submissions to the RCF:ACIT weapons contest. All this and more! More

GTC09 – How a Physics Solver Works

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:00:27 +0000

This year I spoke at GTC about how a physics solver works. My intention was to provide a simple run-through of rigid bodies, constraints, and how they are used to pre-condition a solution. The presentation is meant to be comprehensive … Read More

Resistance 2 Water Rendering

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:00:27 +0000

Fundamentally, the system simulates waves propagating across a planar surface. Each component wave is a sinusoid, and a detailed height field is generated by summing many such waves. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) provides an efficient way to perform the … Read More

GDC09 – Resistance 2 Prelighting

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:00:17 +0000

Resistance 2 had a big dynamic lighting overhaul from previous Insomniac titles. Here Mark Lee describes the new lighting and shadowing schemes used and touches on some of the implementation gotchas.

PDF… Read More

GDC09 – Insomniac Physics

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:00:14 +0000

This year I had the opportunity to be part of Insomniac’s all day tutorial for GDC. I gave a presentation on Insomniac’s proprietary physics system, describing the evolution of its pipeline from inception to current day. In this presentation I … Read More

GDC09 – Gameplay Systems on the SPU

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:00:05 +0000

This presentation, given as part of the Insomniac tutorial at GDC 2009, describes some of the systems and conventions used to support gameplay code on the SPUs.

PDF… Read More

Video: Episode 36 – November 20, 2008

Vitti — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:00:29 +0000

Join us on our first-ever video podcast (and season finale), live from the Resistance 2 launch event at the Metreon in San Francisco, California. We talk about our favorite moments during the development of Resistance 2, interview some fans, and show you all of the event's festivities. Plus we interview Ted, and Sony presents him with a very accurate gift. The Full Moon Show will return sometime in Spring 2009. More

Online Co-op Bot Synchronization

admin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:00:07 +0000

Heather Barclay (Multiplayer Lead Programmer) gave an introduction to the programming team on our approach to synchronizing the network data for Resistance 2 Co-op mode. For those of you playing the game now, you know how crazy these games can … Read More

Ratchet & Clank Worldwide Studios Debrief

admin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:00:06 +0000

In February, we gave a presentation to the Sony first-party studios on how we progressed during the development of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Technology. The purpose of these presentations is to share with other developers and to give … Read More

Normal Maps and Cube Maps For Everyone

admin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:00:03 +0000

Continuing our For Everyone series. Chester Hsieh (Associate Engine Programmer) had a go at describing how normal and cube maps work to the general studio population. This presentation is for the curious that might want to know a bit more … Read More

Episode 35 – October 23, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:00:45 +0000

Marcus rejoins James and Bryan as they discuss finishing up Resistance 2, the public beta and make a special community announcement. Plus we have Todd Howard, Game Director on Fallout 3 at Bethesda Softworks talk about working on bringing back the fan favorite RPG series! We also discuss our some of your thoughts on the public beta and MyResistance 2.0. More

Episode 34 – October 2, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:24 +0000

In this audio themed episode, we bring in the composer of Resistance 2, Boris Salchow, along with Audio Director Paul Mudra and Sound Designer Dwight Okahara! In addition, you can hear a bunch of new music samples from Resistance 2 throughout the show! We also discuss our recent media events and trips, as well as answer a few of your burning questions. More

Episode 33 – September 18, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:00:16 +0000

We have a quick episode to update you on where Resistance 2 is at before we all run out to demo the game to the press! Hear the first details about what we are showing, reaction to the private beta, and what's next for all of us at Insomniac. We also welcome Haden Blackman, the Project Lead on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, to discuss the release of the game. More

Episode 32 – September 4, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:00:42 +0000

We talk about the reviews and fan reaction to Quest for Booty, and Brian gives his retrospective on the creation of the title, as well as what he might have done differently. And on the Resistance 2 front, we talk about all of the recent announcements and conventions, as well as the private beta. We also welcome EcR967, one of our MyResistance.net forum mods, to the show to discuss his experience with the community and playing Resistance 2. More

Episode 31 – August 14, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:00:11 +0000

With Quest For Booty's release right around the corner (Aug. 21), we discuss the shenanigans that went down at our pirate-themed wrap party. And on the Resistance 2 front, Ratchet & Clank frontman Brian Allgeier chimes in with some hands-on impressions of our upcoming first-person shooter. We also welcome Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights, on the show to discuss Too Human and why he compares his studio to an old-school guild. Finally, find out when and where you can meet the Insomniac community team (and play R2) over the next few weeks. More

Episode 30 – July 24, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:00:55 +0000

We discuss E3, give updates on Resistance 2 and Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty, and answer your questions about both. In addition, we have the guys from Sony Bend on to talk Resistance: Retribution, and Gameplay Programmer Mike McManus tells you about his job. And we say goodbye to our good friend Rolf. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Next episode will be 8/14/08 due to travel schedules. More

Episode 29 – July 3, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:00:24 +0000

In this special abbreviated pre-E3 edition of the podcast, we talk about the new Resistance 2 Gamepro cover story, pre-E3 madness at the office, and say goodbye to one of our co-hosts (for now). Plus Rolf's Rant and more. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Next episode will be 7/24/08 due to E3. More

Sound Formats for Everyone

admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:00:47 +0000

Driven by hardware design and media requirements, sound file formats are constantly changing. For example, on the PS3 we encode and decode an AD-PCM format for the majority of our sound sources during playback. On computers and portable music devices, … Read More

Gameplay on SPUs

admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:00:29 +0000

What does a next-gen engine look like? Well, for one thing, it needs to take advantage of the multi-CPU architectures. Scalable systems don't just happen, they're designed that way. I was lucky enough to give a presentation at Sony Devcon … Read More

Dynamic Component System

admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:00:11 +0000

A year ago, we talked about a Gameplay Architecture for Performance, and since then, we’ve been hard at work putting our ideas into practice. The Dynamic Component System is our way of expressing gameplay in bite-size chunks that can be … Read More

Episode 28 – June 19, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:00:11 +0000

We discuss the Resistance 2 gameplay footage that aired on Gametrailers TV and answer your questions about it. We also talk with High Impact's Lesley Mathieson about the recently released Secret Agent Clank for PlayStation Portable, and our Sony producer Greg Phillips tells you about his job. Plus, Marcus gives the next contest a bit of a twist! More

Episode 27 – June 5, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:00:49 +0000

We discuss our announcement of the Insomniac Games North Carolina studio and talk with Chad Dezern and Shaun McCabe about heading up the new studio. We also discuss Spike TV's recent visit to the office, and our old friends Mike and Tony stop by to talk about their latest game, and they even crash Rolf's Rant. Plus a new contest from Marcus and more! More

Episode 26 – May 15, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:00:09 +0000

As we are swamped here at Insomniac with travelling and press meetings, we bring you this abbreviated, but R2-Update Heavy episode of the Full Moon Show. We discuss our upcoming deadline for the Gamepro cover story, Bryan Intihar's first experience with the joy that is screenshots and give you an update about how SCEE Gamers Day went. On top of that, we can finally talk all about our competitive multiplayer. It's our biggest and meatiest Resistance 2 update yet! Plus a new contest from Marcus and more! More

Episode 25 – May 1, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:00:53 +0000

We pull ourselves away from Grand Theft Auto IV long enough to record this 25th episode of the Full Moon Show. We bring you the latest info on Resistance 2 and our demo in Europe next week. We also reveal more about our 8-player online co-op in our I Want Your Job interview with Jake Biegel. Former 1UP Network Editorial Director Dan "Shoe" Hsu joins us in the mystery guest segment, and we'll bring you the latest contest from Marcus. Plus Rolf's Rant and more! More

Optimization 101

admin — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:00:26 +0000

Usually in presentations, what we (or anyone else really) usually give to the audience are answers (hopefully!) to some interesting problem. Especially when it comes to optimization techniques. It seemed to me there was a big gap there – certainly … Read More

Episode 24 – April 17, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:00:14 +0000

We finish the podcast crossover with the Top Secret crew and bring in Brian Hastings to discuss last year's 10 Reasons the PS3 Wins the Console War, including the infamous "Wii Fad will Fade" comment. We also discuss what is going on with Resistance 2, and the brand new teaser trailer. Plus Rolf's Rant and more! More

Episode 23 – April 3, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:00:50 +0000

We welcome our fourth chair and newest co-host, Community Manager Bryan Intihar to the show. We also chat about new tech for Resistance 2, plus what deadlines we're working towards. UI Designer Jake Sones tries to tell you why you should come take his job. In addition, we bring in a game industry icon for the second part of his mystery guest interview. Plus Rolf's Rant and more! More

MobyAsyncUpdate

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:00:56 +0000

We here at Insomniac don't discriminate – we think all code belongs on the SPU. Engine programmer and good looking S.O.B. Joe Valenzuela describes the AsyncMobyUpdate and Guppy systems, which we use to make sure our gameplay and AI code … Read More

GPU Pipeline for Everyone

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:00:52 +0000

This is article features a simple introduction to how Directx 9.0 graphic-processing units (also referred to as GPUs) operate.

The article will briefly cover polygons, vertices, indices, transforms as well as Fragment and Vertex programs.

Correction 10/26/09:

On page … Read More

Moby Bounding Spheres

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:00:34 +0000

On R1 we had the PPU dynamically update moby bounding-spheres using collision primitives bound to animated joints. This scheme was reworked for RCF to run asynchronously on the SPU and to also create separate bounding-spheres for rendering related tasks and … Read More

AsyncCharacterX

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:00:18 +0000

One of the things I've been most excited about lately here at Insomniac is our push to move higher-level gameplay code on to the SPUs – and have this be done by our gameplay programmers – AND make sure they … Read More

SPU Shuffle Mask Helper

admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:00:42 +0000

here’s a small snippet of code which calculates shuffle-masks using the

standard convention we use (which came from ICE / SCEE-ATG)

here’s the brief details of the naming convention

(see shuffles.pdf for more info):

characters A-P specify bytes

Episode 22 – March 20, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:00:32 +0000

We chat about concept art for Resistance 2, and bring in concept artist Brian Yam for I Want Your Job. We also reveal the Resistance 2 logos (see the links below!). For multiplayer fans, we discuss our recent playtests and upcoming deadlines. In addition, we bring in a game industry icon, who is now working on movies. And if you haven't read MyRes Monthly yet, a fan-created MyResistance magazine, we tell you why you shoulnd't miss it. Plus Rolf's Rant and more! More

Faster SPU Clamp

admin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:00:41 +0000

Mike Day wrote:

I just had a thought…

Using the ‘standard’ approach it takes 4 spu instructions to clamp a floating point value (or vector of 4 values) to the range [0.0f, 1.0f]… compare against zero, select x … Read More

Progressive Mesh

admin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:00:24 +0000

For a while during the development of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, we were using a progressive mesh system for our LODs. We've since abandoned this approach for various reasons which I'm not going to get in to … Read More

Dyadic Interpolation

admin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:00:24 +0000

Given a set of equally-spaced samples of some function, we’d like to be able to make educated guesses for the values which the function would take on at points located half-way between the samples. If we had a scheme for … Read More

Debugging Tips

admin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:00:23 +0000

Methods of debugging aren't usually discussed that much – people have their own tried and tested methods – in this presentation we tried to share some of the strategies used by members of the tech team.

PDF… Read More

Three Big Lies

admin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:00:09 +0000

One of the things we talked about this year at GDC was what we called the "Three Big Lies of Software Development." How much programmers buy into these "lies" has a pretty profound effect on the design (and performance!) of … Read More

Episode 21 – March 6, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:00:57 +0000

We chat about using motion-capture in Resistance 2, our new technology sharing initiative called Nocturnal, and news from the Game Developers Conference (GDC). In addition, we have two very rockin' special guests, one who works for Insomniac (and starred in our music video, see below) and another who doesn't, but is behind a game all you fantasy rockers are playing. We also announce a very special addition to the team who will join us on the first April podcast. Who could it be? More

GDC 2008 – Insomniac SPU Programming

admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:00:34 +0000

This year, Eric Christensen and I were planning on speaking together at GDC on our SPU programming practices. But we were told that they prefer presentations with only one speaker, since they tend to be rated higher. So I went … Read More

Episode 20 – February 7, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:00:37 +0000

We discuss the announcement of Resistance 2 and the early design process, what's going on with multiplayer and reveal some info about how we're animating our characters. Also, interviews with Games Consultant Mark Cerny and MyResistance.Net Member of the Year, Zotmaster. We'll also keep you up to date on MyResistance.Net happenings, and bring you a brand new Mystery Guest. Plus Rolf's Rant, and more! More

Morphing

admin — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:00:21 +0000

For Resistance 2 we added vertex-morphing support to allow more expressive facial animation. This was augmented with a system for compositing textures on the SPU to support features such as animator-driven dynamic-wrinkles.

PDF… Read More

Remez Exchange Algorithm

admin — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:00:16 +0000

I was just telling Mark about some stuff I’ve been doing at home lately, and I thought I’d share. I’ve been trying my hand at the so-called Remez Exchange Algorithm, which is an iterative technique for finding coefficients of minimax … Read More

Prelighting

admin — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:00:07 +0000

During the development of Resistance 2, one of the things we decided we wanted to do was improve our lighting model toward more of a focus on runtime light performance. With deferred rendering all the rage, we certainly considered it. … Read More

Ragdolls and IK

admin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:00:52 +0000

The purpose of this presentation is to briefly outline the igPhysics system and to aid in understanding about Ragdoll and IK. As a primer, it describes some of the most common joint types used in the system as well as … Read More

Win32 NTFS Journal Dump

admin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:00:39 +0000

Below is the code for a very simple tool that will dump the change journal, in its entirety, directly from the NTFS device driver. The journal normally holds a couple of weeks of disk history. The code below dumps everything … Read More

Win32 Profile Tool

admin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:00:21 +0000

I dug out the old win32 profiler code, it needs a little clean up but it’s all functional. Samples are 32 bytes each and each function call takes one sample, there is a buffer of samples in memory and this … Read More

More on SPU Shaders

admin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:00:10 +0000

SCEA had a little get-together with a small group of SPU programmers recently. It was a chance for us to share the kinds of techniques we use and discuss our approaches with developers with similar levels of experience. It was … Read More

Resistance: Fall of Man Debriefing

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:00:52 +0000

What's in this presentation?

Everything you wanted to know about Resistance: Fall of Man, but were afraid we wouldn't tell you.

Mark Lee (Master Engine Programmer) gave a talk to some Sony first-party studios last year on Resistance: Fall … Read More

Insomniac and SCEA Talk SPU Physics

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:00:45 +0000

Recently I had the pleasure of working closely with SCEA’s Erwin Coumans, author of the Bullet open-source physics engine. Our plan was to create a presentation for Sony’s SPU seminar in which we compared and contrasted the run-time pipelines of … Read More

Introduction to B-Trees

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:00:43 +0000

The b-tree data structure is container system somewhat like a binary tree (although the “b” stands for balanced and the tree is not binary). The API to a b-tree is usually similar to other key-to-data systems such as a hash … Read More

Curiously Small Code

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:00:35 +0000

Here’s an email thread Mike Day and I had on the tech (engine) mailing list a while back trying to find a really quick way to do a texture swizzle on the SPU. There’s a few techniques in there that … Read More

Episode 19 – January 17, 2008

Vitti — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:00:00 +0000

We discuss the announcement of Resistance 2 and the Game Informer cover story, introduce our new co-host, discuss MyResistance.Net happenings, and bring you a newly independent Mystery Guest. Plus Rolf's Rant, and more! More

Fantasy of the Familiar

admin — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:00:59 +0000

Today's blog is actually by Brian Hastings, Chief Creative Officer.

Brian writes:

The concept of “Fantasy of the Familiar” began as my attempt to explain why certain parts of our games had a lot of appeal with players … Read More

Tier System

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:00:58 +0000

Giac Veltri (Tools Programmer), among other things, wrote the loading system for RCF. The loading system is where all the edge cases for the systems tend to collect – dealing with initialization, memory layouts, movie players, TRC issues, etc. – … Read More

Occlusion Systems

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:00:54 +0000

In a Tech presentation, Al Hastings (CTO) shared the details of both the static and dynamic occlusion systems that we used for both Resistance: Fall of Man and Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

Our static occlusion system … Read More

Texture Streaming

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:00:14 +0000

One of the big changes we made in going from Resistance to Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction was the adding our texture streaming system. Through a little Al Hastings's magic, we managed to increase our texture budgets significantly … Read More

Episode 18 – November 15, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:00:37 +0000

We discuss Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction being released worldwide, announce the winners of the Ratchet & Clank fandom contest, and bring in Ted Price to talk about starting a game company and the industry. Plus Rolf's Rant, and more! More

Episode 17 – October 30, 2007

Vitti — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:00:13 +0000

We discuss Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction being released, the commercial, and give you the very first details on Resistance: Fall of Man Patch 6. In addition, we give you a chance to win a very rare Ratchet & Clank maquette, bring you a new mystery guest from "that other console." Plus Rolf's Rant, and more! More

Virtual Memory System on Nintendo Gamecube

admin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:00:54 +0000

Here at Insomniac we’re dedicated to making the best games we can for Sony’s Playstation 3 – that’s all we do and that’s all we’re concentrating on. But at the same time, that’s not to say our guys haven’t worked … Read More

Shadows in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

admin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:00:22 +0000

A couple of months ago Mark Lee presented a good breakdown of our dynamic shadow system for one of our internal Tech Presentations. Shadows are sometimes frustrating, often a pain, and always have more edge-cases than you anticipate. Mark spoke … Read More

Sound Occlusion and Diffraction

admin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:00:22 +0000

Providing dynamic sound occlusion and diffraction effects enhances listener immersion in 3D space. In his presentation, David Thall (Sound Programmer) introduces a system for calculating and processing these effects in our game engine. Topics such as input data reliability, calculation … Read More

Custom Shaders and Effects

admin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:00:17 +0000

From another weekly presentation – Rob Wyatt reviewed with the programmers some of the different options for applying custom graphics shaders within the engine. Rob gave some really detailed implementation examples for anisotropic, cloaking and fur that were added during … Read More

Networks and Networking

admin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:00:10 +0000

Eric Ellis, our Multiplayer Lead Programmer, recently did an internal presentation on the basics of networking. Here Eric overviewed fundamental network concepts and summarized the techniques used in Insomniac’s previous networked games. While a lot of the detail that Eric … Read More

Episode 16 – October 18, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:00:50 +0000

We discuss Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction going gold, the wrap-party, and what we've been playing. In addition, we bring you a new mystery guest that you've been wanting for months, talk to HR Director Carrie Dieterle about her tips and tricks for getting a job at Insomniac. Plus Rolf's Rant, and more! More

Episode 15 – October 4, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:00:36 +0000

We discuss Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction going gold, what's going on around the office, what we've been playing, address some rumors, and Ted makes a cameo. In addition, we bring you a new mystery guest behind this holiday's biggest multi-platform shooter, talk to Tools Programmer Giac Veltri, and give you a chance to win the Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction epic poster! Plus Rolf's Rant, outtakes and more! More

Episode 14 – September 20, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:00:11 +0000

We discuss more traveling for our hosts, talk about the final optimizations and polishing Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, answer your burning questions about the game (disc size, frame rate), interview Audio Lead Dwight Okahara, and give you a chance to win the Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction epic poster! Plus Rolf's Rant, tons of fan mail in the Community section, outtakes and more! More

SPU Instruction Cheat Sheet

admin — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:00:58 +0000

Here’s a handy three page cheat sheet some of our guys use for quick reference when writing SPU code.

Text version: spu_ops.txt
PDF version: spu_instruction_cheat_sheet.pdf

Supporting Cylinder Collision

admin — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:00:54 +0000

Reddy Sambavaram did some work recently to add cylinder support to our collision system. He had to work out a couple of good, fast methods for testing cylinders versus every other type of collision primitive we already have. He shared … Read More

SPU Shaders Introduction

admin — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:00:17 +0000

In a previous post (Dynamic SPU Code), I hinted at something we’re calling “SPU Shaders”. Now that we’re fairly comfortable, as an engine team, with building systems for the SPUs we’ve been working on how to step things up for … Read More

Episode 13 – September 6, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 07:00:46 +0000

We discuss PAX and Games Convention in Leipzeig, talk about eliminating the last bugs and polishing Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, discuss September's biggest PS3 release with its creator, interview Localization Coordinator Dylan Gould, and give you a chance to win the Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction epic poster! Plus Rolf's Rant, outtakes and more! More

Insomniac R&D

admin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:00:56 +0000

I’m proud to announce the official launch of the Insomniac “R&D” portion of our website. The page is for our peers – other developers interested in sharing ideas – as well as the aspiring engine programmers out there who want … Read More

Autodesk Mental Ray

admin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:00:14 +0000

As part of our static lighting pipeline here at Insomniac, we use Autodesk's mental ray. We often get questions about how we process this data and how we encorporate it into our tools.

Here's a quick summary for those … Read More

Episode 12 – August 16, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:00:15 +0000

We announce the release date of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, talk to Animation Director Chris Nicholls, discuss the Global Gaming League Resistance: Fall of Man tournament finals in NYC and talk to players at the event! Plus Rolf's Rant, outtakes and more! More

SPU Ninja Homework #3

admin — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:00:48 +0000

Here at Insomniac we’ve started an SPU training class which we call SPU Ninja Training. It’s an optional class open to our programmers. The main idea is that we introduce some problem to solve on the SPU and programmers … Read More

Configuring VNC on PS3

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:54 +0000

André Leiradella, who has started doing some consulting work for us from Brazil has written a document describing how he set up VNC with his PS3/Linux box. We've been using PS3/Linux to do development here and there when we're working … Read More

A Hair-Tearing Out Bug

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:20 +0000

A couple of weeks ago Mike Day (one of our engine programmers) sent this email out to the group. He collected up a particularly painful moment and turned it into a little quiz that everyone could enjoy. Check out the … Read More

Gameplay Architecture for Performance

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:18 +0000

Here is a presentation given to the programmers at Insomniac Games on July 6, 2007. It covers two related topics. First we consider a case study of an optimization to NPC AI used on Resistance: Fall of Man. Then we … Read More

Beware of Statics

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:17 +0000

While working on an optimization for the FXVis system, I managed to make some code slower just by rearranging some statics it was using. Not one to take something like this lying down, I looked into it, and learned something … Read More

Effects Conduit

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:15 +0000

Here is a presentation given to the programmers at Insomniac Games on Febrary 28, 2007, about our Effects Conduit. The Conduit is a system for coordinating various types of effects (e.g. visual, sound, and dialogue). It allows programmers to focus … Read More

Process Memory Utility

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:15 +0000

The amount of content that needs to be managed, converted and otherwise manipulated by our PC tools never stops growing. Games are getting bigger all the time. The struggle with hard drive space, memory and network speed is part of … Read More

Curved Surfaces on the RSX

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:11 +0000

While the Cell processor is certainly the heart of the Playstation 3, understanding its graphics processor (the RSX) is also an important part of the engine team's work. The game we're currently working on, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of … Read More

Multithreading Optimization Basics

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:08 +0000

We're now knee deep in the world of multi-core processing. Virtually everything we do must consider synchronization and parallelism as part of the fundamental design – it's not ported to multi-core, it's designed multi-core. However, there's still legacy code as … Read More

Episode 11 – August 2, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:06 +0000

It's here, the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with Engine Director Mike Acton, a 100% *New* Mystery Guest, and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Dynamic SPU Code

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:06 +0000

When Eric Christensen and I were speaking at Georgia Tech, one of the big points we'd made was that on the SPUs, "Code is just data." There's nothing special about it and really no reason at all why you shouldn't … Read More

Al Hastings on being an Engine Programmer at Insomniac

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:06 +0000

I asked Al Hastings, CTO and Engine Programmer, what he thought it meant to be an engine programmer here at Insomniac Games. I thought his response was great.

Al said:

Hmm, I'm having some trouble boiling this down … Read More

Why rotqmbybi is Broken

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:04 +0000

I feel that the operation carried out by the instruction rotqmbybi is broken. The instruction executes as documented, but I don’t believe it achieves what its designers originally planned. (Or, if it was designed that way, I contend that it … Read More

igCollision

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Garrett gave an internal talk about igCollision a while back. This was one of our weekly presentations where we try to share something we've done, something we're working on, or something we just think would be generally helpful to … Read More

Epsiode 10 – July 19, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:00:01 +0000

It's here, the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with designer Drew Murray, a 100% *New* PAIR of Mystery Guests in-studio from Japan, and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Episode 9 – July 5, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:00:28 +0000

It's here, the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with test lead Brian Mathison, a 100% *New* PAIR of Mystery Guests calling in from Canada, and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Episode 8 – June 21, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:00:53 +0000

It's here, the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with lead gameplay programmer Anthony "Moo" Yu, a 100% *New* Mystery Guest for that game company (you know, that one?), and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Episode 7 – June 7, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:00:04 +0000

It's here, the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with lead multiplayer programmer Eric Ellis, a 100% *New AND Naughty* Mystery Guest, and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Episode 6 – May 17, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 17 May 2007 07:00:31 +0000

It's here, the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with Voice Actor David Kaye, a 100% *New AND More Incognito* Mystery Guest, and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Episode 5 – May 3, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 03 May 2007 07:00:31 +0000

Check out the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with scriptwriter TJ Fixman, a 100% *New AND more Hardcore* Mystery Guest, and the inside track on "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" development news! More

Episode 4 – April 19, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 07:00:04 +0000

Download the latest episode of the Full Moon Show featuring: "I Want Your Job!" with Lead Concept Artist Darren Quach, a 100% *New* Mystery Guest, and the inside scoop on some big Insomniac news! More

Episode 3 – April 5, 2007

Vitti — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 07:00:39 +0000

Check out the third episode of the Full Moon Show, featuring Insomniac Chief Creative Officer Brian Hastings, and yet another very special Mystery Guest! More

Episode 2 – March 15, 2007

admin — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:25 +0000

Check out the second episode of the Full Moon Show, featuring Insomniac Assistant Project Manager Ed Kim, and another very special Mystery Guest! More

Episode 1 – Mar 3, 2007

admin — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 00:00:43 +0000

Check out the first Episode of the Full Moon Show, featuring Insomniac Principal Artist Dave Guertin, and a very special Mystery Guest! More

Insomniac Games

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One Patch 1.03

Happy Holidays from Insomniac!

Full Moon Show – Mastodon

Fan Game of the Week Winner – Dec 9th

Fan Game of the Week Winner – Dec 2nd

Fan Game of the Week Winner – Nov 18th

Update on Patch 1.05 and Changelog

INSOMNIAC WINS 13TH GREAT PLACE TO WORK AWARD

Insomniac supports Extra-Life! Play with us!

How I got into the Games Industry…

Core Coding Standard

Update on Patch 1.04 and Double XP Weekend

Lunar Lessons #7: Lessons from the Lunar

Badges? You do need some Stinkin’ Badges

Lunar Lessons #6: Comunicacion es Importante

An update on Resistance 3 Patch 1.03

Resistance 3 Patch 1.02 Notes

#GDC12 Insomniacs share

Resistance 3 Reviews: “Best Resistance Yet”

Resistance 3 Abilities and Attributes: The List

Resistance 3 Caption Contest

Patch 2.05 for the Resistance 3 Beta

Insomniac Games at PAX

Friday R3 Beta Update, Patch 2.03

Resistance 3 Beta Update, Patch 2.02 and beyond

R3 Thursday Beta Update: Current issues and upcoming 2.02 update

An update on R3 Beta, Matchmaking and Patch 2.01

Can You Beat Resistance 2 Fifty Times?

The Art of Choice in Resistance 3 Multiplayer

Lunar Lessons 5: Game Making – 100% Organic and Gluten Free

Resistance 3 Preview Build Coverage Wrap-Up

Episode 60 – Resistance 3 Update

Expanding the Resistance Universe to Multiplayer

Update on Resistance 3 Beta

Lunar Lessons #4: Can Read My Poker Face

Lunar Lessons #3: Surprise! It’s About E3.

Guidelines for Creating Good Design Materials

E3 2011 Wrap-Up Video

Lunar Lessons #2: Pokemon Snapped

Resistance 3 at E3 Trailer and Demo

EA and Insomniac Games Reveal New Four-Player Co-Op Action Game OVERSTRIKE

Lunar Lessons #1: Cake in the Ocean

Introducing the Resistance Dual-Pack!

Help Save Insomniac Games

The @insomniacgames Core team weekly (brain) exercise program!

A Little Help For Our Friends

Navigation #GDC11

Insomniac Games song (pin)Ballz comes to Rock Band Network

Insomniac Games Fan Kit

Insomniac Community Day March 29th Schedule of Events

The Limited Edition Al Hastings Award

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One to support 3DTVs

PTOM: The (un)official All 4 One cover!

What the Click?

New generation of @insomniacgames tools as webapp

Applying Usability Lessons from Resistance to Engine

Creating Satisfying Combat Experiences #GDC11

South by Southwest Interactive

Booth #2536, 10,000 resumes and you…

(5 Minute Show & Tell) John Fiorito: My First Game

Intro to Perl

More self-development questions!

s(elf) exploitation

Episode 59 – December 29, 2010

It doesn’t have to suck. #gamedev

(5 Minute Show and Tell) Rotoscoping

(5 Minute Show and Tell) 5 Minutes to a Better Bowler

Review Questions

(5 Minute Show and Tell) Simplicity

(5 Minute Show and Tell) Minecraft

Make it fun!

Lombax Anatomy 101

A Challenge to the Press

Part Deux for Etiquette 101

Useful Results in Spherical Harmonics (mainly 2-band)

Episode 58 – R2 Retrospective audio

Episode 57 – R2 Retrospective

Game Informer November cover story: Resistance 3

Episode 56 – September 17, 2010