Production 2: The Class

Now that Production 2 is finally over, I feel that it is a good time to take a look back on the Spring 2010 semester while its still fresh in my mind. Since this class was substantially more demanding and complex than production 1, I will devote several rapid-fire posts to explaining how the semester went.
This post will be about the people in the class and what the class is about.

The Class

This semester I was studying abroad in Montreal, so the class size was quite small. There were about 14 people in the class.

The goal of the class was quite simple: each team of 3-5 people must produce a refined vertical slice by the end of the semester. No holds barred!

Because this was Montreal, there was substantially less oversight by the instructor. This is due to the fact that the instructors in Montreal are industry professionals first and teachers second; they do not baby us at all.

The Instructor: Guillaume Langlois

His day job is working at Space and Dream, a company that specializes in interactive installations.

He has a reputation among students for expecting more than is technically possible in a semester. This is both a blessing and a curse; he will let teams tackle challenging projects with little interference, but will also expect miracles where none should be expected.
I must preface this by saying that I deeply respect Guillaume as a teacher, so any criticisms that follow are merely to serve as a backlight for the various hurdles we overcame throughout the semester.

His PROS:

Guillaume is a master at pushing students to the limit. He demands the best all the time, so nobody in their right mind would try to pass his class with less than 100% effort.

Guillaume is all about results. You can't bullsh*t past him with words or documentation. This can be frustrating at some times, but nobody passes his class without something to show.

His CONS:

One of the most frustrating aspects to Guillaume's class is that he can look at something that was incredibly difficult to accomplish and dismiss it as if it were sub-par or expected.

On top of this, Guillaume has a habit of judging only the visual elements of a project. He dismisses programming accomplishments unless they have a visible impact on the game (tightening code or streamlining class structure doesn't count). As a result, he acts as though design does not exist until it has been implemented and often attributes things which were designed, scripted, or programmed as "a good job by the artists."

He has a knack for making team members depressed because he tends to focus on the "stars" of each team and attribute success (or failure) to them.

The Students

PRODUCERS:

Alison Seffels - One of the only two students in the Design major to also specialize in business management. She is aiming for a career as a producer, and is thusfar the most talented and organized project manager in the year. Alison has the best time management skills of anyone I know, and is usually all over her team like white on rice.

Dan Porter (me!) -The other of the two students in the Design major who is also specializing in business management. Alison and I have all of the same classes and have similar career goals. Between the two of us we have had the most experience (I will make no assessment of talent, as this would be biased) in team leading of anyone others in our major. I have a great deal of experience with programming/scripting and often pitch in when necessary.

Chris "Chief" Ferguson - A designer with aspirations to lead, Chris took up the mantle of producer this semester. He is the "nice guy" of the class. Chris went from meek to assertive overnight as he was pitted against the difficulties of a lead.

ARTISTS:

Chris Siroonian - An artist with a penchant for Steampunk, his notebooks are covered in robots. Chris was one of my roommates this semester. His 3D art pieces are quite impressive.

Ben Gerowe - A 3D artist who originally applied to the college as a Designer but wound up in the Art degree. He started two years ago with little ability in creating art and has transformed into a 3D-making-machine over the past year. He is constantly comparing himself to other artists which causes him to perpetually push himself harder.

Logan Dwight - A powerful personality, Logan is the least likely to back down of anyone in our class. He proactively goes after what he wants, and plows past any obstacles in his way. Logan tends to be more of a "high artist" in the sense that he always aims more for an "experience" than a purely entertaining piece. Logan's strength lies in graphic design rather than 3D, and his UI designing/arting abilities are second to none.

Ben Rogers - A softspoken but hard working artist, Ben gets the job done. He is a powerhouse of work ethic and will not hesitate to stay up late completely redoing something that needs to be reworked.

Josh Terry - Josh spent his first year at Champlain studying game design, but when he took Intro to 3D Art as a class, he was seduced by the dark side of the EGD majors: ART! He is one of the most talented 3D artists I know because of his sheer anal retentiveness. Josh is all about the details. Because of his training as a designer, Josh is also uniquely able to relate to the other team members who are not artists. Josh is the rock in any design argument, refusing to be swayed by any biased opinions.

DESIGNERS:

Dustin Dano - A talented systems designer, Dustin is a veteran tabletop gamer. He grasps even the most complex mechanics in a heartbeat. Dustin is an easy going designer who tends to agree with the group, but always weighs in with his analysis of a decision.

Corey Moore - A working machine, Corey completely ignores whether or not he has done a task before when tackling something new. He can learn a scripting language in a few days and crank out functionality like nobody's business.

Tom Triplet - A quiet designer with a head full of ideas, Tom usually waits till the end of a discussion to stir things up. He is a dedicated worker who plugs along when others would be lax.
Karl Markis - He is Karl. There's not much more to be said than that. I won't get into Karl because I couldn't begin to describe what a unique individual he is.

PROGRAMMERS:

Bryan Hare - A guy with an insanely accurate memory for the most obscure programming facts, Bryan is the type of guy that remembers a seemingly useless function for a year before saying "Hey, I think there's something that can do that in the library" at just the right moment. Bryan is good at communicating on a team, and will contribute to design decisions one way or another.

Steve Beaulieu - The most talented programmer in our year, Steve is the most pragmatic person I know. He tackles each task in a systematic fashion. Steve has more communication and time management skills than any programmers in our year, so he breaks the stereotype that programmers tend to get.