Finding my way back into the world of video games. Knew nowhere near the extent of what I was missing out on before now. Thoroughly impressed with the quality of games produced at Valve. Very much looking forward to many more hours of game play.

This was a birthday gift from my sweetheart of a girlfriend. I first expressed an interest in The Orange Box a couple weeks ago as the Comicon Challenge at GameArtisans.org drew to a close. What sparked this interest was the idea of taking something that I had made and placing it into one of these games with use of an editor like Valve's Source SDK.

Ultimately, I'd like to build an entirely new environment within Maya, complete with assets and characters, and then bring it all to life with a game engine. The two I've been looking at are, of course, Valve's Source engine and Unreal Technology's Unreal Engine 3, which comes packaged with Gears of War for PC and Unreal Tournament 3. Others I have in the list include id Software's id Tech engine and Terminal Reality's Infernal Engine.

In looking for jobs, I've opened my search up to quality assurance game testing positions, too. Bonus skills they're looking for is experience working with game engines and editors. I feel like I'm on the right path, and it feels great! It's nice knowing that I'm working toward something while I'm having fun.