Can you explain exactly what you do as a Client Programmer?
I am in charge of the effects system and environmental systems. That is entailing all of the special effects from the spells, rain falling in a region, and environmental effects such as lightning rumbling through the sky.

How did you begin your career in the gaming industry?
As a gamer, I began playing games when I was five and began programming when I was around seven on an Apple IIe with a groundbreaking 64k of ram. I began college with the thought that I would follow in my father’s footsteps into Architecture and go in the direction of real time visualization. However, I could never shake the game bug. So I then went for a Masters of Visualization Sciences at Texas A&M focusing my thesis and research on gaming. After I received my Masters of Science I went to a small game company in Dallas. I worked there on a huge assortment of different tasks from AI to real-time terrain painting and generation tools. The pace was fast and furious until with all the economic declines it closed its doors without any notice. I found my self in an Artifact Entertainment seat two months later doing two to three all-nighters a week full-filling my promise to have a new effects system in three months.

What is your favorite spell effect? Can you provide a screen capture?
Hmm, that is a tuff one. I like two of my early spells I created as initial tests of my systems. I actually would choose Banshee--the very first spell testing out a new set of modules--and Reyem Neas as a close second.

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What is your favorite environment? Can you provide a screen capture?
I created this system a few base regions then I handed it off to Jeremy Statz. He then one night came up with this incredible swirling sky region off the top of his head. That is definitely my favorite region.

What are some examples of how a player can directly effect their environment?
Regions can be attached to players or monsters. Say, for example, an incredibly tough monster has a swirling mass of energy that leads to the sky that is reflecting this energy in its clouds by lightning ripping through the clouds. When the region is removed from the bad guy--by the players killing this monster--the region would fade. To the player this looks like the evil is lifting. It really is an incredible effect already seen in the end of the beta days.

What's an average day in the life of Ryan Mitchell like?
I roll out of bed to run out the door feeding and or changing diapers on one of my two kids. After arriving at work around 9:30 I lay out what I expect to get done for the day and begin work. The days stretch to different lengths depending on the current projects. As usual most of the time there are several projects occurring at once. Urgent requests roll in while trying to work on the current major task and fulfilling another urgent request. Not a day goes by that is “boring” or slow. Then, depending on the workload, I go home any time from 8:30 to 2:30 to the next evening. I try to take off Sundays for my wife and kids. Hopefully soon things will come down a bit so I can spend more time with my family.

How were lightning strikes formulated?
Lightning strikes are created in any form the artist would like. The system is created from many different modules; depending on what effect object motion guide they choose that will be how and where the lightning starts from. Then the lightning is grown from that point in a manner decided by the settings applied to the modules.

How have the Blight Maelstorm effects been handled?
The blighted maelstrom sky system is composed of 4 sky-domes with complex multi-pass shaders. One of the sky-domes is flagged as a lightning effect layer. An effect is attached to the sky dome that emits particles at specified vertex points and then those particles are used to update the meshes position and color over the lifetime of the particles. So the clouds light up and twist across the sky. The lightning is another effect also attached to the sky system. This effect also has an object that effects the lighting and fog of the area. When the region transitions in the fog is pulled in and the lighting is changed to a much scarier scheme.

What effect utilizes the most particle effects?
It would probably be Reyem Neas. However, what level you are when you cast it determines the size and number of particles emitted. Currently I believe Anthony Bracamonte set the fireballs to max at level thirty for the full effect.

What is the most complex spell or environment and why?
The uber regions that the Withered Aegis carry with them are among the most complex systems with effects and environment working together for a truly amazing fight.

Are weather effect locations dynamic or are they confined to specific areas?
They are dynamic in the sense that they can be applied to entities that roam the environment and cause rain to move in and what not. Regions are described by a polygonal subset of any size or shape and it is determined weather you are in this region or not every fifteen frames or so. There is a much more complex weather system coming. This will require a good bit of server work to and I am waiting on the launch issues to be worked out there before adding that bit of work to the current system.

Exactly how dynamic are the weather effects?
Weather can move when attached to entities, monsters, or players. Fades in nicely from the region you are in. It can carry effects in with it from rocks raining from the heavens to lightning rippling through the sky. The sky can have anything you want in it from meteors to star dust drifting from the stars. It pretty much does it all. I am going to add in more control as far as weather patterns, but I am not ready for specifics on that yet.

Do all spell and environment effects share a common function?
Yes, the spell system is built off of four types of modules. Those modules being Effect objects to control how a particle is emitted, Effect Object Motion Guides to control how the emission moves, Motion guides to impart movement to the particles, and the particle renderer to decide how the particles are displayed. There are approximately fifteen to twenty different modules of each type. Each module can be mixed and matched to make whatever you so desire in real time with the in game effect editor. So a long story short yes.

What are some effect triggers?
Some examples are walking into a region, server messages, putting items on or in your hands, casting spells, using abilities, or having them used on you. Triggers can be placed in quickly for whatever we need to drive the story and game forward.

From a gaming standpoint - What is your favorite aspect of Horizons?
The fact that I can finally truly solo when I want along with the fact that dying doesn’t make me want to choke someone. I was playing a recently released beautiful game for two weeks. When I lost the same level twice because of a random monsters spawning right on my while I was in a fight and losing six or so invested hours I quit. That kind of time invested when you are trading sleep for the opportunity to play was not worth it for me. In Horizons, I do not have to spend an hour getting a group together. I can truly jump in and play fifteen minutes and if I die not lose days of invested time.

From a technical standpoint - What is your favorite aspect of Horizons?
The ability for a designer to walk up to me and say we are having this crazy event can we do this (waves hands around franticly). And me being able to say I will have it for you in ten minutes.

In your opinion, what makes Horizons unique?
There are so many things from the lack of being required to invest hours finding a group to die and repeat to the best crafting system I have ever seen. One thing I can say is I never expected to play my own game I have invested so much time into and love it as much as I do. I now am sitting at level 22/19 and loving it.

Have you added any “Easter eggs” to Horizons?
Of course, nothing that would make anyone get the “beat stick” after me but of course there are a few.

Thanks for reading this rambling everyone, and I will see you in Horizons!

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