In this Dev Space we bring you Gabriel Rodríguez-Hernández, but non-Spanish speakers can stick with Cry-Gabo! Gabriel has been in the Audio team for a couple of years now, but he also lends a helping hand to the Sandbox guys when needed.

Name and position

Gabriel Rodriguez Hernandez – Engine Programmer (Audio Team)

Why did you want to work in the games industry and how did you get started?

I’ve always wanted to be involved in science and art, and the games industry is an awesome mix of both worlds. It feels great to be in an environment where I can jump from abstract programming concepts to something like storytelling in the same meeting.

I studied Computer Science in my home town of Caracas in Venezuela, and then went to Scotland to specialize in game development. After doing a couple of internships I landed a full time job in the industry 5 years ago, and I haven’t looked back.

What are you working on at the moment? What's first on your to-do list?

I’m working on a new dialogue system and working on some improvements to the Audio Controls Editor. I’m also helping out with Sandbox and some of the other tools.

What music do you listen to at work?

Well, it varies so much during the day! Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd and Sigur Ros, as they create a great atmosphere for work. If I’m in the mood for electronic music, something like James Blake is good. If a bit stressed I listen a lot to blues or classical. When the time is right, usually Friday afternoon, I go back to my Latin roots and put on some old-school salsa!

What tools are you using at the moment?

Visual Studio 2015 with Visual Assist and Incredibuild for distributed compilation. Notepad++ for editing text data. Agent Ransack for searching files. Beyond Compare for diff/merge.

What types of games do you like, and what is your favorite game of all time?

The first games I played were the old graphic adventure games like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, etc. so those are the ones I always remember most fondly. Nowadays I usually go for RPGs like Dragon Age and some smaller indie games. Sometimes we play Gang Beasts in the office after work with a few beers and snacks, which is always fun

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

When at home I usually like reading, cooking and eating, although the cooking part is not something I often get enough time to do! I like exercising as well, either at the gym or playing squash with some of my friends at Crytek.

On weekends I usually go out with friends for food and drinks, and whenever possible I’ll hop on a train and go on holiday.

Where are you going on your next vacation?

This weekend I might go to Paris to visit family, and over Christmas I hope to go visit a couple of friends in the Netherlands.

Do you have any tips for people wanting to get started in the industry?

For programmers in general, learn C++, and then learn some more! Learn about the STL, learn your data structures (vectors, lists, maps, trees, etc.) and when to use them. Learn to estimate the complexity of your algorithms. Learn how memory works (stack, heap, allocation, etc). Consider getting involved in programming competitions, you’ll learn pretty fast the limits of your algorithms and structures.
In parallel, make a small demo to show off your skills. It doesn’t have to be huge, it just has to be complete and polished. It can be a small game (cloning a simple mechanic is enough) or an implementation of some technique in graphics, physics, audio, AI, etc. Extra points for putting it up on an open source repository! You can even use uni projects as a starting point

Any questions or comments for Gabriel? Come say hi!