DVS ON TECH: About Dan

Dan Violet Sagmiller Game Developer, Web Developer, Teacher, Author

(my human decided to photobomb the picture)

Resume - Linked In - Twitter - Facebook - Speaking - Lynda.com -

I started business programming back in 1998, meaning 17+ years of professional experience. But I started game development back around 1989, on a Tandy Color Computer 2.

Since then I've written multiple books on game development, taught at multiple colleges, held senior positions at companies across the globe and held advisory roles with multiple companies and groups.

Outside of technology, I also really enjoy volley ball, cooking, playing guitar and martial arts (particularly nunchaku). I'm ambidextrous, and comfortable speaking in front of large crowds.

Some Highlights:

Unity Certified Developer - Chicago, April 2016

After a few weeks of preparation, multiple Proof of Concepts and a lot of worrying about my unwillingness to agree with Socrates, I took the test and am now a Certified Unity Developer.

[Verification Link]

Lynda.com - Unity 5 Build a Real-Time Strategy Game

Assuming you have some experience in C#, and a touch of Unity, with this <4 hour course, you can create your own 3D RTS, complete with explosions, battle, AI, maps, fog of war (sort of), tech tree (sort of), HUD, Resources, etc...

Articles:
[Create Your Own 3D RTS]
[Lynda.com RTS Update 6: Wanna Try It?]

Lynda.com - Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain

Assuming you have some Unity experience and are comfortable with C#. In it, you learn how to make an infinite terrain system, that generates in real time (unlike Minecraft's chunk based loading). But it also teaches how to generate cities dynamically, with path ways, and neighborhoods. Even some of the buildings can be entered, and the interiors of buildings get generated as well, with multiple rooms.

Articles:
[Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain is Live!]
[Lynda Course in Design: Unity 5 2D Procedural Terrain and Living AI]

Packt Publishing - Unity AI Programming Essentials

I started this book with the intention of showing multiple AI systems that could solve similar problems, such as path finding, battle, racing and other common AI uses. I made the mistake of contacting many of the AI lib authors, and giving them feed back of what changes might help their product. The good part, they were very receptive. The bad part, they made the changes within a few days, and then all my previous chapter's work was broken. :( After several changing events, I stopped working on the book. Curtis Bennet took over, and changed the style to follow closer to existing demos from the AI libs, and less direct code samples. It worked, and the book was published.

Free-Ebooks.net - Indie Game Development with C# & XNA

I loved XNA so much I wrote a book on it. Now a days you can find it free on free-ebooks.net. The book covers Agile, learning C#, learning XNA, managing/motivating an indie team and even marketing. Its meant to read almost like a story, but giving you all the skills you need along the way to design, build and release a game yourself or with a team.

Why is it at Free-Ebooks? I was starting to talk to publishers about it at about the same time Microsoft announced it was disbanding the project. They could have been more open about it, and just announced the complete hand off to MonoGame. Which is still live, runs on everything (like Unity) and fully compatible.

Colleges: Bellevue College & Hartland Community College

I've taught at Hartland Community College, in Normal, IL. Specifically, ASP (VBS) & ASP.NET (C# & VB.Net) development, SQL, HTML, CSS, and then a slew of game development using VB6, Blitz Basic, Blitz 3D, C# and XNA.

I also taught XNA at the Bellevue College, a 4 year college in Bellevue, WA. I helped upgrade the existing game course, increasing the market from a class run once a semester to 4 a semester, covering Game Testing, Design, Game Dev 1 and Game Dev 2. I also taught automation, C# for business, and web development.

Business Development:

So far, I've really only spoken about my game history, but my day job has always been business programming. I've worked for Microsoft, Wizards of the Coast, Johnson Controls, Manitou, Hasbro and Omni Resources to name a few.