Famed Industry Veteran, Retro Studios Programmer Dies
Metroid Prime series senior engineer Mark Haigh-Hutchinson passes away at age 43.
January 16, 2008 GN is saddened to report that industry veteran and Retro Studios programmer Mark Haigh-Hutchinson died yesterday afternoon after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 43-years-old.
Haigh-Hutchinson's illustrious career spans decades. He worked on such classics as Paperboy before joining LucasArts in the late '80s, where he went on to co-develop titles like Star Wars: Dark Forces and Rebel Assault. Nintendo fans will better remember him as the project leader and contributing programmer on such N64 games as Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. The established programmer joined Retro Studios shortly after its inception and was eventually moved to the original Metroid Prime team, where he served as senior engineer and was integral in the development of the franchise's camera systems. Haigh-Hutchinson retained this position for all three critically acclaimed Prime endeavors.
Haigh-Hutchinson leaves behind a wife and two daughters and his absence from the industry will be felt by those making games and those playing them alike.
The control of cameras is as important in games as it is in cinema.
How the camera tracks and moves determines our point of view and
influences our attitude towards the content. A poorly designed camera
system in a game can disrupt a users experience, while a well-
designed one can make a good game into a great one. The challenge in
games is that the camera must respond to unscripted events, and this
is where much of the difficulty of designing real-time camera systems
arises. The increasing use of motion in virtual environments, marked
by the inclusion of physics modeling and complex collision detection
systems, means that camera systems must be even more effective to
keep up. Real-Time Cameras is written by an experienced game
developer who has written camera control systems for award-winning
games such as Metroid Prime. Mark Haigh-Hutchinson discusses the key
algorithms for camera control and then shows how to implement them in
code. This book is written for game developers and designers,
although it is also pertinent to other professionals in the
interactive media field. Real-Time Cameras presents a practical
approach to camera systems, introducing their theory, design, and
implementation.
About the Author
Mark Haigh-Hutchinson is a senior software engineer at Retro Studios
Inc., based in Austin, Texas. He has designed and programmed video
games professionally since 1984 and as a hobby since 1979. He has
contributed to over 40 published games in roles as varied as programmer, designer, and project leader. Some of the more notable
titles he has worked on include several Star Wars games: Rogue
Squadron, Episode 1: Racer, Shadows of the Empire, and Rebel Assault,
as well as other games such as Zombies Ate My Neighbors and The
Secret of Monkey Island 2.Most recently Mark was responsible for the
camera systems and player control in the award winning Metroid Prime
and its sequel Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.作者: lesliex 时间: 2008-1-17 17:18