Unity3D and the ad-ons that really help developers & some other stuff about developing in unity!

First and foremost, what is unity? Unity3D is a user friendly game development engine that is widely used by game developer’s world wide and some notable game that were made in the engine are Ori and the Blind Forest & Implosion - Never Lose Hope.

Moving on to the community, there is a lot of support from the development community though numerous Facebook groups to reedit to even game development channels on chat platforms such as discord. Ask one question and you will get answers from multiple sources and while getting those answers you will set off a discussion and probably becoming a pro in the topic   that you asked a question about.  In one account I had expressed the difficulty to purchase an add on due to personal reasons and I really liked and wanted to use and by chance its developer saw it and offered me a code for it which was very generous of him this was a great example of how giving the community is in addition to it being overly helpful.

Back to the engine, it is   very very easy to use, in the last two years I have used it I have found that it is simpler to use than some other game engines such as unreal engine and much more versatile than game maker or gamesalad type engines. one could say I have grown attached to the engine because of its simplicity and versatility.

An example of its simplicity is that you only need to right click to make a game object and can prototype a game within a week with no prior development!

An introduction into ad-ons and what they are? to simply put it they are tools used within the engine which make the development of games easier and are usually tools which are not included in the engines. Many tools are bought off the unity asset store which is much like the steam games store but a store for tools, textures and even entire levels! These tools can by anything from a A* system for a game to a terrain generator which really makes development of games easier.

In the last few years I have used quiet a few add ons but one that really deserves recognition is Gaia which is a terrain generator created by an Engineer& developer over the period of 5 years. The level generator has some powerful sub-tools such as a stamper which can take height maps and convert them into a terrain along with some other tools such as the spawn system which can help the user populate the terrain with flora and fauna but that’s not all! you can also spawn entire villages using the add on.

The tools are also widely used by many large developers and have overwhelmingly positive reviews on the store due the the ease of use of the tool along with the

Quiet recently the developer has also released the spawn tool which is “More intuitive and more capable” than the one used in Gaia named Gena. The links to the ad ons are in the link below along with a video demo by the developer himself!

S7 edge review

Moving from the IPhone 5s to a Samsung s6 was a difficult move but moving from the s6 to the s7 edge was a breeze thanks to Samsung’s improvements in technology and some thanks to their smart switch software that lets you connect your old phone to your s7 or s7 edge via a OTG cable provided with the device which comes quite  handy while making transition from any android or ios device .

The variant I have been using for well over two moths is the international model SM-G935D which boasts Samsung’s in-house Exynos 8890 which is an 8 core processor built on the 14 nm FinFet process. In simple terms it is faster than the chip used in last years s6 and more power efficient.

In terms of connectivity the phone has a faster LTE Cat9 chip which has upload speeds of up to 450mbps and up to 50 mbps of upload speeds that are the same as the s6 which is still pretty fast as uploading and downloading data is a breeze. The Wi-Fi is a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/ac with Wi-Fi direct and hotspot capabilities. The Wi-Fi strength is so strong that I can still get a single waiting for the lift approximately 15 meters away from my apartment.

The s7 edge is slightly thicker than its predecessor the s6 but gets rid of the of the camera bump found on the s6 which is a well welcomed designed decision as it calms the perfectionist inside me. The device follows the new consistent pattern of design incorporated by Samsung in its premium devices in which Samsung uses gorilla glass panels for the front and rear of the phone along with an aircraft grade aluminum for bezels which feels balanced in the hand although it is slightly heavier than the s6. The phone has brought back much awaited features such as dust and water resistance and the memory card slot which doubles as a second Sim card slot.

The phone is still a 1440x2560 resolution screen but on a larger 5.5 inch super AMOLED display with an amazingly high 534 PPI . The colors are bright and vivid along with deeper and darker blacks along with a higher power consumption as being a drawback.

 The operating system is android 6.0 Marsh mellow right out of the box and features the latest touch wiz User interface which now has considerably less bloat ware along with some neat freebies such as the entertainer coupons and a 1-year free subscription od Microsoft one drive which adds on to my existing 15 gb making it 115 gb of drive storage but the unified storage feature is not available. The always on display is pretty helpful as I don not have to keep unlocking my phone to see the time

The phone has Samsung’s latest processor the eight core Exynos 8890. It utilizes the 14 nanometer manufacturing node which allows the chip to be smaller and more power efficient. The Big. Little architecture allows it to use a four cores at a time clocked at 1.6ghz and up to 2.6ghz respectively. The phone does have a lot of processing power though it also has an Arm Mali T880 MP12 GPU which is a sixteen core GPU which goes perfectly with the eight core CPU. The device can play any modern games such as clash of clans or Pokémon go as smooth as butter.

Memory, the phone finally got a upgrade to 4gb of ram which is a DDR4. The storage is inbuilt in my 32gb version though you get 115 Gb of cloud storage via the Microsoft one drive along with a micro SD card slot which is expandable up to 1 terabyte (in theory) of storage which is a bit of an over kill for the average joe. The phone comes with quick charge which is a blessing as it takes less time for the phone to charge in contrast to a normal charger which can take 2-3 hours to charge the phone from 0- 100% but with a quick charger the time is reduced to just 1 hour 30 minutes. The wireless charger is still supporting QI and PMA charging which is inbuilt into the phone along with the fast wireless charging via Samsung’s fast wireless charging pad.

The camera is a better one than last years s6 as it uses Dual pixel technology which makes focusing and taking pictures although it is to be noted that the pixels have been reduced to a 12 MP shooter though the quality is comparable to many high class cameras such as DSLRs or SLRs .

The battery’s is a 3600 mAh  9 v battery which lasts me about 8 hours of usage on 4g along with full screen brightness  which is pretty impressive for a phone of this size but I still got a external battery pack so that I could play Pokémon go on the go ! (Go Team Valor!) .

The price I got s7 edge for was 2350 (643$) Emirati dirhams which was less than my s6 which cost me 2600 (700$) emirate dirhams which was pretty good offer considering I got a free 128 gigabyte Samsung memory card and a OTG adapter with my device.

Over all I think the S7 edge  is a great phone and a upgrade from my iPhone s6 though I do feel that the 32gb inbuilt memory is a poor choice from Samsung as they could easily out I an 64 gb memory inside but I guess that’s what the micro-SD card slot is for   .The android experience is slightly better than the one offered on the s6  . In conclusion, the s7 edge is a great device though the decision to buy the device  is yours whether you should choose to accept it!

10 Misconceptions You Have About Working as a game developer

It is often thought that game developers/programmers have it easy and just play games all day but this blog is to clear these misconceptions .

Misconception No.1 - we make lots of money 

Many well experienced developers may make upto 100,000$ or more but they make that much money annually , which means they make 7600 $ per month and a programmer with less than 3 years of experience makes an average annual salary of 72000 $ or 7000 $ per month  which is not a lot of money  in comparison to other jobs such investment banking .

Misconception No.2 - we play games all day 

I am a game developer and well i do not play games all do but rather program scripts and debug my code all day making sure everything is working , the only time i actually play my game is when i have to check it for bugs . 

Misconception No.3 - we are all geniuses  (With An IQ of 160 +)

It doesn't matter if you have an iq of 90 or 160 most programmers are average people like you and me and often have an average IQ or less thus programmers are not all geniuses though there have been some geniuses such as bill gates with very high iq .

Misconception No.4 - C and C++ are the only programming languages used in game development  

Not necessarily true as older programmers prefer C++ as it gives them more freedom and control over their program but there are many other languages used for programming games and some good examples are swift ,ruby ,python , C# , java and  objective-c the list goes on . 

  

Misconception No.5 - All game developers are programmers .

This is definitely untrue  as there are many other professions under the game developer belt such as artists, level designers, 3D modellers, riggers and animators, quality assurance and user research roles, musicians and sound designers, project managers, producers, writers, people who work in PR and marketing, team leads, business intelligence, community managers and studio development .

Misconception No.6 - We know about all games that are out there 

To clear this misconception i must tell a story ...... I told a friend of mine that i was a game developer and he bombarded me with questions about games i have never heard of  ... thus proving my point that game developers don't know about many new games .

Misconception No.7 - You need to pay to use game engines

Not necessarily as there are many free game engines out there such as unity personal which is a free version of unity pro other such game engines another great example would be unreal engine 4 .

Misconception No.8 -  you don't have to be a mathematician . 

This is somewhat accurate as you should know some advanced level math though the engine does most of the calculations for you and when using an engine such as unity there are classes to do most calculations and doing them is pretty simple once a person gets used to it .

Misconception No.9-We dont sleep .

It is also somewhat true as a programmer i work most my nights and sleep through the day which does not go well with most my schedule  but life carries on as it is the only reasons most programmers prefer to work in the night is because our brains are more active during the night  .


Misconception No.10-We are hackers or nerds .

This is one thing that a majority of programmers dislike , people assume that we can hack but the truth is many programmers dont even have the time to do anything as such as we are working a majority of our time. 

Review of the samsung wireless charger

For the past few years I have been an anti Samsung person mainly due to them stealing design intellectual property and bluntly copying their fruit flavored competitors and have been called an anti android person thus I decided to try more of their products from their mobility division (smart phones, tablets and accessories).

This time it was Samsung’s new qi/chi technology based 1^st generation wireless chargers meant for the galaxy s6 and the galaxy s6 edge, these are not to be mistaken for the 2^nd gen fast wireless charge which cost slightly more than the 1^st generation chargers.

The wireless charger can and should be considered one of the coolest techs of 2015/2016 only because of its consistent design with the s6 and note 5 series smartphones and this can be said about most the accessories out with the 2015/2016 lineup and a good example of this can the new and slightly expensive level headphones lineup although the wireless charger has a few flaws.

Firstly, the fact that it is advertised as a cord free solution but requires you to connect the fast charger from your galaxy device into it which needs to be a 5v/2A charger approved by Samsung for their claim of “optimal use “.

Secondly the device costs north of 50 $ or 200 Emirati dirhams and does not come with a cable or cord to plug it into the wall and most users would have to use the cable that came with their smartphones or purchase another one but it works with the Usb 2.0 micro standard so a cable wont set you back that much.

Thirdly due to it being a relatively new technology it takes about 1 hour to charge 10% of my Samsung galaxy’s battery which is pretty slow for technology of the 21^st century and is best suited to be left by your bedside table to charge over time but take causation to your device heating up considerably over time.

 Fourthly, the device may not provide its core function if your case is too thick ex – shock resistant or water proof cases by third party manufacturers although Samsung claims otherwise but there is some good new too ! , the wireless charger definitely works with Samsung’s cases which would only set you back another 50 $ or so .

Lastly, the wireless charger disconnects if it is not kept on a flat surface this can cause an inconvenience to most but there is a quick fix for it which is to activate the day dream mode that for some strange enough reason solves most problems with the charges.

To conclude, the Samsung wireless charger from Samsung is a great device but is not worth the price tag of 50$ mainly due to the drawbacks of using a wireless charger though it is a pretty cool gadget to have .