John Wise

Meet redacted, unarguably the first employee of Timefire LLC. He’s been slogging away with me since last summer as we started learning just what might be required for us to make a compelling virtual reality environment that would not only entertain us but hopefully thousands of others, too.

He got his start in 3D and game engine authoring back in May 2011 upon replacing a computer he killed playing over 7000 hours of World of Warcraft. Little did he know that there was a free version of UDK (Unreal Developers Kit) and a student version of Autodesk’s 3DS Max. For the next two years, minus a serious pause to get deep into playing Star Wars – The Old Republic, he studied hard to teach himself the intricacies of some truly difficult software.

Midway through developing his 3D skills, I took him, Brinn, and Rainy (I knew them all through a local Starbucks where they all worked) with me to Anaheim, California, to attend Siggraph 2012. He wasn’t far into the convention center when he came upon Shapeways and discovered his first real “career” – 3D printed jewelry artist. With some coaxing, he opened his Etsy store, 3DPrintImagination. I say coaxing because, to some extent, this digital artist is a bit of a luddite; he’s horrible with social media, rarely checks email, and has to be pressured to participate in forums to ask questions that could help him.

Come May 2013, he asked if he could bring over a UDK level he’d been working on; he wanted to see it on my new Oculus Rift that I had just received. To say we were tripping hard would be an understatement. During the months waiting for the Rift, I was certain he was going to inherit this VR device, as “How for $300 was this thing going to be taken seriously?” After peering into the Rift, I had to let him know that there was no way I was parting with this piece of magic. We were both hooked now.

He would work on space stations, sky islands, and art installations so he could walk through them and into them in VR. This encounter with the Rift reignited his interest in UDK, which he’d been neglecting as he pursued his work in 3DS Max and 3D printed jewelry.

Today he has moved out of UDK into UE4, added deft Blender skills to his repertoire, leaving his beloved Max behind, and is ripping through Substance Designer. Through it all, he has been incredibly motivated to jump into authoring video games; it is that enthusiasm that sees him working sometimes up to 90 hours a week to realize his dreams. His dedication to seeing Timefire succeed is certainly an asset we couldn’t easily replace. He is our lead Unreal Engine developer.

After months of writing and promoting my blog titled PSOIH – www.psoih.com, also known as the Phoenix School of Optimism, Intellect, and Hope, I have to abandon it. The name just wasn’t jelling with people. I tried telling them that the “P” was silent and that the name read as “SOY” – but it just didn’t click. As far as traffic goes, well, that’s been doing great.

At some point in the near future, I’ll try to migrate the content over here to Timefire if time allows. Maybe it’s appropriate it should fade away, it was a reflection of my initial work in learning UDK (Unreal Developers Kit) and Blender, along with working with textures as bitmaps using Photoshop. Today, we are fully immersed in Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), still using Blender, but we are now exploring procedural textures and the Physically Based Rendering (PBR) pipeline.

In the short amount of time building the first prototype VR environment for the Oculus DK1 (Developers Kit v.1), we have seen a world of change. To us, nothing will be the same as it was when we made our first exploratory lessons into virtual reality, as what is coming is beyond everyone’s imagination – except maybe those building this step into the future.

We are almost ready to tackle our objective of building some kick-ass Virtual Reality, but there are the hurdles of the unknown, unknowns of which some have been becoming known as time passes. There is much to do in order to build something as audacious as virtual reality. Knowledge is probably the biggest factor in proceeding with this endeavor, and we have to constantly check ourselves to verify if we have enough.

First, we have the gamut of hardware requirements. The computers we have built ourselves are based on Intel’s i7-4930k, 16GB of RAM (except one PC which needed 64GB of RAM – he’s the UE4 expert among us), EVGA GTX-780Ti’s, and some extraordinarily large 27″ Asus monitors that let us see a glorious 2560×1440 resolution each. We built them on open benchcases, so we are constantly reminded of the horsepower at our fingertips.

That’s not the only hardware we need. There is the matter of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, where we are allowed to peek into the immersive world of the virtual. Not only do we have a DK1 (Developers Kit ver. 1) that I acquired during their now-famous Kickstarter, but I also nabbed a prototype Oculus HD while at GDC back in March. Sitting on another desk is also a test unit from Microsoft of the Kinect 2, a Razer Hydra, a game controller, and some headphones that will allow us to hear sounds in the far away corners of the VR world we are building.

For software, we are exercising the low-budget muscles. Foremost among these tools is Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 (UE4). It was at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco that Epic crushed the dreams of other game engine developers while inflating ours with a price of only $19 a month per seat instead of the stratospheric prices of yore that were so exorbitant they couldn’t even be spoken. Next up in our arsenal is the open-source and FREE 3D software known as Blender. Without Blender, we would be faced with tens of thousands of dollars for our mesh creation and animation tools. Instead, we have saved a substantial amount of money that is being better spent on payroll. Equally as important to our workflow is Allegorithmic’s suite of tools: Substance Designer and Substance Painter. While we are presently on hold regarding the lack of easy-to-use native support or a friendly-to-use plugin that ties together UE4 and Substance, we are patient, and in any case, we have so much mesh modeling ahead of us along with filling those knowledge gaps I spoke of, we can wait. Rounding out our toolkit are 3D-Coat, MakeHuman, and TerreSculptor.

Right now, we are only three people, but we have the ability to hire others. We have to hold off bringing in others as there’s a lot for us to do now that we are formally a company and not a hobby. One guy is digging hard into UE4 to better understand Materials, Blueprints, splines, and plugins, compiling our own versions, and staying up with the crazy openness of Epic and their new philosophy of sharing everything. Brinn, being relatively new to mesh modeling and Blender, is spending 80 hours a week mastering this half of his responsibility to our new company. His other task will be our soundtrack and audio work. Me, well I’m knee-deep in business affairs and working through the kinks of our funding, though I have to say that the financial group we have behind us is amazing and has surprised me with the speed they stepped up to make it all happen. Thanks, guys, and especially Jeffrey Rassas who lead these efforts.

The guy on the right that’s me, John Wise the Founder of Timefire. The woman with me is my wife, Caroline. Not only were we in Germany on the Danish border in part to celebrate my 50th birthday, but we were also only a month away from returning home and taking possession of an Oculus Rift. So, in a sense, this is the last time I had a “normal” photo taken of me, as life is now measured in B.O. and A.O. (not Body Odor and Ambient Occlusion – but as Before Oculus and After Oculus). I don’t think anyone with an imagination who has looked into the Oculus headset has come away from it untouched. For me, it was apparent that Virtual Reality was finally on track to do something big, but what I couldn’t know last May was just how much.

Almost a year ago, a friend and I started working on some experiments to see what things we built would look like in VR; we weren’t disappointed. While the first Oculus Rift headset had ginormous pixels and enough motion blur to make the most stoic queasy in minutes, it was easy to see that Palmer Luckey was onto something. So we started learning all we could about what might be entailed in building a Virtual Reality environment. We embarked on learning about low-poly and high-poly meshes. UV unwrapping was easy compared to our struggles with lightmaps, which seemed like evil magic that only wizards could master. Being noobs, we would have to learn all we could about the difference surrounding 256, 512, 1024, 2k, and 4k textures and how did these work as a “Texture Atlas?” Level of Detail is an important factor to game devs, Breaking Bad didn’t teach us anything about cooking up a good batch of LOD. How about terrain and plants? Well, how many ways to you want to learn about how to make either? We’ll also have to take a look at motion capture, animation, rigging, character development, lighting, weather, and a host of other functions before we begin to start feeling competent about authoring a game.

Just as we think we’re getting somewhere, events conspire to deliver a huge setback while simultaneously offering a springboard into the future. Seeing as much of what we were playing with was “practice,” when the game industry started to make these transitional moves we were witnessing, we didn’t have a lot to scrap. First up was ditching bitmap textures and learning to dance with the new kids on the block – procedural textures and Physically Based Rendering (PBR). In December, I took a road trip to Hollywood for the first meeting with the great minds of Allegorithmic. That night, I was introduced to the Alpha version of Substance Painter. The writing was on the wall; we were going through a monumental shift for the game developer; little did I know that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

After learning from Oculus that Valve Corporation was hosting Steam Dev Days the following month in Seattle, Washington, I took a shot and wrote Gabe Newell to inquire about gaining an attendance code that would allow me to register for the event. Within two days, I was in, and tickets and hotel reservations were made. Following Gabe’s keynote and the unsuccessful attempt to ask the guy a question, I followed the founder of Valve out to the lobby, where I had the opportunity to talk with him for a few minutes. This was my lucky 50th birthday year; Gabe took me over to the “Booth” – the VIP room where a small handful of lucky industry people would get to be witness to the work Valve had been doing on their own VR headset. Standing there, I was introduced to Michael Abrash, Tom Forsyth, and Atman Binstock. It was Atman who led me through the demo. OMG, this VR is amazingly tear-inducingly overwhelming.

Then, in March, another shoe dropped in the cascade of events that convinced me it was time to take action; Epic released Unreal Engine 4 at the incredibly low price of only $19 a month, and it was available to everyone immediately. Oh, that and Oculus showed Developers Kit v.2, which was utilizing some of the magic that Valve was sharing with them. In retrospect, it is obvious why Mark Zuckerberg would be so blown away by the technology that he would have to buy Oculus. It would also be that pivotal moment following GDC in March that would have me recognizing I would have to transition from a hobby project to a serious company armed with the right tools and staffing to be able to deliver a compelling story and environment.

And so Timefire was born.

My previous work includes active participation in the German beginnings of Techno music and bringing the first 3D computer graphics to the European continent. Along the way, my interest in communication and video arts saw me working with Nirvana (1989), The Sugarcubes (Bjork 1988 and 1989), Henry Rollins, Psychic TV, The Pixies, Nitzer Ebb, and many others. Upon my return to the United States after a 10-year extended sojourn, I opened one of the first 25 Internet Cafes on Earth in Scottsdale, Arizona, before moving between various tech companies, culminating with my initiative to build the world’s first sub-quarter million-dollar clustered supercomputer with Jeffrey Rassas – a current partner and the guy who has lead the fundraising that is allowing us to compete in building what we hope will be a viable and interesting VR platform. My current interest in VR was originally born over 20 years ago when the expense and poor quality limited anyone from making a serious attempt at bringing the technology to the masses. Today, those limitations have been removed, and the world is about to undergo a fundamental and profound shift as we are thrust into the FUTURE.

Four days ago, an old friend of mine, Jeffrey Rassas, showed me some office space he had available almost exactly across the street from where he and I had worked together nearly 15 years earlier. It’s only been about two weeks since he and I started discussing a business opportunity that would see him getting seriously involved with my new project – building a Virtual Reality environment.

Within hours of seeing the space, I grabbed two guys who were the most likely to join me in building a virtual world: redacted (center) and Brinn Aaron (left); that’s me, John Wise, on the right. We got together and took a drive to Ikea to order the pieces we’d need for our desks, and then we headed over to my place to order the computers. The desks arrived on the 24th, and the computer parts on the 25th. Now, here on April 26th, we are ready to start work. Timefire LLC is born.

Soon, I will leave for my first Game Developers Conference, better known simply as GDC. It’s held annually in San Francisco, California, which I’ll be road-tripping my way up to on a 1,532-mile (2,482km) adventure. I’m writing this blog entry as a two-part story to get some of the planning details, expectations, and sense of excitement leading into this out of the way. This way, my next post will focus on the event itself.

GDC is the world’s largest and longest-running professionals-only game industry event; their description not mine. How do they know it’s pro’s only? Probably because of the expense to attend, this isn’t cheap. Exposition floor tickets alone are $195 each, while a full pass will cost you between $1,475 and $2,100, depending on when you register. Add transportation, food, and hotels, and soon, a small developer will approach close to $1000 in costs for even a minimal attendance option – per person!

Last summer, I started considering a trip to GDC. Earlier in the year, it had been impossible for us not to see the announcements coming from the conference regarding Oculus and the “Infiltrator” demo showcasing Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 (UE4). So I went over to the GDC site, but prices and options to purchase were not posted yet. Then, in September or October, the information went live, and for a brief moment, I had the opportunity to buy admission to the Independent Games Summit (IGS) for only $695. I also read on the internet that first-time attendees shouldn’t worry about the full conference and summits, that just visiting was enough, even overwhelming. While I progressed in my own development regarding my VR project, I finally returned to the registration page. The IGS passes were sold out, which settled what part of the event I’d be attending. The lesson here is to plan well in advance, better than six months out if you are thinking of going. Read everything you can about other people’s experiences and start saving money.

So, what’s the attraction to someone just getting started in the game industry? This is our Superbowl, our World Cup, it is the Olympics and the Oscars all rolled into one giant geek fest celebrating the developers who are changing how we see and interact with our world. Gaming is not just some teen sitting in isolation killing zombies; it is an evolving phenomenon that alters humanity’s relationship to education, entertainment, social interactions, medicine, work, war, and soon how we travel. The companies that are presenting workshops or have booth space often hold off on making major product announcements leading up to GDC because they know the world is listening during this event. It is in large part these announcements and demonstrations that played a role in my decision to attend.

The first and foremost among those hoped-for announcements will be from Epic or maybe Oculus. When the doors open, I suppose I’ll have to flip a coin to decide whose booth I’ll bolt to first. Both companies are likely to make some major announcements, so large that, in retrospect, this will be one of those defining moments in history that we as a society look back to the events of this week to recognize this was when we first learned the world was changing in such a dramatic fashion.

For about ten years, Epic has been working on its next-generation game authoring engine. There is no guarantee that it is ready yet to make a public appearance, but signs that Epic may be about to unleash this super-charged tool are many. Over the past seven months, Epic has rolled out five videos that have allowed us to see the software and has put on display its User Interface. Their booth space, in comparison to the previous year, is huge. At CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Vegas, they allowed Nvidia to run a UE4 demo and prepared a special presentation for the guys at Oculus to showcase their Crystal Cove prototype, which Valve was also enthusiastically supporting. With Sony and Avegant breathing down Oculus’s neck in the race to reach the consumer market with VR, it would appear to me that it is in Epic’s own interest as an early supporter of the technology to help push out what could be the premiere VR authoring environment.

Then we have Oculus themselves, who have an amazing amount of floor space reserved at GDC, three separate booths, as a matter of fact, on two floors. Previous statements have said they would be ready with a consumer model when they figure out positional tracking; well, that’s exactly what they were showing in early January at CES. Another 60 days have passed, and I’m certain they have not slowed down on refining how their technology works. If they were to announce Dev Kit 2 (DK2) at GDC, my guess is they would give themselves enough lead time to prepare the units but maybe a bit of extra time to figure into things if they knew certain elements were about to find their way into a DK2 so that they can tempt us with an announcement that new units for developers will ship within a relatively short time after GDC. They are certainly not going to GDC with 3,000 square feet of space to simply show us what we have all already seen. I expect something HUGE!

Next up in importance is yet another encounter with Allegorithmic. Just this past week, they released to the general public a beta version of Substance Painter on the Steam Early Access program operated by Valve. Last month, they sent out invites to those who might be interested in attending a Substance User Group meeting to be held during GDC; I wasted no time on RSVP’ing my answer, which in turn is forcing me to leave a day early. I am looking forward to learning about plans going forward regarding Painter and what they have in mind for how Substance Designer is to be improved upon.

Marmoset will be present, but Toolbag 2.0 was recently released, so I think they’ll be there mostly to meet with their user base to get feedback and let some lucky few know what they have in mind for future versions. Speaking of software on the horizon, Quixel has a booth, and there is no way they are there only to show their current version of nDo2, which is having problems operating with Photoshop CC for a number of users. I’m pretty certain we’ll see a new version of nDo, dDo, and their new Megascan service.

These are just the major areas of interest I’m at GDC for. There’s also Simplygon, Nvidia, Valve, Speedtree, Perforce, the Belgian Trade Commission, and dozens of other vendors we are yet to discover that has me thrilled about the prospect of being on hand for this amazing conference.

Then there are the parties.

Tuesday, after our user group meeting, I’ll head down the street to the NativeX Party. While I’m not a Corona Labs user, I am interested in learning all I can about mobile gaming, and with NativeX cosponsoring the party, I might learn something more about mobile ads. Hey, I’m new to GDC and can’t turn away from any opportunity to learn and be entertained.

Come Wednesday night I have two parties to attend; first up, I’ll head to the Novela Bar for a party sponsored by Kontagent+PlayHaven and VentureBeat. I’m starting to see a theme here that after we’ve hung out all day with the developers of the tools we work with, the guys who handle the all-important “after-the-game-has-been-released” job are there to talk to us. From here, I’ll walk over to AT&T Park – home of the San Francisco Giants, for a giant party hosted by YetiZen. A couple of live acts will be performing, tournament video gaming will run all night, and people on the VIP list will be able to test drive a new Ferrari.

Thursday following GDC, an event is taking place at Swissexsf titled “Spatial Storytelling: Augmented and Virtual Realities,” where we are promised an evening of immersive games and installations incorporating virtual and augmented reality. Some of the participants are Disney, Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, OuterBody Labs, Apelab, and BandFuse. Sadly, the festivities are planned to stop at 10:00 p.m.

Finally, on Friday, the last day of the conference is a party hosted by 8bitSF and Pow Pow Pow called Band Saga LIVE. It will be over at the DNA Lounge with a bunch of bands, including Metroid Metal and An0va performing. I’m still waiting to see if Kiip responds to my RSVP to attend their party on Wednesday night. This will be tight as I’m sure that a “Things wrapped in bacon” party is going to be a popular one. And it seems the most difficult party to get into is Notch’s .party( ). Last year, this inventor of Minecraft had Skrillex play his party; this year, Nero, Kill The Noise, and Feed Me are scheduled to perform. The event seems to have filled minutes after it was made available. There’s always next year.