This Week's Featured Interview...
John Ahlquist
Lead Programmer, Electronic Arts
by Jeannie Novak
Founder & Lead Writer
 
LOS ANGELES, CA -- John Ahlquist developed the tools and engine for Command
& Conquer: Generals, the Zero Hour expansion, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. John previously worked for Altsys/Macromedia on Aldus Freehand and was one of the creators of Macromedia Fireworks. Prior to Macromedia, John spent seven years working for Texas Instruments, programming Integrated Circuit CAD tools in the Design Automation Department. He is a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and has been playing video games since Pong.

As Lead Programmer at EA, his first responsibility is to analyze what the designers and artists need the game engine and tools to do—and he designs and implement efficient solutions:

"There are two keys to efficiency: The first is to develop the code quickly, since we are always longer on features and shorter on time. The second is runtime performance for the engine. The tools are less critical, but engine performance is very important."

John's daily tasks at EA include anything from designing and implementing a map layout tool (EA's is called Worldbuilder), to creating a motion blur transition from a movie trailer clip. As John gets closer to shipping the game, debugging and optimization become his main responsibilities.