April 28, 2022 • 49 mins
Welcome back! This week Jess Brohard and HeyShadyLady are joined by Astrophysicist and Tech Lead for Splash Damage Studios Dr. Kay Ross. The conversation ranges from building the Milky Way in Elite Dangerous to combating sexism across multiple industries. Excellent deep dive all around on this week's Boss LVL!
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Shady. I'm excited to record with you. I haven't got
to record with you so long. I feel like, I
know this is the first episode I think. Yeah, well, literally,
I hadn't been on several episodes. I was like busy
and y'all other hosts were kind of taking it for
a while, which I appreciate. But I'm glad to be
back with you. How has your energy and everything been lately? Uh? No,
(00:24):
I thought i'd be out of seasonal depression by now,
but I'm not. So. Yeah, I feel that I'm really
lug him through. I'm trying. It's like, I mean, I
feel like I've never left the fake it till you
make it mode ever, So it's like going in real
strong right now. Yeah, Iboster syndrome, I think never fully
goes away, does not? Well? Do you want to lead
(00:46):
a center? Do you want me to? Yeah? Sure, I'll
go ahead and take it. Hi. Everyone, welcome to Boss Level.
We are excited to have you here, and I have
a really exciting guest here today. We have Dr k
Ross and Kay I'm hoping me but you can shed
some light on this impostor syndrome. You know that Shady
and I were just talking about because you know, you
(01:06):
are such an accomplished person and I can't believe I'm
talking to an astrophysicist right now, and I think that
hopefully you're going to talk about a lot of stuff
that I don't understand even a little bit. So can you,
first of all please introduce yourself. Hello? That thank you
very much. Yes, my name is Kay online as Dr
k Ross. That that doctorate in physics sist. Indeed, And
(01:29):
I've had a guess a strange trajectory through my career,
like fickle, I guess. Yeah. I started off as a physicist.
It was in a branch of physics called particle physics,
which is if you if you see an LEDC and
so and all that on the news of the last
decade or two, that kind of branch. But I was
(01:50):
out in the US. But about ten years or so
ago I started to take a little side step and
ended up in the games industry. So a lot of
folks on Twitter, if you're following me on Twitter or whatnot,
might know me for my work with Frontier Developments in
Cambridge in the UK, when I was involved in a
game called Elite Dangerous where for some great and wonderful
(02:16):
amount of ambition. We decided to create the entire Milky
Way as a game, so ambitious and that was the word.
And yeah, that that was a very fun time. Then
a few years ago I started streaming as well, and
I'll just keep on doing new stuff and out speaking
of that impostor syndrome, that's that's what I've had all
(02:38):
this entire time, starting on these these fun projects through
science and the games industry and streaming, and currently I'm
ade a different game studio. Have recently in the last
year moved to Splash Damage, where currently work as a
what they called a technical lead. I used to be
a programmer on a dangerous but now I'm a tech
(02:59):
lead and that's looking after all of the other programers
on on a particular project. So no pressure and the
impostor syndrome getting the way. I can't like, I can't believe.
That's like mind blowing that. In some ways that makes
me feel better and in some ways makes me feel
worse that you still have that imposter syndrome because you
(03:19):
can do so much more than I've ever done, like
you are you are a physicist, and then you also
you can program as well, like did you pick that
up on your own? Did you teach yourself how to
become a programmer? It was part of the work in physics. Oh,
I didn't know those were the same thing. I thought
there were two separate things. It's a very very useful tool.
(03:41):
So in particle physics that the branch I was in
dealing with billions upon billions upon billions of events of
collisions between particles and all sorts of things happening with
them and all sorts flying off them. And we've got
to track those things. We've got to identify those things,
found out exactly what happened, and its way too much
to do by hand. So and you come buy your
(04:02):
Microsoft Particle Physics off the shelf. So we need to
make these things ourselves and share them across the science community.
And so yeah, you get a lot of people that
the programming are all sorts of languages and all sorts
of scripting. It's maybe, um in many cases, not quite
up to professional standards of the software in industry. I
(04:26):
mean it's a very cavalier. I have one everyone doing
their own little analysis, but yeah, it really ties in there.
And from that I was able to make the sidestep
that that said, computing and games have been interesting to
us very very small um since starting off in the
first computer, which was a Commodore sixty four in eighties,
eight bit little thinking and that that's starting up with
(04:50):
with what do the college Commodore basics and six more
basic and learning to script from from magazines on that
dating myself. Yeah, but it's also I mean it's also
impressive to hear about like just you learning it yourself.
And and I mean that's wild to me because I
was actually a computer science major, but I was terrible
(05:11):
at like programming, so I can't imagine you know that
being like you're just like, oh yeah, that part that's
just a tool that I used to do this main thing,
which is the physics. But can you tell me about
how you made this giant sidestep, Like had you always
wanted to work in gaming or was that more of
something you kind of stumbled upon? It was always a
side interest, So from doing a little bits of modeling
(05:34):
when I was a students half life in quick maps
and things like that, but the particular studio or went
to the particular project I moved on too. That from
tier developments and the lead dangerous. That was something I
specifically talked after they came forward with the Kickstarter campaign
at the end of two thousand twelve, because that's the
(05:56):
fourth game in their series. The second game in their series,
Frontier Elite to the called it. I had on the
Amiga computer, had an Amega six hundred, and that was
one of the things driving my interest in science at
a young age, and that inspired me so much. It
brought so much wonder um to do with space? What's
(06:18):
up there? What these stars are? Of these these unknowable,
unimaginable things happening, um, the stars being born, the giants, supernova,
black holes, all all these astrophysical things which you don't
have a frame of reference for really as an our
everyday life was there and the little a mega game
(06:40):
on this little three point five inch floppy disk that
that's that's amazing. So that really drove the interest there
in science to learn more and did it through school
and through university and then I guess it was a
little poetic in the end that I was I was
coming to the end of a post stock contract for
for research. I needed to work the find another one
(07:01):
um that was on the last few years and then
I'll be finding a new job of a few years
or so, I can make this step out to the
side to the game's industry, and here is this perfect project.
It is the the reimagining of something which meant a
lot to me as a child, which which got me
into this career and a chance to expand a hobby
(07:23):
for a living and also kind of learned real programming
because all of my physics programming was awful. Yeah, I
was very fortunate. So you just kind of stumbled across
Elite Dangerous as an opportunity. Yeah, yeah, so that's really serendipitous.
That's like the perfect opportunity for you. I think it
(07:46):
was the second time I've applied though, because I don't
wanted it, and they ended reaching out to the CEO
on Twitter saying, hey, would would you take up a physicist?
I'm not really a proper program I would would you? Yeah? Yeah,
go on, go on, go on, applan and yeah. So
when you had joined up, had they already undertaken the
(08:09):
the endeavor to to create the Stellar Forge or was
that something that you came on and said, Hey, wouldn't
be need if we created the Milky Way inside this game?
It was always going to be um a corner, a keystone,
a key pillar, that's sing right phrase of the game.
It was always on the plan and um so I
(08:31):
arrived in April two. Um so it had been undergoing
some development up to that point, and I joined under
the tutelage of the lead program at the time. He
got talent Jeff whose name I unfortunately butchered and I
apologize for that, and also a program called James Potter.
(08:55):
Um I think to an extent, though I forget exactly
how much Jonathan Roach. And it was between all of
us that setting up the systems to create the Stellar Forge. Now,
for those who aren't aware, that is the the engine,
the algorithm, the series of resources and code which procedurally
(09:19):
creates the Milky Way, or at least all the data
to create the game objects from. And so when I
when I got there, there was a concept of what
a star system is just as a container for data.
There wasn't a system for creating those on mass. There
(09:40):
wasn't a system two create the data in a way
which was scientifically plausible or accurate or representative of what
star should be where depending on where the masses, depending
on how all that part of the galaxy is, and
that's the side which I really looked at. So I
was looking after the gener arration of star systems from
(10:03):
based principles of the Milky Way itself, and then James Potter,
because I always like to give credit where credit is
due and never want to say it was all me,
Absolutely not. I was looking at generating what is inside
the star system itself, and Eagle was bossing the entire
thing until he went his own way At some point,
(10:27):
were you expecting to segue your education, um in particle
physics into the video game industry? Well, my plan was
I'll join the industry for a year and I learned
how to program properly, learn how to program efficiently because
a lot of physics code can be a little slow.
And then I'll go back and I'll take back what
(10:47):
I've learned to to research. And then ten years later
and I've still not finished this year in industry. So
you've stepped into streaming now too. Um, what was it
that got you interested in streaming? And what kind of
stuff do you stream? Right? So, when I first started streaming,
(11:09):
it was because I wanted to demonstrate painting. There's something
entirely different from science and programming. Paint currently paintings for
a hobby, they're not very good. The very amateur always
like to share the process of it. Landscapes cool, Yeah,
(11:30):
there's just whatever friend of using at the time, the
opposite side of your brain. Yeah. That that one painting,
for example, was I wanted to do one for a
friend as I thank you, what do you want? Oh,
something regarding Carl McLaughlin, who was an actor, been a
whole bunch of David Lit films. So I ended up
painting a scene from the film June, so that had
(11:53):
a recent reboot as well, but instead of sand worms
because it features sand worms and replace them with with
giant ferrets. That's what popped into mind for for some reason.
So that's what I painted. And then then the job
is getting that on the canvas before we get bored
and move onto the next thing. Anyway, Yes, I moved
(12:16):
on to streaming because I wanted to show some the
process of doing it, and that started off with trying
to record it with a horrible shoulder mounted camera which
looked like torture device from the eight hundreds, and that
that wasn't very good. Um, and then moved on to
two games because a few people were doing it, just
wanted to find out how that worked. But then I
(12:38):
just kind of abandoned it for a few years. I'm busy,
busy with other stuff with with the day job. And
then of course two thousand and twenty happened and I
needed to find a different hobby because I couldn't get
outside as much due to the global conditions. Um um, yeah,
I just started doing some games. I was inspired a
(12:59):
little bit by I want to give shout out here
to arthemis, a friend of mine who worked with me
at Frontier who left and started streaming full time following
following her dreams as well, and that was inspiring and
I wanted to give it a go as well, and
that's how that started. Just kind of started steamrolling a
(13:21):
little bit. I guess. I was also lucky that because
I've done some streaming with Frontier just to promote the
game or talk about the game a little bit, and
so some people who followed the game followed me onto
Twitch as well, and that was very kind of them.
It's not like I've ever had a massive, huge partnership
(13:43):
level orders. I don't know, but I'm very very very
thankful for those who did that. The communities on Twitch
have been very welcoming and very understanding and incredibly wholesome
if you can on a good corner. Has really kept
me going the last few years, and I can't thank
people enough for the help for me's getting streaming and
(14:05):
also for being that I'm chatting to me to it.
That's really got me through these last few years. So well,
it's a very unique space that you would occupy. Um,
I mean definitely like a woman in this industry, but
bringing in the physics, like the science level of it.
I know that that. I'm sure there's probably a lot
you could talk about, just like being a woman in
(14:26):
science as well, and like the science industry and uh so,
um yeah, I don't know, kind of like the the
I want to use the phrase odd man out, but
it's the opposite, the odd woman out in those kinds
of spaces. But um, that would I think inspire a
lot of people. And I know that I've got a
friend who was obsessed obsessed with a late agerous but
they're also in school for like astronomy or astrophysics. I'm
(14:48):
not sure exactly what their major is, but um, that
I can't tell you how many times that that they're
like booting up the Discord video Share to be like,
look at this star I just found. I gotta show
you like the I I don't think I understood like
the depth of the game until I really watched them,
like take me through and show me like I believe
that they said that that it's accurate the distance and
(15:09):
the travel, like to get from one start to the other,
like like it's how I mean, I don't know if
you can existinctly explain this, but how did you all
map the Milky Way Galaxy into a video game? Like
how is that even possible? Mm hmm. That's a very
very very good question. Now I want to caveat that
in that whilst we made everything to scale, we don't
(15:31):
let you just fly slowly from one start to the next,
because that we thought who would want to do that? Then,
of course we re leased some people trying to do it.
The only thing stopping it is some under the herd
code glue to unload things unload in the next things.
But I can't comment on things which should have been
(15:53):
done and didn't go in the game. Anyway, The question
is how do we make a galaxy, and it is
a good one. I start off with a series of
textures of pictures of the Milky Way, just so looking
at the distribution of where things will turn up right,
and I've got a picture for where things are, got
(16:13):
a picture for roughly how old that area is. Because
you've got you've got you your spiral arms, you've got
the gaps in between, you've got the bulge at the
center of the galaxy, and you get different populations of
stars and different areas typically, so I can cheat and
draw those out beforehand. And now once we know where
(16:35):
stuff is, because we're just we're just mapping stuff at
the moment, not individual stars. It's just stuff. Once be
a worse stuff is, and how old stuff is, we
can start going, okay, in this cube of space, how
many with amoutter stuff we have? How much could clump
into what things in what distribution? And that is handled
(16:58):
in what we call an oct tree, the seven eight
layer octuring. So we've got a very large cube and
inside it are eight smaller cubes. Inside each of the
smaller cubes are eight small cubes. In each layer is
looking after a different range of size of things, which
can generate so you get the right distribution of sizes
(17:21):
of stars. So you get the really really huge ones,
but there's only a few of them and they're very
far between. And then they really really really tiny ones,
but there's loads of them and they well packed him.
And we can tune um how we distribute mass between
the layers so that things turn out how we expect
depending on mathematical models and what's in papers. I looked
at so many, so many PDFs of papers during that year.
(17:45):
So what we end up with there's a whole bunch
of points of here's something with this much mass, and
it is here, and it is also this hold. And
there's a relationship between a massive a star and how
long it takes to form and how long it will
live and what it will what will happen to it
in the end and at what point, So we can
(18:07):
we can know then if it's a forming star, if
it's a main sequence so it's in its middle age,
you know, if it's a stellar remnant, if it's died.
You know, if it's a white dwarf for a puls
star or a black hole. So we get that main
information about what the main star is that and we
also have some information about how much masses left over,
and that's what I can feed to James Potter to say, okay,
you've got this much, you go out and make all
(18:29):
of the gas chiants and the and the where the
planets are now, So in this game, does does everything? Um? Uh?
Is there? Time? Does it expand? Is there? And also
it's like does your spaceship get sucked into the gravity
of certain things if you get too close to it?
Does it function I guess in other words? Or is
it static instead just stands still? So in this game
(18:51):
it is static for the type of experience, the type
of flight, that's the designers wanted. Now, as a little segue,
a little history lesson that. The first game, Elite was
quite arcady in its field. It was made for eight
bit computers a BBC micro and the hand up down, role,
(19:12):
left role light right and it's not too scientifically accurate
like that. But then the second game from Tiorly two
did a lot more. The simulation. It was all Newtonian gravity,
so you could fall into gravity worlds. You had to
have the correct speeds and whatnot. It was great. I
loved it. That's my favorite games of all time, but
it's a very different experience is much harder to get into.
(19:34):
When Elite Dangerous came along the fourth game, it was
to be a rebirth of reimagining of the first game,
so the flight was made a lot more accessible and
that's why, um, navigating gravity wells isn't part of that
gameplay loop. Cool. I'm a huge, huge, huge day and
(19:56):
I just like discussing space theory and like how how
everything is formed? Like I'm even like I want to
ask about do you think that how do you think
the moon was made? So, like before I dig too
deep with you on this, or let's let's take a
moment and pause for an ad break really quick. Okay,
(20:16):
welcome back everybody, UM, and thank you so much Dr
K for being here and chatting with us today about
your experience in the industry. UM, I think I'd like
to touch in a little bit with you on how
how you've kind of navigated both of these industries UM
as a woman or if that's impacted you at all, UM,
and what your kind of thoughts are around that. Absolutely
(20:39):
so for uh letting the audience who mind not necessarily
know me know my experience in the science industry in
research since not an industry is somewhat different man, because
I am a trans woman and I didn't come out
until I was in the games industry, so my experience
(21:00):
of science was as a closeted person in that respect.
And many would think that it is a very understanding
and open and good place to be for that, but
it's not perfect. I mean, at the end of the
(21:21):
day or all, these people are individuals with their own
individual upbringings and viewpoints and whatnot, and being amongst nerds
and geeks and science speaks doesn't necessarily mean everyone's going
to be as open minded. Not on the whole, lovely people,
but there's also in physics itself a strong sense that
(21:46):
this is this is the old boys club, and after
work they go to the old old That that sounds
very ages. That there's a thing over here in the
UK called old Man's Pub, And I don't know if
there's the same, say where you are, Yeah, I mean
I like an old boys club, Like I I can
I can see how what with sound ages, But it's
really just like the seniority. They've been here forever, so
(22:08):
they'll always be here. Yeah, it's expected that you go
that it's expected that you be uh laddish and you
drink ale and it's just expected. If you don't do that,
you're you're not included. And a very big part of
any workforce or um field you might find in is
(22:29):
that social aspect of that's collaboration, that working with people,
and that can become harder if you don't have the
same social aspects as the others. And yeah, I did
struggle a little bit in science from that point of view.
There's also in physics there's a lot of groups trying
to push advocacy for for for women in physics and
(22:51):
ensuring that voices are heard and ensuring that um the
opportunities are there, and that's UM cultures to the side
of the main academics are you're looking at our not
repressive or in the way, And there is sadly sometimes
not an understanding about why those groups exist, like, oh,
(23:14):
this this is all just maths. Why should we need
to care about that? We don't, We don't care about
the social note it all has an impact or all
this working environment can really impact all of your coworkers,
who feels welcome there, who feels encouraged to be there,
So I'm very glad to see these groups running. Um,
there's still work to go on the other side. On
(23:38):
in the game's industry. For me personally, from what I've seen,
has been absolutely amazing so far, so supportive in terms
of transition of lgbt q I A plus rights all
of that. I know there are difficulties in some places,
in some companies. I've really looked out there between Frontier
Developments and Splash Damage not to after me very well,
(24:01):
and that sense of collaboration, of that acceptance and of hey,
however you are, however you need to be fantastic, let's
all be friends, let's work on something cool together. That's yeah,
it's very encouraging. And if anyone's worried about joining this
industry um due to those things, UM, I wouldn't say,
(24:22):
don't worry, but I will say, do you research, ask people.
The good companies are out there for that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
At the end of the day, it is, you know,
an unfortunate fact that we're not going to get along
with everybody. UM. But I in my experience, I find
that the game industry has I think come a long
(24:45):
way since you know, ten or fifteen years ago. Kay,
do you feel that in either um, you know, I
know you said science isn't really an industry, but let's
call it the research industry, or in the games industry,
do you ever find that, um, your maybe knowledge or
expert tease comes into question, like because of being a
woman as compared to some of your male colleagues. You know,
(25:06):
whether it's whether it's um like you can tell someone
maybe doesn't think you know what you're talking about, or
maybe something even more over it than that. In physics, definitely,
I was thinking of this the other the other day,
and when I was over in Finmary Lab, it was
the research place the lab site was based and on
(25:28):
the experiment I was on, there'd be weekly meetings at
least in your department and you go and someone give
their updates for the week, and everyone would judge or
office support and whatnot. And I was always wazy from
some certain people. Some they want to be competitive now,
they want to be macho, and if you couldn't argue
(25:50):
in that slightly aggressive tone that they took that there
would become very dismissive. So for the people trying to
be more constructive of all polite on my side, So
it wasn't always the easiest. There can be a difference
in communication styles. I found a lot of ways in like,
(26:11):
you know, personally, I choose to spend time around a
lot of people that are very like polite, they don't
interrupt or talk over each other. And you know that
is that is not my experience with everyone, but that's
that's my experience as those who I choose to spend
my time with the last. Personally, Like in my early
twenties when I was I like, I spent a lot
of time in the metal scene music um and uh um.
(26:32):
It took me and I was younger, so it took
me a while. I remember vividly when I realized that
I was surrounded by by I mean, it was mostly
a male dominated space, and I vividly remember this this
moment of they don't respect me, um, and and it
not because anybody said anything. We were all standing around
a table and it was like a whole circle, maybe
(26:54):
like eight people around one individual table, like a little
you know, and everyone was just like like loud and
clattered and like talking. And I remember trying to jump
into the conversation multiple times and just being cut off
and talked over, cut off and talked over and and
I I remember just kind of stepping back, like the
fourth or fifth, or sixth or tenth time it happened,
and just kind of watching the conversation continue and nobody
(27:17):
looking to me, nobody checking in, nobody being like, oh,
did you want to finish what you were saying or
did you want to sorry I interrupted you did you
want to say? And it was just this vivid realization
of I will never fight to be heard ever again.
I will never beg I will never and I'm certainly
not going to be the person that throws a hissy
fit over here because I keep getting interrupted, because that's
(27:38):
just gonna make this even worse. It's gonna make me
look even weaker that I have to like beg for
that space, you know what I mean. I I vividly
remember that. And then there was a follow up moment
to that where I had asked a question to one
individual and they turned and made direct eye contact with
the other man in the conversation and answer the question
to that person, and I was just I was like,
(27:58):
I'm I'm checking out. I'm not. I'm not. And the
thing about these people is that they were like by
all intense purposes. My friends like like what I felt
like nice lovely people, but it was this this over
overt expression. It was like a like a culture. You know.
It wasn't anything that they were individually doing, it was
it was collectively that it was just happening and it
(28:21):
was just like I vividly remember it. So like, it's
to me very stressful and angering to be in spaces
like that, and so whenever I find myself in them,
I just dip out and I go back to my
little corner and um like, people can come to me
if they want to, but I'm not going to fight
my way into this. And maybe that's the wrong take.
Maybe we should be fighting our way into it. But
(28:41):
it's so exhausting to me, and it it really bad
for my blood pressure too, So yes that you mentioned it.
That is UM an issue when it comes to meetings
and in the game's industry, there are a lot of meetings,
so many meetings, and it is hard to UM sometimes
(29:04):
get your voice heard because a lot of the others
do like to speak over they're like, and I comes in,
they'll start speaking. Doesn't matter if you're finished or art,
doesn't matter if you're trying to say something that there's
often not anyone taking any note to you, going oh yeah,
just ignore that. It's where that like Marco Field comes
(29:26):
in that you were talking about, where they're just trying
to like flex on each other and yeah, like verbal flexing,
and it's like, can you'll stop this said with the
last couple of years and teams calls for meetings now
or selat calls and they delay that you can get
sometimes some Sometimes I start talking and someone else has
(29:49):
but it's not purpose because it's been and I feel
so bad and I shouldn't do but I do. I
feel so bad. Well, that's just good courtesy careful people.
Oh so, yeah, you mentioned that you were really into
science since you were younger, Um, and so when you
went into school, was it with the intention of learning
(30:10):
science or what did Maybe maybe the way I want
to phrase this question is when you were that kid
playing playing the floppys game that you were talking about earlier,
and you were imagining what you were going to be
when you grew up, what what was that going to be?
And how does that differ from where you are now?
Oh God, that's a good question. I've got to go
remember stuff from an embarrassing number of years ago. Um,
(30:34):
I knew I wanted to be in science and I
wanted to be a researcher and a lecturer. M Yeah,
when I was checking out the high schools for some
reason that yes, they do open days at high schools.
Between primary school and secondary school, we call him high school.
I know in high school in some areas that's for
certain major Rangesn't that rather than the entire thing? Um? So,
(31:00):
between ages of ten and eleven, we we changed from
a primary school to a secondary school and we get
to go see open days, go to the one that
we want, hopefully if we can. And I was asking
questions of the science teacher, like okay, so I know
what happens if you if you split the atom. We're
seeing the picture rubs if you crush an atom, which
doesn't make sense. But to a ten year old thinking, okay,
(31:23):
well if that's that, what's that? Then what's that? And
I wanted to know all the details. I wanted to
know how the world works and how the universe works,
and and why and why. And that's that's what went on.
That's what drove me, and that's what ended up with
me applying to physics at university. It was going to
be between physics and art, and I'm glad on physics
(31:44):
in the end because I'd rather do one as a
hobby on the side rather than having to write essays
about it. So yeah, well we worked out. But that's
great that you you know, you were mentioning earlier that
you stream like painting, So that's great that you still
get to do that art as a hobby instead of
as a career. And I wonder, you know, had things
gone differently and you decided maybe you'll try to do
(32:06):
art as a career versus doing and then do you
know kind of physics and programming as a hobby, Like,
how do you think, you know, how do you think
that would have worked out? Oh? I sit here wistfully
thinking sometimes how great would it be just to do
that for a living? And well, I know some good
friends who have managed to do that, and the fantastic
artists and I'm so so jelly of them. Um. And
(32:29):
then the kind of things they can do. Um. I
don't think I've been able to see it through, but
I have. I have a problem when it comes to
painting in that I've got to get it done before
I get distracted and I get bored of it or
again a little fed up with it. So yeah, I
probably wouldn't have worked out for me. UM. So on
(32:52):
your route to where you are now, have you had
any major failures that you learned something from? Oh, many, many, many,
many many failures. But that is how we learn and
that's how we grow. If we if we never got
anything wrong, we wouldn't find new things. We wouldn't be
(33:12):
able to adapt. And it's wanted me as interesting. But
this is we had living whilst trying to think of
a particularly I guess in terms of mistakes. I guess
in terms of didn't go quite well. Things to learn
from it, The constructive, the managerial way of putting it is, UM,
(33:36):
I'll go back to working on Elite Dangerous again. I'll
try very hard not to give away company secrets and
details and what very strict horn of that. UM. But
the mistake or the thing to learn from was my
approach to UM getting things correct or getting things right,
or getting my interpretation being the one that was taken
(33:58):
into the game. And I started off with the impression thinking, Okay,
I've got to be the spokesperson for science. I've got
to be the driving forceful that I've got to be
the one fighting as hard as the other one other
people that are fighting, and it was exhausting. It was exhausting.
All it did was cause some conflict between people who
(34:20):
also thought they had the mandate to be in charge
of this part or this part, and that causes friction
and it doesn't cause solutions, and it just made me
very stressed out. I was trying to keep up that
that fight because I thought, if I don't know who
will um, So fast forward a few years trying to
learn from that, and that is, okay, let's look at
(34:42):
what areas I I do have control over areas other
people think they have control over. Let's let's give way,
let's let them do their saying, let's just do our
side of it. And of course, without enough guidance, things
kind of spiraled a little bit out of trolled that
way and then just cause a lot of stress against
(35:03):
things weren't working, and too much to catch up on,
and lots of over time because people kept asking for things,
masking for things, and so in trying to be too capitulant.
Is that is that a word that just replaced the scares.
(35:26):
So it's it's not a straight line from problem to solution.
It's spirals around what is the right approach? How much
should you fight a corner? How much energy do you
want to put into a thing. And it's, as I said,
I don't have an answer for it. It's it's everyone's individual.
As we said a little earlier, each each case is
(35:48):
a little bit individual. How do you forge a pass
in such a large collaborative industry, in the large project
so that stress and friction is minimized. And I'm still
learning that every um conflict or every new feature, it's
it's an and another bit of experience that I relate
(36:12):
to that a lot. I feel like, I'm all it's
like a see saw and I'm trying to get it
to to to be a straight plank, and I'm like
a little bit more weight to the right, and then
I'm like lifted up too far. So it's add a
little bit, take a little bit away. It's also like
a like a soup, like you've put one spice in
and now you're trying to taper the other spice out
by adding these different spices until you get the perfect flavor.
And it feels like you can never get the perfect flavor.
(36:34):
You're always adding too much of one spice to to
counteract the other one or something. It's it's frustrating to
say the least. But I feel like that's like part
of the whole story of life too, is just trying
like we're all individually trying to find our own like
space of balance in that. But um, but yeah, thank
you so much for your answer so far. I think
that's gotten us to a good spot and we've completed
(36:57):
another another level. So we'll take a safe it here
and here another word from one of our sponsors. All right,
welcome back everybody, Thank you so much. Dr k Ross
is here with us, UM chatting about her experience in
the research industry. I probably called it the science industry earlier,
(37:17):
and you know, I'm trying to sound smart, and uh,
I also thought it was I thought of an industry.
I thought just there was. I mean, it makes sense, yeah, scientists,
you work in the science industry, like um, there are
signs of it which are very industrialized that there are
some universities who have an entire science business for the
science department of Okay, we'll make these kind of instruments
(37:40):
for you, and market demand these kind of things for you.
There are some rather commercialized signs of it, um, though
thankfully it was never a part of that I'm not good.
Yeah yeah, um. Okay, So we talked a little bit
about some of the mistakes that you've made along your path.
But what would you say are some of your favorite
moments in your career so far? Oh? In two thousand seventeen,
(38:09):
Frontier decided to put on an expot for the projects
it was doing. The Adams it was it was doing
for for the game, and they saiday, do you want
to give a talk? Sure? Sure, I'll give a little
talk on still a Forge and I'll be up on
the side stage, not the main ones, just a small
room and the few people who turn up would be
(38:31):
interested in the science part will come along and we'll
have a few questions, and yeah, that would be nice
because I like to interact with people who um playing
the game, enjoying it, talking about science, because that's what
I'm here for, like the science. And they ended up
being that's that's a side roombot packed out, and those
cueues out in the corridor and there's people being to
(38:53):
get in that sounds all very full of hubrews from
me that, but that was incredibly humbling. UM really demonstrated
to me that those things that I was interested in,
those things which UM influenced me as a child and
got me interested in in the universe itself. But that's
still happening, and I have the privilege working on a
(39:15):
project for that, and it was wonderful to be a
part of that. That's cool. And then I guess that
kind of ful feels your your childhood ambition of like
lecturing and stuff, So that's that's awesome. I was also
thinking about that a bit with your your streaming because
when I was younger, I learned to be a teacher.
Growing up and doing internet like YouTube and stuff has
(39:37):
been like a very interesting way to teach without being
part of the education which I'm not a big fan of.
Foot I am a fan of education, but education system
looking like I do probably not going to work out
very well. But so you are here on the Boss
Level podcast and we do like to ask what does
it mean to be boss level to you or to
(40:00):
be level? To be boss level is UM totally not
just making this up on the fly. To be boss
level is to realize that you don't need to be
playing someone else's game. To be boss level is to
(40:21):
realize what it is you want, what interests you, and
just chase after it for the sake of that and
to be your own person, forge your own path best
you can. That is an excellent answer. You don't have
to be there somebody else's game. Yeah, that like honestly
blew my mind, Like I never that's that's so incredibly
helpful to me. Thank you for sharing that like insight
(40:41):
with us. That like really struck me in a way
that I that moved a puzzle piece into space, into
a spot in my head that I had been like
looking for that piece forever. And it's like oh wow, okay, yeah, same,
that did something in my brain that I really like, Wow,
you don't have to be playing someone else's game. It's
really easy to find yourself doing And this like new
age Internet entertainment industry to we all get wrapped up
(41:05):
in like group think and it's some it's a lot
like that that scenario is talking about, where like it
wasn't the individuals that we're talking over me, it was
some like overarching system we were all partaking in and
we didn't even realize it. And it's the same like
we're all just kind of playing a big game and
we don't even realize it. Um. And I haven't noticed
until I've stepped back recently and just kind of like
(41:25):
went from active participant to observer. It's like, what are
y'all doing? What are we doing? Um? But yeah, UM,
so you stream um on twitch and uh, we've talked
a little bit about your painting. Is it only painting
that you do? Or do you stream video games? And
do you have a favorite game? I do stream games.
(41:46):
I mostly stream games now I've got the EASIL set
up on the side. I'm very ashamed to say it
doesn't get it as much most long games at the
moment now, my favorite game, at least favorite games streamed
was something who you had the narrative designer of? Was
it for for the last week's UM or one of
(42:09):
the previous weeks? And that is out of wild And
I never thought I'd find a game which impacted me
so deeply and so totally. It's not and I don't
want to say too much about it because saying anything
is spoiling things in this particular case. But to while
you all out there. If you're listening, if you're not
played out Wild yet, go give it a shot. It's
(42:32):
it's a it's a mystery game, it's a space game.
It's so full of heart, and we'll get you thinking
by the end for absolute sure. Okay, that's so fun.
Because Kelsey Beacham was actually our last guest. I mean,
I don't know if when what I ordered these are
releasing into the last episode that we recorded, Kelsey Beacham
(42:52):
was our was our guest that we interviewed, very curious
about the about this game too. So I was just
listening to that last episode before we started today. Oh
so you already know? Yeah, ok, what is what's next
for you? You've had this, you know, awesome career and
it kind of sounds like you have gone in a
(43:13):
couple of different directions. Do you see yourself following the
path that you're on right now for a while or
do you see yourself maybe taking something else if it
comes along. Yeah, that is a good question. So last
year I finally quit Frontier. By the time I quit,
I was a principal render programmer and in charge of
(43:34):
a but just sell afford stuff and whatnot. But it
was somewhat pigeonholed into being that programmer on that system.
Taking a step back and like, what does I really
want to be doing now that The answer to that is, oh, yeah,
I kind of want to be a U a game director.
I want to take a concept for a game, run
(43:55):
with it, make it as personalized as I can. But
that can be dangerous, not dangerous, it could be difficult,
very different, but difficult in a large company. And so
I started having a look around. Now I didn't just
fall into that entirely separate discipline, no no, but I
did find something which was kind of the path on that,
(44:17):
which is this this technical lead just looking after all
the programmers on the project, but also being a part
of a project leadership team and offering ideas. And I
like to see myself as a employee of a project,
not as an employee of a discipline. And I'll try
to work like that. So that that is what I'm
working on at the moment there In terms of long
(44:40):
term goals, if I'm staying in games, it is that, Yeah,
I want to take an idea, I want to take
a concept and run with it, and yeah, see if
I can direct it. But that's not likely to be
in the immediate future. Goals are good something to strive towards. Um,
and I have one more questioned like that. I love
to ask everybody this, but, um, if you can imagine
(45:03):
a little fifteen year old Dr k Ross and you
could give yourself any advice from where you're standing now,
what what would you tell yourself now? If it's the
fifteen year old Dr King, I would say, yes, you're
in your first band and it sucks, but stay with
it because it's fun and you'll miss it. What kind
(45:24):
of music tells you that's so fun? Oh, that's the
first band where it was called Jim after the school
bus driver. Was playing some pop punk covers. Pop punk
that is my favorite genre. We had two guitarists and
a drummer. The drummer was the singer if I remember
(45:46):
as well and say no base. So it wasn't the best,
but it was fun understanding music. But otherwise I'd be saying, um,
just be you. What you think is you, Just just
be you. Don't worry about being wrong. You are you
and that is correct. M that's beautiful. Okay, Well, where
(46:08):
can our audience find you all across the interwebs, and
do you have any upcoming events or speaking opportunities or
anything you want to let anyone know about. Sure? Sure,
So across Instagram and Twitter and on Twitch, i am
dr k Ross that is d r K A Y
R O S S. In terms of a schedule, I
(46:30):
don't have a good one at the moment. I've become
very relax and unprofessional. Um, but I'm streaming roughly once
a week at a weekend, and in terms of upcoming
appointments and whatnot, this is hard off the press. I'm
not tolding on even on Twitter yet, but I'll be
trying to do some charity streams next months for the
(46:51):
Samaritans that they're doing a big fundraising drive and I've
been I've had the honor of being asked to help
out with that. So the space and let's see what
I come up with. That's super cool. Um, well, Jess,
do you wanna let it know where where you are
and what you got coming up? Yeah? So, um, I
am at Jess Brohard on Twitter and Instagram and those
(47:15):
are really only places I'm currently kind of publicly active
and like working away at my day job at Gamers
Outreach lately and not doing too much in the way
of creating content, but if you want to follow me,
that's where I am. Um. I saw you've been doing
a bunch of stuff with hockey lately too, right, Yes,
I have. I've been playing hockey. I'm taking a class
on how to play hockey, and it has been insanely fun.
(47:38):
It is so hard, but the great thing about hockey
is that like, you will fall, but that's your padded
up it doesn't hurt. It's kind of fun to fall.
You fall, It's like a little bonus. It's been so
inspiring watching your updates on Twitter, I'm like, oh my god,
I want to go do something like sporty and cool.
What seems so fun doing It's so scary to step
outside your comfort zone, but it's so fun. And then
(48:01):
I'm Hey Shady Lady. I'm Hey Shady Lady across all
the platforms Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, And I guess the
most like upcoming thing I have is I've been revamping
my website, Um, Hey Shady Lady dot com. I'm really
excited about it. And I've been working on a like
a Tarot educational series where I'm deep diving all of
the esoteric symbolism in every single tarot card and like,
(48:23):
so we're going deep into mythology and and history and
all kinds of stuff. It's uh, it's definitely intense, but
it's been a lot of fun. And that's probably a
project I'm looking to to take on for the next
couple of years. It's taking me two or three weeks
per card, and there's seventy eight cards in a tarot deck,
so it's it's a long project. But but yeah, that's
that's what I got going on. So um, yeah, and
(48:45):
I guess that's gonna wrap our episode up. Again. Thank
you so much as Dr k Ross for your time
and your energy and sharing your journey with us here. Uh,
it has been an absolute pleasure. Um and I guess
we will see you on the next episode of Boss Level.
By everybody say
Shady. I'm excited to record with you. I haven't got
to record with you so long. I feel like, I
know this is the first episode I think. Yeah, well, literally,
I hadn't been on several episodes. I was like busy
and y'all other hosts were kind of taking it for
a while, which I appreciate. But I'm glad to be
back with you. How has your energy and everything been lately? Uh? No,
(00:24):
I thought i'd be out of seasonal depression by now,
but I'm not. So. Yeah, I feel that I'm really
lug him through. I'm trying. It's like, I mean, I
feel like I've never left the fake it till you
make it mode ever, So it's like going in real
strong right now. Yeah, Iboster syndrome, I think never fully
goes away, does not? Well? Do you want to lead
(00:46):
a center? Do you want me to? Yeah? Sure, I'll
go ahead and take it. Hi. Everyone, welcome to Boss Level.
We are excited to have you here, and I have
a really exciting guest here today. We have Dr k
Ross and Kay I'm hoping me but you can shed
some light on this impostor syndrome. You know that Shady
and I were just talking about because you know, you
(01:06):
are such an accomplished person and I can't believe I'm
talking to an astrophysicist right now, and I think that
hopefully you're going to talk about a lot of stuff
that I don't understand even a little bit. So can you,
first of all please introduce yourself. Hello? That thank you
very much. Yes, my name is Kay online as Dr
k Ross. That that doctorate in physics sist. Indeed, And
(01:29):
I've had a guess a strange trajectory through my career,
like fickle, I guess. Yeah. I started off as a physicist.
It was in a branch of physics called particle physics,
which is if you if you see an LEDC and
so and all that on the news of the last
decade or two, that kind of branch. But I was
(01:50):
out in the US. But about ten years or so
ago I started to take a little side step and
ended up in the games industry. So a lot of
folks on Twitter, if you're following me on Twitter or whatnot,
might know me for my work with Frontier Developments in
Cambridge in the UK, when I was involved in a
game called Elite Dangerous where for some great and wonderful
(02:16):
amount of ambition. We decided to create the entire Milky
Way as a game, so ambitious and that was the word.
And yeah, that that was a very fun time. Then
a few years ago I started streaming as well, and
I'll just keep on doing new stuff and out speaking
of that impostor syndrome, that's that's what I've had all
(02:38):
this entire time, starting on these these fun projects through
science and the games industry and streaming, and currently I'm
ade a different game studio. Have recently in the last
year moved to Splash Damage, where currently work as a
what they called a technical lead. I used to be
a programmer on a dangerous but now I'm a tech
(02:59):
lead and that's looking after all of the other programers
on on a particular project. So no pressure and the
impostor syndrome getting the way. I can't like, I can't believe.
That's like mind blowing that. In some ways that makes
me feel better and in some ways makes me feel
worse that you still have that imposter syndrome because you
(03:19):
can do so much more than I've ever done, like
you are you are a physicist, and then you also
you can program as well, like did you pick that
up on your own? Did you teach yourself how to
become a programmer? It was part of the work in physics. Oh,
I didn't know those were the same thing. I thought
there were two separate things. It's a very very useful tool.
(03:41):
So in particle physics that the branch I was in
dealing with billions upon billions upon billions of events of
collisions between particles and all sorts of things happening with
them and all sorts flying off them. And we've got
to track those things. We've got to identify those things,
found out exactly what happened, and its way too much
to do by hand. So and you come buy your
(04:02):
Microsoft Particle Physics off the shelf. So we need to
make these things ourselves and share them across the science community.
And so yeah, you get a lot of people that
the programming are all sorts of languages and all sorts
of scripting. It's maybe, um in many cases, not quite
up to professional standards of the software in industry. I
(04:26):
mean it's a very cavalier. I have one everyone doing
their own little analysis, but yeah, it really ties in there.
And from that I was able to make the sidestep
that that said, computing and games have been interesting to
us very very small um since starting off in the
first computer, which was a Commodore sixty four in eighties,
eight bit little thinking and that that's starting up with
(04:50):
with what do the college Commodore basics and six more
basic and learning to script from from magazines on that
dating myself. Yeah, but it's also I mean it's also
impressive to hear about like just you learning it yourself.
And and I mean that's wild to me because I
was actually a computer science major, but I was terrible
(05:11):
at like programming, so I can't imagine you know that
being like you're just like, oh yeah, that part that's
just a tool that I used to do this main thing,
which is the physics. But can you tell me about
how you made this giant sidestep, Like had you always
wanted to work in gaming or was that more of
something you kind of stumbled upon? It was always a
side interest, So from doing a little bits of modeling
(05:34):
when I was a students half life in quick maps
and things like that, but the particular studio or went
to the particular project I moved on too. That from
tier developments and the lead dangerous. That was something I
specifically talked after they came forward with the Kickstarter campaign
at the end of two thousand twelve, because that's the
(05:56):
fourth game in their series. The second game in their series,
Frontier Elite to the called it. I had on the
Amiga computer, had an Amega six hundred, and that was
one of the things driving my interest in science at
a young age, and that inspired me so much. It
brought so much wonder um to do with space? What's
(06:18):
up there? What these stars are? Of these these unknowable,
unimaginable things happening, um, the stars being born, the giants, supernova,
black holes, all all these astrophysical things which you don't
have a frame of reference for really as an our
everyday life was there and the little a mega game
(06:40):
on this little three point five inch floppy disk that
that's that's amazing. So that really drove the interest there
in science to learn more and did it through school
and through university and then I guess it was a
little poetic in the end that I was I was
coming to the end of a post stock contract for
for research. I needed to work the find another one
(07:01):
um that was on the last few years and then
I'll be finding a new job of a few years
or so, I can make this step out to the
side to the game's industry, and here is this perfect project.
It is the the reimagining of something which meant a
lot to me as a child, which which got me
into this career and a chance to expand a hobby
(07:23):
for a living and also kind of learned real programming
because all of my physics programming was awful. Yeah, I
was very fortunate. So you just kind of stumbled across
Elite Dangerous as an opportunity. Yeah, yeah, so that's really serendipitous.
That's like the perfect opportunity for you. I think it
(07:46):
was the second time I've applied though, because I don't
wanted it, and they ended reaching out to the CEO
on Twitter saying, hey, would would you take up a physicist?
I'm not really a proper program I would would you? Yeah? Yeah,
go on, go on, go on, applan and yeah. So
when you had joined up, had they already undertaken the
(08:09):
the endeavor to to create the Stellar Forge or was
that something that you came on and said, Hey, wouldn't
be need if we created the Milky Way inside this game?
It was always going to be um a corner, a keystone,
a key pillar, that's sing right phrase of the game.
It was always on the plan and um so I
(08:31):
arrived in April two. Um so it had been undergoing
some development up to that point, and I joined under
the tutelage of the lead program at the time. He
got talent Jeff whose name I unfortunately butchered and I
apologize for that, and also a program called James Potter.
(08:55):
Um I think to an extent, though I forget exactly
how much Jonathan Roach. And it was between all of
us that setting up the systems to create the Stellar Forge. Now,
for those who aren't aware, that is the the engine,
the algorithm, the series of resources and code which procedurally
(09:19):
creates the Milky Way, or at least all the data
to create the game objects from. And so when I
when I got there, there was a concept of what
a star system is just as a container for data.
There wasn't a system for creating those on mass. There
(09:40):
wasn't a system two create the data in a way
which was scientifically plausible or accurate or representative of what
star should be where depending on where the masses, depending
on how all that part of the galaxy is, and
that's the side which I really looked at. So I
was looking after the gener arration of star systems from
(10:03):
based principles of the Milky Way itself, and then James Potter,
because I always like to give credit where credit is
due and never want to say it was all me,
Absolutely not. I was looking at generating what is inside
the star system itself, and Eagle was bossing the entire
thing until he went his own way At some point,
(10:27):
were you expecting to segue your education, um in particle
physics into the video game industry? Well, my plan was
I'll join the industry for a year and I learned
how to program properly, learn how to program efficiently because
a lot of physics code can be a little slow.
And then I'll go back and I'll take back what
(10:47):
I've learned to to research. And then ten years later
and I've still not finished this year in industry. So
you've stepped into streaming now too. Um, what was it
that got you interested in streaming? And what kind of
stuff do you stream? Right? So, when I first started streaming,
(11:09):
it was because I wanted to demonstrate painting. There's something
entirely different from science and programming. Paint currently paintings for
a hobby, they're not very good. The very amateur always
like to share the process of it. Landscapes cool, Yeah,
(11:30):
there's just whatever friend of using at the time, the
opposite side of your brain. Yeah. That that one painting,
for example, was I wanted to do one for a
friend as I thank you, what do you want? Oh,
something regarding Carl McLaughlin, who was an actor, been a
whole bunch of David Lit films. So I ended up
painting a scene from the film June, so that had
(11:53):
a recent reboot as well, but instead of sand worms
because it features sand worms and replace them with with
giant ferrets. That's what popped into mind for for some reason.
So that's what I painted. And then then the job
is getting that on the canvas before we get bored
and move onto the next thing. Anyway, Yes, I moved
(12:16):
on to streaming because I wanted to show some the
process of doing it, and that started off with trying
to record it with a horrible shoulder mounted camera which
looked like torture device from the eight hundreds, and that
that wasn't very good. Um, and then moved on to
two games because a few people were doing it, just
wanted to find out how that worked. But then I
(12:38):
just kind of abandoned it for a few years. I'm busy,
busy with other stuff with with the day job. And
then of course two thousand and twenty happened and I
needed to find a different hobby because I couldn't get
outside as much due to the global conditions. Um um, yeah,
I just started doing some games. I was inspired a
(12:59):
little bit by I want to give shout out here
to arthemis, a friend of mine who worked with me
at Frontier who left and started streaming full time following
following her dreams as well, and that was inspiring and
I wanted to give it a go as well, and
that's how that started. Just kind of started steamrolling a
(13:21):
little bit. I guess. I was also lucky that because
I've done some streaming with Frontier just to promote the
game or talk about the game a little bit, and
so some people who followed the game followed me onto
Twitch as well, and that was very kind of them.
It's not like I've ever had a massive, huge partnership
(13:43):
level orders. I don't know, but I'm very very very
thankful for those who did that. The communities on Twitch
have been very welcoming and very understanding and incredibly wholesome
if you can on a good corner. Has really kept
me going the last few years, and I can't thank
people enough for the help for me's getting streaming and
(14:05):
also for being that I'm chatting to me to it.
That's really got me through these last few years. So well,
it's a very unique space that you would occupy. Um,
I mean definitely like a woman in this industry, but
bringing in the physics, like the science level of it.
I know that that. I'm sure there's probably a lot
you could talk about, just like being a woman in
(14:26):
science as well, and like the science industry and uh so,
um yeah, I don't know, kind of like the the
I want to use the phrase odd man out, but
it's the opposite, the odd woman out in those kinds
of spaces. But um, that would I think inspire a
lot of people. And I know that I've got a
friend who was obsessed obsessed with a late agerous but
they're also in school for like astronomy or astrophysics. I'm
(14:48):
not sure exactly what their major is, but um, that
I can't tell you how many times that that they're
like booting up the Discord video Share to be like,
look at this star I just found. I gotta show
you like the I I don't think I understood like
the depth of the game until I really watched them,
like take me through and show me like I believe
that they said that that it's accurate the distance and
(15:09):
the travel, like to get from one start to the other,
like like it's how I mean, I don't know if
you can existinctly explain this, but how did you all
map the Milky Way Galaxy into a video game? Like
how is that even possible? Mm hmm. That's a very
very very good question. Now I want to caveat that
in that whilst we made everything to scale, we don't
(15:31):
let you just fly slowly from one start to the next,
because that we thought who would want to do that? Then,
of course we re leased some people trying to do it.
The only thing stopping it is some under the herd
code glue to unload things unload in the next things.
But I can't comment on things which should have been
(15:53):
done and didn't go in the game. Anyway, The question
is how do we make a galaxy, and it is
a good one. I start off with a series of
textures of pictures of the Milky Way, just so looking
at the distribution of where things will turn up right,
and I've got a picture for where things are, got
(16:13):
a picture for roughly how old that area is. Because
you've got you've got you your spiral arms, you've got
the gaps in between, you've got the bulge at the
center of the galaxy, and you get different populations of
stars and different areas typically, so I can cheat and
draw those out beforehand. And now once we know where
(16:35):
stuff is, because we're just we're just mapping stuff at
the moment, not individual stars. It's just stuff. Once be
a worse stuff is, and how old stuff is, we
can start going, okay, in this cube of space, how
many with amoutter stuff we have? How much could clump
into what things in what distribution? And that is handled
(16:58):
in what we call an oct tree, the seven eight
layer octuring. So we've got a very large cube and
inside it are eight smaller cubes. Inside each of the
smaller cubes are eight small cubes. In each layer is
looking after a different range of size of things, which
can generate so you get the right distribution of sizes
(17:21):
of stars. So you get the really really huge ones,
but there's only a few of them and they're very
far between. And then they really really really tiny ones,
but there's loads of them and they well packed him.
And we can tune um how we distribute mass between
the layers so that things turn out how we expect
depending on mathematical models and what's in papers. I looked
at so many, so many PDFs of papers during that year.
(17:45):
So what we end up with there's a whole bunch
of points of here's something with this much mass, and
it is here, and it is also this hold. And
there's a relationship between a massive a star and how
long it takes to form and how long it will
live and what it will what will happen to it
in the end and at what point, So we can
(18:07):
we can know then if it's a forming star, if
it's a main sequence so it's in its middle age,
you know, if it's a stellar remnant, if it's died.
You know, if it's a white dwarf for a puls
star or a black hole. So we get that main
information about what the main star is that and we
also have some information about how much masses left over,
and that's what I can feed to James Potter to say, okay,
you've got this much, you go out and make all
(18:29):
of the gas chiants and the and the where the
planets are now, So in this game, does does everything? Um? Uh?
Is there? Time? Does it expand? Is there? And also
it's like does your spaceship get sucked into the gravity
of certain things if you get too close to it?
Does it function I guess in other words? Or is
it static instead just stands still? So in this game
(18:51):
it is static for the type of experience, the type
of flight, that's the designers wanted. Now, as a little segue,
a little history lesson that. The first game, Elite was
quite arcady in its field. It was made for eight
bit computers a BBC micro and the hand up down, role,
(19:12):
left role light right and it's not too scientifically accurate
like that. But then the second game from Tiorly two
did a lot more. The simulation. It was all Newtonian gravity,
so you could fall into gravity worlds. You had to
have the correct speeds and whatnot. It was great. I
loved it. That's my favorite games of all time, but
it's a very different experience is much harder to get into.
(19:34):
When Elite Dangerous came along the fourth game, it was
to be a rebirth of reimagining of the first game,
so the flight was made a lot more accessible and
that's why, um, navigating gravity wells isn't part of that
gameplay loop. Cool. I'm a huge, huge, huge day and
(19:56):
I just like discussing space theory and like how how
everything is formed? Like I'm even like I want to
ask about do you think that how do you think
the moon was made? So, like before I dig too
deep with you on this, or let's let's take a
moment and pause for an ad break really quick. Okay,
(20:16):
welcome back everybody, UM, and thank you so much Dr
K for being here and chatting with us today about
your experience in the industry. UM, I think I'd like
to touch in a little bit with you on how
how you've kind of navigated both of these industries UM
as a woman or if that's impacted you at all, UM,
and what your kind of thoughts are around that. Absolutely
(20:39):
so for uh letting the audience who mind not necessarily
know me know my experience in the science industry in
research since not an industry is somewhat different man, because
I am a trans woman and I didn't come out
until I was in the games industry, so my experience
(21:00):
of science was as a closeted person in that respect.
And many would think that it is a very understanding
and open and good place to be for that, but
it's not perfect. I mean, at the end of the
(21:21):
day or all, these people are individuals with their own
individual upbringings and viewpoints and whatnot, and being amongst nerds
and geeks and science speaks doesn't necessarily mean everyone's going
to be as open minded. Not on the whole, lovely people,
but there's also in physics itself a strong sense that
(21:46):
this is this is the old boys club, and after
work they go to the old old That that sounds
very ages. That there's a thing over here in the
UK called old Man's Pub, And I don't know if
there's the same, say where you are, Yeah, I mean
I like an old boys club, Like I I can
I can see how what with sound ages, But it's
really just like the seniority. They've been here forever, so
(22:08):
they'll always be here. Yeah, it's expected that you go
that it's expected that you be uh laddish and you
drink ale and it's just expected. If you don't do that,
you're you're not included. And a very big part of
any workforce or um field you might find in is
(22:29):
that social aspect of that's collaboration, that working with people,
and that can become harder if you don't have the
same social aspects as the others. And yeah, I did
struggle a little bit in science from that point of view.
There's also in physics there's a lot of groups trying
to push advocacy for for for women in physics and
(22:51):
ensuring that voices are heard and ensuring that um the
opportunities are there, and that's UM cultures to the side
of the main academics are you're looking at our not
repressive or in the way, And there is sadly sometimes
not an understanding about why those groups exist, like, oh,
(23:14):
this this is all just maths. Why should we need
to care about that? We don't, We don't care about
the social note it all has an impact or all
this working environment can really impact all of your coworkers,
who feels welcome there, who feels encouraged to be there,
So I'm very glad to see these groups running. Um,
there's still work to go on the other side. On
(23:38):
in the game's industry. For me personally, from what I've seen,
has been absolutely amazing so far, so supportive in terms
of transition of lgbt q I A plus rights all
of that. I know there are difficulties in some places,
in some companies. I've really looked out there between Frontier
Developments and Splash Damage not to after me very well,
(24:01):
and that sense of collaboration, of that acceptance and of hey,
however you are, however you need to be fantastic, let's
all be friends, let's work on something cool together. That's yeah,
it's very encouraging. And if anyone's worried about joining this
industry um due to those things, UM, I wouldn't say,
(24:22):
don't worry, but I will say, do you research, ask people.
The good companies are out there for that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
At the end of the day, it is, you know,
an unfortunate fact that we're not going to get along
with everybody. UM. But I in my experience, I find
that the game industry has I think come a long
(24:45):
way since you know, ten or fifteen years ago. Kay,
do you feel that in either um, you know, I
know you said science isn't really an industry, but let's
call it the research industry, or in the games industry,
do you ever find that, um, your maybe knowledge or
expert tease comes into question, like because of being a
woman as compared to some of your male colleagues. You know,
(25:06):
whether it's whether it's um like you can tell someone
maybe doesn't think you know what you're talking about, or
maybe something even more over it than that. In physics, definitely,
I was thinking of this the other the other day,
and when I was over in Finmary Lab, it was
the research place the lab site was based and on
(25:28):
the experiment I was on, there'd be weekly meetings at
least in your department and you go and someone give
their updates for the week, and everyone would judge or
office support and whatnot. And I was always wazy from
some certain people. Some they want to be competitive now,
they want to be macho, and if you couldn't argue
(25:50):
in that slightly aggressive tone that they took that there
would become very dismissive. So for the people trying to
be more constructive of all polite on my side, So
it wasn't always the easiest. There can be a difference
in communication styles. I found a lot of ways in like,
(26:11):
you know, personally, I choose to spend time around a
lot of people that are very like polite, they don't
interrupt or talk over each other. And you know that
is that is not my experience with everyone, but that's
that's my experience as those who I choose to spend
my time with the last. Personally, Like in my early
twenties when I was I like, I spent a lot
of time in the metal scene music um and uh um.
(26:32):
It took me and I was younger, so it took
me a while. I remember vividly when I realized that
I was surrounded by by I mean, it was mostly
a male dominated space, and I vividly remember this this
moment of they don't respect me, um, and and it
not because anybody said anything. We were all standing around
a table and it was like a whole circle, maybe
(26:54):
like eight people around one individual table, like a little
you know, and everyone was just like like loud and
clattered and like talking. And I remember trying to jump
into the conversation multiple times and just being cut off
and talked over, cut off and talked over and and
I I remember just kind of stepping back, like the
fourth or fifth, or sixth or tenth time it happened,
and just kind of watching the conversation continue and nobody
(27:17):
looking to me, nobody checking in, nobody being like, oh,
did you want to finish what you were saying or
did you want to sorry I interrupted you did you
want to say? And it was just this vivid realization
of I will never fight to be heard ever again.
I will never beg I will never and I'm certainly
not going to be the person that throws a hissy
fit over here because I keep getting interrupted, because that's
(27:38):
just gonna make this even worse. It's gonna make me
look even weaker that I have to like beg for
that space, you know what I mean. I I vividly
remember that. And then there was a follow up moment
to that where I had asked a question to one
individual and they turned and made direct eye contact with
the other man in the conversation and answer the question
to that person, and I was just I was like,
(27:58):
I'm I'm checking out. I'm not. I'm not. And the
thing about these people is that they were like by
all intense purposes. My friends like like what I felt
like nice lovely people, but it was this this over
overt expression. It was like a like a culture. You know.
It wasn't anything that they were individually doing, it was
it was collectively that it was just happening and it
(28:21):
was just like I vividly remember it. So like, it's
to me very stressful and angering to be in spaces
like that, and so whenever I find myself in them,
I just dip out and I go back to my
little corner and um like, people can come to me
if they want to, but I'm not going to fight
my way into this. And maybe that's the wrong take.
Maybe we should be fighting our way into it. But
(28:41):
it's so exhausting to me, and it it really bad
for my blood pressure too, So yes that you mentioned it.
That is UM an issue when it comes to meetings
and in the game's industry, there are a lot of meetings,
so many meetings, and it is hard to UM sometimes
(29:04):
get your voice heard because a lot of the others
do like to speak over they're like, and I comes in,
they'll start speaking. Doesn't matter if you're finished or art,
doesn't matter if you're trying to say something that there's
often not anyone taking any note to you, going oh yeah,
just ignore that. It's where that like Marco Field comes
(29:26):
in that you were talking about, where they're just trying
to like flex on each other and yeah, like verbal flexing,
and it's like, can you'll stop this said with the
last couple of years and teams calls for meetings now
or selat calls and they delay that you can get
sometimes some Sometimes I start talking and someone else has
(29:49):
but it's not purpose because it's been and I feel
so bad and I shouldn't do but I do. I
feel so bad. Well, that's just good courtesy careful people.
Oh so, yeah, you mentioned that you were really into
science since you were younger, Um, and so when you
went into school, was it with the intention of learning
(30:10):
science or what did Maybe maybe the way I want
to phrase this question is when you were that kid
playing playing the floppys game that you were talking about earlier,
and you were imagining what you were going to be
when you grew up, what what was that going to be?
And how does that differ from where you are now?
Oh God, that's a good question. I've got to go
remember stuff from an embarrassing number of years ago. Um,
(30:34):
I knew I wanted to be in science and I
wanted to be a researcher and a lecturer. M Yeah,
when I was checking out the high schools for some
reason that yes, they do open days at high schools.
Between primary school and secondary school, we call him high school.
I know in high school in some areas that's for
certain major Rangesn't that rather than the entire thing? Um? So,
(31:00):
between ages of ten and eleven, we we changed from
a primary school to a secondary school and we get
to go see open days, go to the one that
we want, hopefully if we can. And I was asking
questions of the science teacher, like okay, so I know
what happens if you if you split the atom. We're
seeing the picture rubs if you crush an atom, which
doesn't make sense. But to a ten year old thinking, okay,
(31:23):
well if that's that, what's that? Then what's that? And
I wanted to know all the details. I wanted to
know how the world works and how the universe works,
and and why and why. And that's that's what went on.
That's what drove me, and that's what ended up with
me applying to physics at university. It was going to
be between physics and art, and I'm glad on physics
(31:44):
in the end because I'd rather do one as a
hobby on the side rather than having to write essays
about it. So yeah, well we worked out. But that's
great that you you know, you were mentioning earlier that
you stream like painting, So that's great that you still
get to do that art as a hobby instead of
as a career. And I wonder, you know, had things
gone differently and you decided maybe you'll try to do
(32:06):
art as a career versus doing and then do you
know kind of physics and programming as a hobby, Like,
how do you think, you know, how do you think
that would have worked out? Oh? I sit here wistfully
thinking sometimes how great would it be just to do
that for a living? And well, I know some good
friends who have managed to do that, and the fantastic
artists and I'm so so jelly of them. Um. And
(32:29):
then the kind of things they can do. Um. I
don't think I've been able to see it through, but
I have. I have a problem when it comes to
painting in that I've got to get it done before
I get distracted and I get bored of it or
again a little fed up with it. So yeah, I
probably wouldn't have worked out for me. UM. So on
(32:52):
your route to where you are now, have you had
any major failures that you learned something from? Oh, many, many, many,
many many failures. But that is how we learn and
that's how we grow. If we if we never got
anything wrong, we wouldn't find new things. We wouldn't be
(33:12):
able to adapt. And it's wanted me as interesting. But
this is we had living whilst trying to think of
a particularly I guess in terms of mistakes. I guess
in terms of didn't go quite well. Things to learn
from it, The constructive, the managerial way of putting it is, UM,
(33:36):
I'll go back to working on Elite Dangerous again. I'll
try very hard not to give away company secrets and
details and what very strict horn of that. UM. But
the mistake or the thing to learn from was my
approach to UM getting things correct or getting things right,
or getting my interpretation being the one that was taken
(33:58):
into the game. And I started off with the impression thinking, Okay,
I've got to be the spokesperson for science. I've got
to be the driving forceful that I've got to be
the one fighting as hard as the other one other
people that are fighting, and it was exhausting. It was exhausting.
All it did was cause some conflict between people who
(34:20):
also thought they had the mandate to be in charge
of this part or this part, and that causes friction
and it doesn't cause solutions, and it just made me
very stressed out. I was trying to keep up that
that fight because I thought, if I don't know who
will um, So fast forward a few years trying to
learn from that, and that is, okay, let's look at
(34:42):
what areas I I do have control over areas other
people think they have control over. Let's let's give way,
let's let them do their saying, let's just do our
side of it. And of course, without enough guidance, things
kind of spiraled a little bit out of trolled that
way and then just cause a lot of stress against
(35:03):
things weren't working, and too much to catch up on,
and lots of over time because people kept asking for things,
masking for things, and so in trying to be too capitulant.
Is that is that a word that just replaced the scares.
(35:26):
So it's it's not a straight line from problem to solution.
It's spirals around what is the right approach? How much
should you fight a corner? How much energy do you
want to put into a thing. And it's, as I said,
I don't have an answer for it. It's it's everyone's individual.
As we said a little earlier, each each case is
(35:48):
a little bit individual. How do you forge a pass
in such a large collaborative industry, in the large project
so that stress and friction is minimized. And I'm still
learning that every um conflict or every new feature, it's
it's an and another bit of experience that I relate
(36:12):
to that a lot. I feel like, I'm all it's
like a see saw and I'm trying to get it
to to to be a straight plank, and I'm like
a little bit more weight to the right, and then
I'm like lifted up too far. So it's add a
little bit, take a little bit away. It's also like
a like a soup, like you've put one spice in
and now you're trying to taper the other spice out
by adding these different spices until you get the perfect flavor.
And it feels like you can never get the perfect flavor.
(36:34):
You're always adding too much of one spice to to
counteract the other one or something. It's it's frustrating to
say the least. But I feel like that's like part
of the whole story of life too, is just trying
like we're all individually trying to find our own like
space of balance in that. But um, but yeah, thank
you so much for your answer so far. I think
that's gotten us to a good spot and we've completed
(36:57):
another another level. So we'll take a safe it here
and here another word from one of our sponsors. All right,
welcome back everybody, Thank you so much. Dr k Ross
is here with us, UM chatting about her experience in
the research industry. I probably called it the science industry earlier,
(37:17):
and you know, I'm trying to sound smart, and uh,
I also thought it was I thought of an industry.
I thought just there was. I mean, it makes sense, yeah, scientists,
you work in the science industry, like um, there are
signs of it which are very industrialized that there are
some universities who have an entire science business for the
science department of Okay, we'll make these kind of instruments
(37:40):
for you, and market demand these kind of things for you.
There are some rather commercialized signs of it, um, though
thankfully it was never a part of that I'm not good.
Yeah yeah, um. Okay, So we talked a little bit
about some of the mistakes that you've made along your path.
But what would you say are some of your favorite
moments in your career so far? Oh? In two thousand seventeen,
(38:09):
Frontier decided to put on an expot for the projects
it was doing. The Adams it was it was doing
for for the game, and they saiday, do you want
to give a talk? Sure? Sure, I'll give a little
talk on still a Forge and I'll be up on
the side stage, not the main ones, just a small
room and the few people who turn up would be
(38:31):
interested in the science part will come along and we'll
have a few questions, and yeah, that would be nice
because I like to interact with people who um playing
the game, enjoying it, talking about science, because that's what
I'm here for, like the science. And they ended up
being that's that's a side roombot packed out, and those
cueues out in the corridor and there's people being to
(38:53):
get in that sounds all very full of hubrews from
me that, but that was incredibly humbling. UM really demonstrated
to me that those things that I was interested in,
those things which UM influenced me as a child and
got me interested in in the universe itself. But that's
still happening, and I have the privilege working on a
(39:15):
project for that, and it was wonderful to be a
part of that. That's cool. And then I guess that
kind of ful feels your your childhood ambition of like
lecturing and stuff, So that's that's awesome. I was also
thinking about that a bit with your your streaming because
when I was younger, I learned to be a teacher.
Growing up and doing internet like YouTube and stuff has
(39:37):
been like a very interesting way to teach without being
part of the education which I'm not a big fan of.
Foot I am a fan of education, but education system
looking like I do probably not going to work out
very well. But so you are here on the Boss
Level podcast and we do like to ask what does
it mean to be boss level to you or to
(40:00):
be level? To be boss level is UM totally not
just making this up on the fly. To be boss
level is to realize that you don't need to be
playing someone else's game. To be boss level is to
(40:21):
realize what it is you want, what interests you, and
just chase after it for the sake of that and
to be your own person, forge your own path best
you can. That is an excellent answer. You don't have
to be there somebody else's game. Yeah, that like honestly
blew my mind, Like I never that's that's so incredibly
helpful to me. Thank you for sharing that like insight
(40:41):
with us. That like really struck me in a way
that I that moved a puzzle piece into space, into
a spot in my head that I had been like
looking for that piece forever. And it's like oh wow, okay, yeah, same,
that did something in my brain that I really like, Wow,
you don't have to be playing someone else's game. It's
really easy to find yourself doing And this like new
age Internet entertainment industry to we all get wrapped up
(41:05):
in like group think and it's some it's a lot
like that that scenario is talking about, where like it
wasn't the individuals that we're talking over me, it was
some like overarching system we were all partaking in and
we didn't even realize it. And it's the same like
we're all just kind of playing a big game and
we don't even realize it. Um. And I haven't noticed
until I've stepped back recently and just kind of like
(41:25):
went from active participant to observer. It's like, what are
y'all doing? What are we doing? Um? But yeah, UM,
so you stream um on twitch and uh, we've talked
a little bit about your painting. Is it only painting
that you do? Or do you stream video games? And
do you have a favorite game? I do stream games.
(41:46):
I mostly stream games now I've got the EASIL set
up on the side. I'm very ashamed to say it
doesn't get it as much most long games at the
moment now, my favorite game, at least favorite games streamed
was something who you had the narrative designer of? Was
it for for the last week's UM or one of
(42:09):
the previous weeks? And that is out of wild And
I never thought I'd find a game which impacted me
so deeply and so totally. It's not and I don't
want to say too much about it because saying anything
is spoiling things in this particular case. But to while
you all out there. If you're listening, if you're not
played out Wild yet, go give it a shot. It's
(42:32):
it's a it's a mystery game, it's a space game.
It's so full of heart, and we'll get you thinking
by the end for absolute sure. Okay, that's so fun.
Because Kelsey Beacham was actually our last guest. I mean,
I don't know if when what I ordered these are
releasing into the last episode that we recorded, Kelsey Beacham
(42:52):
was our was our guest that we interviewed, very curious
about the about this game too. So I was just
listening to that last episode before we started today. Oh
so you already know? Yeah, ok, what is what's next
for you? You've had this, you know, awesome career and
it kind of sounds like you have gone in a
(43:13):
couple of different directions. Do you see yourself following the
path that you're on right now for a while or
do you see yourself maybe taking something else if it
comes along. Yeah, that is a good question. So last
year I finally quit Frontier. By the time I quit,
I was a principal render programmer and in charge of
(43:34):
a but just sell afford stuff and whatnot. But it
was somewhat pigeonholed into being that programmer on that system.
Taking a step back and like, what does I really
want to be doing now that The answer to that is, oh, yeah,
I kind of want to be a U a game director.
I want to take a concept for a game, run
(43:55):
with it, make it as personalized as I can. But
that can be dangerous, not dangerous, it could be difficult,
very different, but difficult in a large company. And so
I started having a look around. Now I didn't just
fall into that entirely separate discipline, no no, but I
did find something which was kind of the path on that,
(44:17):
which is this this technical lead just looking after all
the programmers on the project, but also being a part
of a project leadership team and offering ideas. And I
like to see myself as a employee of a project,
not as an employee of a discipline. And I'll try
to work like that. So that that is what I'm
working on at the moment there In terms of long
(44:40):
term goals, if I'm staying in games, it is that, Yeah,
I want to take an idea, I want to take
a concept and run with it, and yeah, see if
I can direct it. But that's not likely to be
in the immediate future. Goals are good something to strive towards. Um,
and I have one more questioned like that. I love
to ask everybody this, but, um, if you can imagine
(45:03):
a little fifteen year old Dr k Ross and you
could give yourself any advice from where you're standing now,
what what would you tell yourself now? If it's the
fifteen year old Dr King, I would say, yes, you're
in your first band and it sucks, but stay with
it because it's fun and you'll miss it. What kind
(45:24):
of music tells you that's so fun? Oh, that's the
first band where it was called Jim after the school
bus driver. Was playing some pop punk covers. Pop punk
that is my favorite genre. We had two guitarists and
a drummer. The drummer was the singer if I remember
(45:46):
as well and say no base. So it wasn't the best,
but it was fun understanding music. But otherwise I'd be saying, um,
just be you. What you think is you, Just just
be you. Don't worry about being wrong. You are you
and that is correct. M that's beautiful. Okay, Well, where
(46:08):
can our audience find you all across the interwebs, and
do you have any upcoming events or speaking opportunities or
anything you want to let anyone know about. Sure? Sure,
So across Instagram and Twitter and on Twitch, i am
dr k Ross that is d r K A Y
R O S S. In terms of a schedule, I
(46:30):
don't have a good one at the moment. I've become
very relax and unprofessional. Um, but I'm streaming roughly once
a week at a weekend, and in terms of upcoming
appointments and whatnot, this is hard off the press. I'm
not tolding on even on Twitter yet, but I'll be
trying to do some charity streams next months for the
(46:51):
Samaritans that they're doing a big fundraising drive and I've
been I've had the honor of being asked to help
out with that. So the space and let's see what
I come up with. That's super cool. Um, well, Jess,
do you wanna let it know where where you are
and what you got coming up? Yeah? So, um, I
am at Jess Brohard on Twitter and Instagram and those
(47:15):
are really only places I'm currently kind of publicly active
and like working away at my day job at Gamers
Outreach lately and not doing too much in the way
of creating content, but if you want to follow me,
that's where I am. Um. I saw you've been doing
a bunch of stuff with hockey lately too, right, Yes,
I have. I've been playing hockey. I'm taking a class
on how to play hockey, and it has been insanely fun.
(47:38):
It is so hard, but the great thing about hockey
is that like, you will fall, but that's your padded
up it doesn't hurt. It's kind of fun to fall.
You fall, It's like a little bonus. It's been so
inspiring watching your updates on Twitter, I'm like, oh my god,
I want to go do something like sporty and cool.
What seems so fun doing It's so scary to step
outside your comfort zone, but it's so fun. And then
(48:01):
I'm Hey Shady Lady. I'm Hey Shady Lady across all
the platforms Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, And I guess the
most like upcoming thing I have is I've been revamping
my website, Um, Hey Shady Lady dot com. I'm really
excited about it. And I've been working on a like
a Tarot educational series where I'm deep diving all of
the esoteric symbolism in every single tarot card and like,
(48:23):
so we're going deep into mythology and and history and
all kinds of stuff. It's uh, it's definitely intense, but
it's been a lot of fun. And that's probably a
project I'm looking to to take on for the next
couple of years. It's taking me two or three weeks
per card, and there's seventy eight cards in a tarot deck,
so it's it's a long project. But but yeah, that's
that's what I got going on. So um, yeah, and
(48:45):
I guess that's gonna wrap our episode up. Again. Thank
you so much as Dr k Ross for your time
and your energy and sharing your journey with us here. Uh,
it has been an absolute pleasure. Um and I guess
we will see you on the next episode of Boss Level.
By everybody say
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