The Great Games... Experiment?

I joined the Great Games Experiment (GGE) this week and have to say I'm extremely impressed. The site seems focused on sharing game betas and demos for feedback and constructive criticism. And provides just the right amount of discussion and ranking of retail and home brewed titles to promote the social networking aspect of the site – hey, everyone wants to meet people with similar interests.

GGE is very much a LinkedIn for gamers and game developers – with friend lists, rankings, lists of games you've played, email/IM like personal messages, and a profile that provides as much (or as little) information as you want.

But unlike other social networking sites you don't have to sort through thousands of people to find the one or two gamers or game developers, who may or may not share your interests. Instead finding people with similar interests is as simple as commenting on a game you like or joining a group you're interested in.

You'll definitely see me on GGE – and I'll be happy to tryout, comment on, and rank any games you send my way.

Back to the title of this blog: “The Great Games... Experiment?”... Experiment? No – this sounds like a sure thing to me.

-John Kabus

The End of an Era

Three years after the concept was originally discussed and two and a half years after its initial release, the Torque Lighting Kit (TLK) has completed its life-cycle.

With last week's release of TGE 1.5 and today's release of TLK 1.4.2 (the final release, not including any necessary maintenance releases), TLK is no longer available (though it's still supported).


Leading the Pack (er... rather the Kit)

Originally named the Lighting Pack,TLK broke new ground when it became the Torque Game Engine's first code expansion pack/kit, and after three years it's still Torque's only third-party code pack/kit.

In that time nearly every TGE based game produced used TLK to streamline level creation, and improve and customize its lighting and rendering - including several IGF finalists (TubeTwist, Venture Africa, and Lore to name a few).


TLK Lives On

Synapse Gaming's lighting and rendering technology is now integrated into all Torque engines (except TGB), making it available to everyone using Torque, and easier than ever to use. This means more users to customize, adapt, experiment with, and create awesome resources for the technology.


Moving Forward

I've received a lot of questions over the years about the business side of TLK, and how things evolved, business and technology wise.

Ideally I'd like to do a postmortem of TLK's entire history, from non-Torque tech to today's lighting and rendering systems. And I'll likely do that someday, but the evolution is still underway, and a lot more is still to come...

TDN Growing and TSE Evolving

Well it's only two weeks since the Torque Lighting System TDN section went live and already it has grown into 20 some articles and received over 1500 unique hits on the main page.

The TDN section covers Torque Lighting System features, customizations, performance tuning, and optimizations. The articles are broken down into product specific groups (TSE, TGE 1.5, TLK, ...) to make finding information easy. The most recent additions to the section are TGE 1.5 lighting system articles and updates, and TSE performance tuning articles.

With TSE 1.0 on the horizon a lot of our development time is focused on wrapping up features, tuning performance, and squashing any bugs that pop up. TSE's development has been running full steam for quite a while, but now that MS4 is out and we've been doing semi-weekly code drops, the community gets to see the progress in near real-time.

The TSE community has been extremely helpful in the process, offering suggestions, finding any issues, helping to identify them, and in many cases issuing fixes. The community is running full force with MS4, already working on the next generation of Indie games - many with hopes of getting their games onto Xbox 360. I can't wait until these games start being shown publicly!

Synapse Gaming Lighting System Used in Torque Game Engine 1.5!

GarageGames and Synapse Gaming are excited to announce Synapse Gaming's Torque Lighting System (the Torque Lighting Kit) is integrated into the upcoming Torque Game Engine 1.5.

Torque Game Engine 1.5 will include all of TLK's advanced lighting and rendering, and offer all of the same key features and tools TLK owners are accustomed to, and several new features including improved dynamic lighting performance, blended terrain dynamic lighting, and higher detail terrain geometry and textures.

For more information check out the latest GarageGames development shot: Torque Game Engine Gets a Huge Upgrade!

TSE Milestone 4 and Lighting System TDN Section Go Live

Both the competed TSE milestone 4 and the TSE Lighting System TDN section were released today to the TSE community.


It'll be interesting to see what the community does with this latest TSE drop - there are a ton of new features to work with like dynamic and static lighting and shadows, HDR/DRL with Bloom and Tone Mapping, cinematic lighting filters, high performance relighting tools, and much, much more...

Torque Lighting System TDN Section

The Torque Lighting System TDN section just hit private beta (check the TLK forums for details), and I'm rather excited to see it in the wild.

The related TDN articles were ported directly from the TLK Modeler's Guide and updated to reflect the differences between the TLK and TSE versions on the lighting system. There are also a number of articles covering product specific features.

The TSE specific articles are WIP and will be updated over the next week or so, but the core lighting system information (+90% of the info) is up-to-date and ready for consumption.

I'm hoping that after a weekend of TLK users verifying it the section will be ready for the public.

Moving Forward and Looking Back

Ahh, it feels good to have the TSE lighting system more or less ready for MS4 and at the point where other projects can take center-stage. It feels odd to think of TSE's lighting system as only one of the major projects we have in development and in the works. But it's been an exceptional year, and from the sound of it next year will be even better.

While working on our latest creation I decided to take a stroll through the "IP-closet" to draw features and ideas from. During the trip I came across modifications I made to TGE over three years ago, after only a few months using the engine. It was interesting to see the changes that were made, and to find the earliest foundations of TLK...


TLK (Torque Lighting Kit) grew out of my interest in porting the tech I'd written for my own engine over to Torque. Getting started I needed to prep Torque by adding some of the features I felt were critical to our using it, such as; universal lighting models (lighting all objects the same), more vibrant lighting, static point and spotlights (via the mission editor - the only way to statically light all objects not just interiors), dynamic lighting without washing out diffuse textures, static dts shadows, and detail mapping. Frighteningly enough I had it all working in relatively short order, I contacted GarageGames about publishing the kit, and the rest is history.


The TLK of today has far more features and tools than I could have imagined when writing the original. And now with TSE using the lighting system, its also grown in directions I couldn't have imagined.

And what about the changes I made that weren't related to TLK? Those were just as interesting - terrain textures at 512x512, arbitrary terrain light map sizes, and a GPU terrain texture blender, which is very similar to the progression made with TSE's terrain. Not bad three years ago and only a few months working with the engine.

Unfortunately I was so wrapped up in that code I didn't have time to check out any of the other projects I've worked on over the years, but I'll definitely check them out soon.

Synapse Gaming's Lighting System used in the Torque Shader Engine!

GarageGames and Synapse Gaming are excited to announce Synapse Gaming's Lighting System (the Torque Lighting Kit) is integrated into the Torque Shader Engine. Starting with milestone 4, TSE will include all of TLK's advanced lighting and rendering, and offer all of the same key features and tools TLK owners are accustomed to, with the added advantage of HDR, TSE's fully integrated shaders, and complete access to, and support for, the DirectX API.

Along with the existing TLK features, TSE's lighting and shadows include: self-shadowing DTS objects, lighting and shadows on Atlas terrain, High Dynamic Range Lighting and Tone Mapping (including a DRL solution), and full shader support for all lighting types - even on automatically generated shaders!

Frequently Asked Questions:

Do I need to be a TLK for TGE licensee to use these TSE features?

Nope, the advanced lighting system comes with TSE and is available to allTSE licensees. However a TLK license is needed to get the same awesome lighting in TGE.

Will having TLK for TGE help me migrate to TSE?

Absolutely! TSE now uses the same lighting and rendering models as TLK, so you can easily port your existing assets to TSE with minimal effort or changes.

Because the lighting tools and methodologies are the same, using TSE will feel very familiar and comfortable.

Ok, enough teasing - when will TSE milestone 4 be ready?!?

The most exciting news is that TSE MS4 will be released in mere days - stay tuned for more details!

-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming

The Year Long Cycle and IGC

A number of projects that came out of last year's biz-dev cycle are now coming together, interestingly enough, at the same time – hey it's IGC season. In fact some of the projects will celebrate their one year anniversary since inception with a release party (what better way? :).

Others, like Constructor, have just passed the one year development mark (since Synapse Gaming's involvement), and are looking fantastic.

In fact one of the bigger projects here at Synapse Gaming just wrapped up and I'm very glad to see this thing finally going out the door. The project itself was not long, just on a rather accelerated development cycle, and a lot of energy and effort went into it. It'll be interesting to see the software in the wild, and to see the crazy things people will do with it. An official product announcement will be made very soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Work doesn't slow down though, not with IGC on the horizon. There are always other projects to take the front-and-center, and in this case those are also mostly complete and heading into the home stretch. IGC will be very interesting, we should have more products this year than tech demos in the past. But we'll see what happens between now and October.

And what about Constructor? Constructor just hit beta 7, which is nearly feature complete, and the response from our beta testers has been very encouraging (that's an understatement :). With the impressive features and near completeness (what an odd word) of the project I'm hoping Constructor is one of our stops on the road to IGC, but obviously that is just my hope, and not a promise.

Two months to go...

-John Kabus

GI10H - Extreme Kork Paintball!

My GID team and I (two brothers Alex and Ross) were bored waiting for the next GID, so we got together for a mini-GID or GI10H - a game-in-10-hours. This time around we made the theme "paintball", and our game features everyone's favorite orc; Kork.



Our GID rules were simple:

-Start with a stock Torque Lighting Kit (TLK)
-No code changes allowed other than applying paint to DTS objects
-Ross and I mixed up our roles a bit (Ross worked on scripting and GUI, and I worked on modeling and DTS painting)
-Alex worked on interior and texture creation
-And we only had 10 hours to complete the game



This GID was a blast and the game is awesome to play. Everything apart from the DTS painting is stock TLK with some very creative use of TLK features by Ross (all in script), and even with switching roles we pulled it off in only 10 hours.




GI10H - Extreme Kork Paintball Video (10M)

-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming
Bleeding Edge Indie

Latest Batch of TLK Resources Available

A new group of Torque resources were just approved on the GarageGames site including a bunch of new TLK resources.


Torque Lighting Kit - Scene Exposure and Filter Control

Provided by Synapse Gaming this resource allows exposure/gamma control over any area of the Torque window. The gamma can be controlled by both floating point value and texture overlay, which is stretched over the gamma controlled area. The same mechanism also allows filtering the screen area by the floating point and texture color.


Coming soon: TLK CG Gamma Control

The CG Gamma Control being developed by the TLK community will provide similar features to the Synapse Gaming TLK Scene Exposure Control in a CG post-processing filter.


TLK CG Water + DRL

This resource makes adding the CG Water and DRL 2.0 resources easier than ever by combining them into one set of source files and instructions.

(image from Code Name: Monster Island)

Along with TLK private resources there are some awesome new Torque resources (available for both TGE and TLK) designed for use with TLK. Here are a few that caught my attention:

Updated Object Selection (with TLK bonus)

fxShapeReplicator: Up to 16 random shapes

fxShapeReplicator (Square Area Enhancement)

8 Terrain Textures for TGE/TLK 1.4


It's always cool to see the enhancements others are working on. Awesome job TLK community!

-John

Synapse Gaming Site Update

Ahhh... I made a final pass on the Synapse Gaming site this week – doing a bit of needed reorganization and a few copy/bug fixes.

Along with reorganizing the menu flow, adding support for Safari, and a more consistent layout across browsers, I resolved an issue with browsers applying old cached stylesheets to the site.


The Torque Lighting Kit page was also updated with downloads to the TLK Shaman demos:



-John

Wow it's been a month

Wow it's been a month since I last posted – I can't believe how the time flies. We've been so insanely busy here it feels like GDC was only last week.

April is always a killer month (killer bad, not killer good), with taxes, both my wife's birthday and mine, and what seems like an unusual number of new products and contracts that always flood in around this time. To complicate the mix I attended GDC this year, then followed it up with a trip out to Eugene to talk shop with the GG guys, and also have a major project finishing up in a few weeks with a second hot on its heels.

So to put it mildly... my brain hurts...

Why is this time of year so busy? Every year March through May (but mainly April) seems to bring in enough projects for the year (or more) and kick off another round of explosive growth. Maybe it's the industry conferences this time of year, or project alignment for the holiday season – I don't know, but it's definitely a good time of year.


Torque Lighting Kit

Due to popular request we've added Visual Studio 2005 Express support to the Torque Lighting Kit. A new download link was added to the VC2005 TDN article outlining how to use VC2005 with Torque.

Torque Lighting Kit users need to download the TLK update instead of the TGE update, and follow the existing directions outlined in the article.

I created a feedback thread in the TLK private forums, so if you have any questions or comments pop over and let me know.



Bah, it's four in the morning, and at this point I've exceeded my ability to think – time for sleep...
or maybe a quick game of Guitar Hero... :)

-John

Synapse Gaming Site Update and GDC

Well, tomorrow morning I head off to GDC, and with only two hours before I need to wake up it looks like I'll be sleeping on the plane. I probably should have gone to bed early - I can never sleep when I know I have to get up soon, but we had a major site update that was, more or less, finished up only an hour ago. Generally I wouldn't rush this sort of thing through, but, heading off to GDC, we needed an updated site to better convey our business.

The new site layout has been used internally here for a few months now to get a feel for its flow - and frankly I like it. The first thing you'll notice is that the awesome theme create by Matt Summers is still intact - we love this look and didn't want to touch it. The changes are purely layout and copy.

At this point the site is still unfinished - the TLK page needs links to the new Shaman demo and linked to the GG product page (or even better to the cart :), but the current site is a big improvement over what we had, so I'm happy with it for now.

Anyway check out the new site layout and let us know what you think and if you have any problems (if you run into any issues with the menu, just hit refresh, the style sheet could be cached by the browser):

Synapse Gaming

-John

TLK Shaman Demo Public Soft Launch

After a week of testing and feedback from the Torque Lighting Kit community, the TLK Shaman Demo is ready for its public debut. Initially we're soft launching the demo here, and if all goes well it will be ready for a full public release shortly.



The demo, which was produced by Synapse Gaming and features TLK technology, also features artwork by Christophe Canon and music by Ajari Wilson. It shows just some of the awesome possibilities available to you when using TLK, and how to achieve them.

Torque Lighting Kit: Shaman Demo (Windows)
Torque Lighting Kit: Shaman Demo (OS X)

Don't forget that owning a TLK license gives you access to exclusive TLK resources, including the just released (and already extremely popular) Bloom/Dynamic Range Lighting (HDR without shaders) resource!

So if you're a TLK licensee check out the New Resource thread. If you're not what are you waiting for - buy it now! :)

We'd just like to say thanks to the TLK community for their feedback - its helped us to really tighten up the demo.

-John Kabus

Awesome New TLK Resources Available!

Synapse Gaming is always working with community members to help with TLK based resources. This week we released two new resources; a Dynamic Range Lighting and Bloom resource created by Jeff Raab and Alex Scarborough, and an updated GuiObjectView for TLK.

Jeff and Alex's resource supports Dynamic Range Lighting (which adjusts the screen exposure based on scene lighting), Bloom, and Tone Mapping - making it a very complete resource. Even better it's extremely easy to add to your project. Awesome work guys!


Also released is a new GuiObjectView designed specifically for TLK, which provides better lighting control and env mapping.

Definitely check out these resources and let us know what you think.

And if you have any ideas for TLK resources let us know!

-John Kabus

TLK Shaman Demo Sneak Peek/Soft Launch!

Oh ya, the TLK Shaman demo sneak preview just launched in the TLK private forums. The demo, which was produced by Synapse Gaming and features TLK technology, also features artwork by Christophe Canon and music by Ajari Wilson.

Now it's only a matter of time before the public release... :)

-John

TLK Shaman Demo Nearing Completion

During these past two weeks I had time to finish up work to the TLK Shaman demo, and I'm hoping we'll release it very soon. Unfortunately due to time constraints the Shaman demo hadn't changed much since IGC, but over the past two weeks I've made up for that.

The demo, which was produced by Synapse Gaming and features its technology, also features artwork by Christophe Canon and music by Ajari Wilson.

I've worked on a number of projects over the years, but this is certainly one of my favorites. The quality of work produced by Christophe and Ajari is simply amazing, and their professionalism is topnotch. Moreover our team meshed very tightly together - it seemed like we were always moving in the same direction and able to know exactly what the others were looking for. I'm definitely looking forward to working with these guys in the future.

Before the official launch we're planning on a private beta launch within the TLK community in order to get feedback on the demo and to widen our testing.

I'm really looking forward to this release and hoping everything goes well.

TLK Shaman demo desktop background:


-John

Free Radiant May Have Some Substance To It

Interestingly enough the recent claims that Radiant is free for any use may actually be accurate. Originally disregarding this as yet another wild claim (of which there have be many over the years, regarding both Radiant and Hammer), I was rather surprised to see that it had more substance than I originally thought.

I'll reserve judgment though, as some things about the license still bother me. More than anything it may be that it's so similar to the previous licensing and all official comments refer to the license change, but avoid saying free for all or commercial use. :/

The information that came out of the GG community thread was fairly helpful in putting a perspective on the license - it'll be cool if those guys are right. It's a shame that the conversation took a downturn, I was curious to hear what others had to say on the matter. As always I'm amazed at how quickly some people turn to sarcasm - how can one person's opinion really bruise an ego that bad?

Anyway off on a tangent now, all in all it was an interesting discussion and I appreciate those who contributed helpful information - I'll definitely keep an eye on this in the future.

The Obligatory Bi-monthly "Is Radiant Free" Thread Started-up Again Today

Yes, it's started again - the obligatory bi-monthly "Is Radiant Free" thread kicked-off today. Once again the GPL license is being used as a blanket of protection against what seems to be a commercial tool.


"But it's GLP'ed!"

To the surprise of many GPL is not a license for providing free software - it's a license designed to keep the software's source code open and available (hence open source).

While I don't claim to be a legal expert, version 2 of the GPL license clearly states that the license does not extend to usage of the software or to files generated by the software:

"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program)."

What does this mean? Is the Radiant commercial license still in full effect and referring only to the usage of Radiant, and the GPL license to the code - ei: only the source is free, not usage of the product?

This type of licensing seems to be common nowadays as more and more open source companies are trying to build businesses out of their products (understandably). A good example of this is MySQL, though it uses a dual licensing scheme - and it's not free. ;) So what's the deal?

-John

Torque Lighting Kit 1.4 silent release - Oh so awesome :)

It's been a month since the Torque Lighting Kit's 1.4 silent release, and it's definitely time to start letting the rest of the GarageGames community in on the release. The response to TLK 1.4 was overwhelming; once again TLK takes Torque to a whole new level!


Whats in the latest TLK?

More than even I could imagine. Among the usual tweaks and enhancements TLK received a massive upgrade, including:

• Interior detail mapping
• Multiple dynamic DTS shadows
• Mountable lights
• Faster relights
• All new documentation and modeling guides
• Already built TLK executables - no compiling necessary!

TLK owners: for more info on these and other features check out the TLK release notes (packaged in the TLK 1.4 release), or head over to the Torque Lighting Kit private forums!


Almost immediately we received a ton of positive feedback on the new documentation. Documentation takes a tremendous amount of time, and seeing that effort make such a positive impact, quite frankly, couldn't have made me any happier.

"I would like to give you a virtual pat on the back for TLK1.4. Very good work. The documentation/merge info/release notes are brilliant. I went over all documents and must say, that they are very easy to read and to understand. Even for a non-native speaker."

Soon after the TLK 1.4 release one particularly talented TLK user was already digging into detail mapping, which, as you can see from his screen shots, makes the texture detail very consistent at any distance:

Well another kick ass TLK release - I can't wait to see these features in the Torque community's hands and the awesome projects that are sure to follow. :)

-John Kabus
Blog: Bleeding Edge Indie
Synapse Gaming

Compatibility with non-Torque game engines

I recently received a few inquiries into using Synapse Gaming's Lighting System (featured in the Torque Lighting Kit) in game engines other than Torque. Though the Torque Lighting Kit is not compatible with other engines, its core (the Synapse Gaming Lighting System) is.

As you can imagine we keep internal builds of all Synapse Gaming technology in several engines and on several platforms. And though the inquiries were about our Lighting System, the same goes for all of our technology from the latest shader tech, to in-game tools, to light-weight networking.

Generally the technology is available through our consulting services, however we're always looking for new areas to expand into using our existing engine tech.

-John Kabus

How do you spell efficiency?

As Synapse Gaming grows, its business tools need to grow with it. The most recent incarnation of our tools include a home-brewed Customer Relation Management, Project Management, Issue Tracking, and Sale and Accounting system.

Dissatisfied with the business software currently available, either by lack of features, workflow, or price, I decided to invest a little R&D into researching the ideal workflow for our business. Surprisingly our workflow and needs, though seemingly complex, boiled down to a very compact and efficient system. In the time I set aside for research, I managed to design and develop the system - not bad. :)

Now don't get me wrong; I hate wasting time and money reinventing the wheel, but when faced with either counter-intuitive workflow that actually reduces efficiency or ridiculous prices (most worthwhile business software costs $20K+), the situation was all too clear.

In my approach I broke away from the rather annoying trend in business software of developing tools that are overly modularized into units that should, but rarely do, represent entities or departments in the company. These add unnecessary layers, screens, and functionality to the system in an effort to compensate for the fact the system was designed around the software modules and not the actual workflow of the people using it.

Instead our software is 100% workflow driven, and system navigation was kept to an absolute minimum. Understanding our workflow and needs going into the project meant that the back-end of the system was just as simple and efficient as the front-end, making future upgrades, backups, and replication (if the need arises) a snap.

Anyway there's something to be said about having business tools designed specifically for your company's structure and workflow, and considering the project took less time than most people would spend deciding on a 3rd party vendor, it was well worth it.

-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming

Growth and Adaptation

It's not surprising that growth, especially in a company, requires a little adaptation, and it's always interesting to see how people, processes, and the company itself matures and adapts to fill out the business' roles. In my experience, with the right planning, growth is also relatively painless.

Synapse Gaming's growth over the past year has been amazing to say the least. In that time Synapse Gaming expanded from only offering prepackaged consumer technology into consulting, game design and development, and on into a full-service technology provider.

The result is extremely positive for, what is widely regarded as, already extremely satisfied customers and clients. Synapse Gaming's technological growth across the board means amazing new tools and technology, tighter integration, and even faster implementation time.

So what were my favorite projects over the past year? Honestly it's hard to pick a favorite. The projects were amazing, from revamping Torque's rendering and lighting (based on the already kick ass Torque Lighting Kit!), to being a complete technology service provider working on anything from game play to networking.

Synapse Gaming has also developed awesome new in-house technology thats destined for future projects, including unbelievably fast and tight DTS and interior rendering, a thin and streamlined networking layer, and jaw dropping shader technology thats still under tight wraps. :)

In fact Synapse Gaming's internal Torque builds bear very little resemblance, graphics and performance wise, to the Torque Game Engine or Shader Engine, while still operating the same under the hood, making the whole system 100% familiar and compatible when enhancing existing games and products.

All-in-all it was an exciting year, and next year should prove even more amazing. :)

-John Kabus
Synapse Gaming

Torque Lighting Kit 1.4 is out!

Technically TLK 1.4 has been out for a week, but we decided to go with a quiet soft-launch, only drawing in existing TLK users.

The response was overwhelming; TLK once again took Torque to a whole new level. For those who didn't make it to IGC their first glimpse of the latest TLK was while running it on their PC. Now thats a great feeling, no waiting, just instant gratification. I enjoy releases like these the most. :)

So whats in the latest TLK? More than even I could imagine. Among the usual tweaks and enhancements TLK received a massive upgrade, including:

• Interior detail mapping
• Multiple dynamic DTS shadows
• Mountable lights
• Even faster lighting
• All new documentation and modeling guides
  

Almost immediately we received a ton of positive feedback on the new documentation. Documentation takes a tremendous amount of time, and seeing that effort make such a positive impact, quite frankly, couldn't have made me any happier. :)

To quote a happy customer:

"I would like to give you a virtual pat on the back for TLK1.4. Very good work. The documentation/merge info/release notes are brilliant. I went over all documents and must say, that they are very easy to read and to understand. Even for a non-native speaker.”

Soon after the TLK 1.4 release one particularly talented TLK user was already digging into detail mapping, which, as you can see from his screen shots, makes the texture detail very consistent at any distance:



(For more info on his work check out this GarageGames development shot)

Well another successful product launch. Hopefully in a few weeks I can mention some of the other kick ass projects we're working on... :)

-John Kabus

The Red Green Show's Last Season

Well it looks like the Red Green show finished filming its fifteenth and final season. Fifteen seasons is impressive for any show, let alone a show as quirky and unusual as the Red Green show. Looking back I'm amazed at how fresh and funny the show has remained over the years. I'm also continually amazed at the number of well-know actors that popped-up in the show - some frequently enough to be considered regulars.

As I sit here writing (and watching the Red Green show on DVD) I feel that I really should have seen the show live. Though the show's energy and humor makes you feel right in the audience, I can imagine that being there is even better.

With that I'd like to say thank you and good luck to Steve Smith. I hope that creating and working on the Red Green show was as bright and enjoyable a part of your life as watching it was for me. Good luck "and keep your stick on the ice".

-John Kabus