It's no secret that PlayStation Home is one of this year's most anticipated pieces of software. After debuting to fanfare at last year's GDC, it's fallen into fairly hush-hush territory since, with occasional chatter about the software beta popping up every few months. Earlier today in a panel, James Cox, senior producer of Tools & Support, and Warren Keyes, lead programmer of Home Tools, unveiled the support section for developers interested in creating content for Home. The hour-long session, titled "Home Tools and Support: Creating Content for PlayStation Home" wasn't necessarily bursting with excitement for Sony fans, but it gave us some insight into exactly where Sony Cambridge seems to be production-wise, and what tools will be at developers' disposal.
Cox kicked off the panel with an overview of the software, which will give PS3 owners a virtual world to socialize within from the XMB, as well as a disclaimer that any of this content could change in the final software. He then began to describe the Home Development Kit, or HDK. It will allow game makers to implement 3D assets created in Maya or 3D Studio Max into the programs, configure and package them, and easily submit them online for evaluation and approval. The kit also provides editing software to allow devs to edit both objects and scenes, as well as put those elements into testing in both offline and online conditions.
Although we had little insight into the programming process for Home prior to the panel, the impression that Cox gave seems to indicate that many of the programming processes are done manually, and with this upcoming build of the dev kit, it will automate lots of things. The HDK will also include documents to help game developers with scene editing, creating both single-player arcade games and social mini-games, as well as guides for character and furniture creation. It seems that, based on Cox's speech, the last toolkit was 0.8, and the new HDK will bring the programming tools up to the 1.0 phase.
Besides the software in the toolkit, Cox mentioned some of the enhancements for the user experience in Home. Now, users (we don't know if this applies to the beta testers currently using the program) will be able to customize the clothing on their avatar and make their own designs. Arcade games and mini-games will be enhanced. Avatars can be loaded and saved. Cox also said that Havok will drive the software's physics. It will also become easier for developers to implement web-based content delivery.
Aside from a few minutes of more technical discussion, Cox showed off a video of how game launching currently works in Home. If this method ends up in the final version, you'll pull up your virtual PSP, go into its XMB, pull up the game you want to play, set the number of players, and launch into it. The gameplay options menu and HUD slightly resemble the menus found in another British Sony title, the SingStar franchise.
For curious PS3 owners, we got slivers of insight into the trophy system, and we mean slivers. Trophies are undergoing the later stages of setup. We saw a 3D icon of a new one: a bowling ball hitting a group of pins, which symbolizes a milestone in a bowling game. Cox also announced that static avatar heads will be programmable in the future. Publishers can implement the heads of licensed characters or celebrities that users won't be able to customize. "You won't be able to put David Beckham's head on Michael Jordan's body," he joked.
Keyes took over the second part of the keynote, which focused on creating scenes in Home. The most important differentiation that he pointed out was between public and private spaces within the software. Arcades, parks and shops make up Home's public squares, and it's an important decision in how developers will implement arcade games and mini-games. Throughout the presentation, both Cox and Keyes showed off a chessboard in the middle of a public square as a prime example of how game makers can implement social games into Home. On the other hand, Keyes then displayed photos of a Japanese-style garden, a Manhattan-like condo, and an Alpine cabin as examples of a core private space that users could customize.
The next sections focused on programming interactive content and 3D mini-games, but it was mostly an overview of using programs to create, implement, and test out. One video revealed a tic-tac-toe mini-game, though, which looks like a fun little diversion. The final area focused on future possibilities, as Cox returned to the lecture. One thing that we hadn't noticed before? Bubble machines. Oddly, a giant bubble blower will be one of the new interactive diversions that you can use in the public sphere.
It didn't stop, there. Cox showed off another video of how players can use a camera to take pictures and use them in their apartments. The core idea is that developers can produce items within Home, from cameras to soccer balls, and either sell them or give them to users. The items have their own physics, animation, collisions, and audio. Cox closed the lecture with images of how developers can ideally let their creativity flow. Screens of two guys in gorillas suits hanging out in a tree demonstrated how designers can customize clothing beyond t-shirts. Rather than using one bubble machine, he showed off a huge bubble party with dozens of machines in Home's public square. Also, he showed that an apartment can have too much furniture, as chairs, tables, beds, and sofas piled up to the ceiling in one private space.
Although the session was significantly geared toward developers, we were able to extract a better idea of what features are currently in Home, what it takes to implement them, and how Sony is trying to make the Home integration process easier for the industry's creative minds. Now we'll just have to wait and see if they can create living room sets that match.
