School Starts...

四月二十日（月曜日）
Today, a new semester starts in NYP, and so does week three of our training at PA.

We started the day with the weekly company meeting at 10am, which the 社長 has requested that we should attend. Similar to the first one we attended the week before last, the proceedings include some news announcements by the 社長 , self-introduction by new employees, and a long motivational talk by the 社長.

He recommended two books to the staff - one written by a famous Japanese architect on constructing buildings, and another by a famous programmer who worked for Sega on "what to know before becoming a game programmer". Despite the fact that my Japanese level is pitiful, I could have sworn the 社長 practically recited the content of both books. He preached about "not taking basic things for granted", "keeping one's promise to others", and "learning beyond your own field of expertise", using examples from the two books. Once again, I kowtow to the 社長's ability to talk at length without a script. さすが社長さんですね。Maybe that's why he's the boss, and I'm just a lowly lecturer.

A.M. After the meeting, we continued to learn about "What is a Producer?" under Murase-san. A producer in a Japanese content industry needs a wide range of basic skills ranging from project planning and supervision, to human resource hiring and management, to marketing, legal issues and budgeting. Then, to be a great producer, he/she needs 3 other important things:

1. care deeply about his work
2. possess extensive knowledge about the industry
3. have an infectious enthusiasm

In the spirit of producing, he must always focus on the following 2 questions:

1. Why do we create games?
2. Who are we making the games for?

"Content can move people. It can also offend people." According to Murase-san, that was the 社長's favorite quote, which came from an old Japanese book. I believe the word "content" here meant "a work of art" or "a creative product" in the original context, rather than "games".

P.M. "Character Modeling Part 1" by Kawashima-san - how to create character models for games, including normal map creation using Zbrush, and light mapping in Maya and Photoshop. Nothing new here, just a refresher lesson for both me and Ron. So far, Stage 1 of the Game Visuals course has been very basic. Hopefully we'll get our money's worth in Stage 2.