[thunderhawk]

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You mentioned earlier that when you wrote the PS3 review, you were already considering leaving Sony for another job. Was there any friction between you and the company? If so, did this affect the PS3 review at all?

There was never any friction at all between me and anyone at Sony. I was simply not being challenged. I had been at Sony for about 4 years and had just gotten to the point where no one there was teaching me anything. When I was shown something it was often a pretty old technique. Not a bad technique at all! Everyone at Sony is very talented. Just not necessarily as quick as how I would do it. Pretty much everyone there uses one 3D application. I’m pretty familiar with about three packages. So when I look at a task I look at it from a different point of view than someone who only knows one. They have to work within the techniques of that single package. Knowing other packages reveals different techniques and tools. That can only translate into faster workflow. You’ll never be a slower artist because you know more ways to do things. Sony is a great company! So great in fact that the average artist has been there between 6-9 years. The problem with that is what you end up with are people using techniques that are 6-8 years old. You get these kids out of college with little to no experience but they are doing things WAY different than the guys that have been in the business for many years. You would be surprised what you can learn from a kid with only a couple years under his belt! I personally thrive in an environment where we are all motivating each other to come up with new and better ways to do things. Where we can learn from each other and check the ego at the door. I even started a Sony User Group in order to facilitate this need I had. I wanted to see the talent in the company and learn from anyone I could. I also wanted to teach anyone that was willing to learn. I was able to learn quite a bit because of those user groups and I’ve also helped out a lot of people at Sony over time with small one-on-one sessions and showing personal techniques.

My opinion of Sony has always been a high one. It’s a great company with a lot of talented and dedicated people. Often times they are too dedicated and refuse to go home. My opinion of Sony didn’t have any effect on the review I wrote. If anything I felt a little bad because I didn’t want anyone to think I was bashing their personal work. That simply was not the point.

What precautions did you take to ensure that your story didn’t break your non-disclosure agreement with Sony?

Well whatever precautions I took didn’t seem to be enough eh? I’ve been doing this for 9 years and I’ve never once even come close to breaking NDA. In my own error, I assumed that it would be OK to give my opinion on what I believed to be public information. Sony has said very publicly that they are shipping in spring. All I said was, “hey I’d not want to miss the next E3 show.” I didn’t leak any shipping information or reveal any other intentions. I also talked about some technology that has been released publicly for almost a year. You can go to Gamespot right now and view tech demos showing sub surface scattering, HDR, very high dynamic object counts and so on. It is all available. I didn’t reveal anything. Before the article was posted I passed it to a couple others that also work at Sony who write for Down In Front. No one seemed to worry that I was breaking NDA. The bigger concern seemed to be my awful grammar. After it had been posted one of the producers read it and was also OK with it. He thought I could push a button or two with a few comments but nothing even close to what ultimately happened.

Did I knowingly break NDA? I absolutely did not. I would never do that and I would never want to hurt Sony Online. Did I dance in the grey area by even opening my mouth? Yes I did and I was fired for it. So I guess the new rule for me is, don’t ever say anything at all about anything. Ever...ever.

How do you respond to critics around the web who say that, as a 3D artist, you’re not qualified to make a technical judgment about the PS3 development?

You know the internet/forums and blogs are a strange place. If I went online right now and said the sky was blue, 100 people would probably tell me to STFU noob or argue with me and tell me I’m not a weather man. In which case I should STFU anyway. So I don’t take much to heart when people want to argue with me about that. The bottom line: If I am looking at a next-generation system (the Xbox 360 for example) I expect to see next-gen technology. If I don’t see that next-gen technology then I’m inclined to be disappointed. I don’t need to know how to code for the Xbox to know that I’d rather have soft shadowing in a game.

Who made the decision to take the review off the DownInFront site? What were the reasons behind that decision?

I was asked by the powers that be to please take it down. Out of respect and also friendship I had it taken down within 30 minutes. Simple as that.

Do you or your editors have any plans to put the article back online?

No. It will never be posted again.

Do you still stand by the judgments you made in the PS3 review, or have your opinions changed?

I definitely stand by the comments I made. I am also very anxious to see how the final system compares. I will be in line with all the other nerds waiting for this thing when it ships.

Looking back at what’s happened over the past few weeks, would you do anything differently if you could?

Of course I would never have posted the article. The new job, new raise and new title would have come with or without the article. It was something unfortunate that happened and I sincerely hope Sony isn’t damaged by it.

Source Interview: http://www.ps3week.com/blogs/ps3week...&c=1&tb=1&pb=1


The original Blog has been removed, however Google cache has it archived and I copied it here.

The Blog Entry

I’ve spent some time the past year developing for the PS3. Actually it was a cinematic demo to be shown at e3 in 2005 at a closed door viewing. I was one of the few artists selected to work on it for the demo. My job was primarily asset creation. I was creating assets to populate the path where our camera would be flying during the demo. The company I work for is also working on a launch title that I am quite familiar with. In short, I’ve spent some time around the PS3 and or the teams developing for it.

I’ve really had to sit here and think for a long time about what my first comment about the PS3 would be. Will I say, its GREAT or will I give it two thumbs down. Well my immediate impression of the PS3 is…where is it? Seriously, where is it? They have a case, a controller and a dev kit. But the system still doesn’t even exist. So what is there to say? We received one of 5 PS3 dev kits in the United States some time ago. Several companies in the US as well as companies over seas were given the daunting task of creating a demo in less than 9 weeks on a first generation dev kit. Now Ill be honest with you. What most companies do is fake the entire demo. I mean they come up with some great visuals and neat tricks and scripted events. In the end however, its not a real time demo and its not running ON the actual box. We were the only company to my knowledge that showed something that ran it live on the box. Even then it was a scripted event. You could not pause the camera and fly around the scene. So if you saw the demo once, you saw it again the exact same way the second time. Also this was on a brutally early dev box. You could always tell where the PS3 dev box was because it’s the room that had the f-bomb coming out of it half the day.

Lots of time has passed since that demo and the dev box has gone from a totally jimmy rigged computer and box of parts about the size of a small child, to a much more realistic size. Although its still the size of a normal pc. I have been pretty excited about the whole cell processing thing. I am not a very technical person but my understanding of it was pretty clear. (Multiple processors to handle individual events in parallel). Sounds pretty good to me! To hear people talk, you’d thing that a processor revolution was about to happen. So I’ve been pretty excited to say the least. Now in my opinion it doesn’t matter how good the PS3 is. If the XBOX 360 is better, then it doesn’t really matter how the cell processors work or how good they say it is. Realistically one of them will be better over all. Now I’ve spoken with people who are on the technical side of the PS3. I’ve also talked with people on the technical side of the XBOX 360. The consistent comment I am hearing from people on my end is, 'The XBOX 360 is better'. They are saying that it is capable of just doing more. (shrugs) Now take that for what its worth. If you watch all the videos on the PS3 they will say how much more powerful it is than the XBOX and vice versa. Im just telling you what I am hearing. They proceeded to go into a lot of technical info that I don’t understand. So I just nod.

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