An Insight into the Shared Technology Group at Rare
Games are becoming more complicated and expensive to produce: more power means more content and developer time. STG aims to increase games programmers’ productivity by providing a set of libraries and tools that cover the generic functionalities a game might need. We present the role of an STG Software Engineer in detail, and how it impacts the work of game teams.
Presented by Simona Tassinari, Software Engineer
Simona Tassinari is a Software Engineer in the Shared Technology Group at Rare Ltd, a UK-based videogame developer which, over the course of the past two decades, has grown into a huge creative force behind today’s consoles and become a household name to games players worldwide. After the highly publicised alliance with Microsoft Game Studios, Rare has dedicated its effort to Xbox360 development, and has so far released three Xbox360 titles, the most recent one being the critically acclaimed “Viva Piñata”.
After completing an Honours Degree in Computer Science in Italy at the “Università di Bologna” in 2003, Simona spent over a year in Amsterdam, working on an immersive virtual reality system for medical purposes, implementing the renderer and various modules. In 2005 Simona joined Rare in the Shared Technology Group, where she works on the R1 SDK, Rare’s internal middleware solution, especially focusing on the math library, the preview pipeline for art content, and supporting games teams. The R1 SDK has been used for the recently released titles “Viva Piñata” and the Xbox360 launch titles “Kameo: Elements of Power” and “Perfect Dark Zero”.
