How We Do It
ForgeFX's dedication to developing quality software for our clients has allowed us to focus on the three main components of what it takes to create great products. Having a time tested process, imaginative creative, and solid technology skills guarantees that our projects stay on track, are compelling visually, and work seamlessly regardless of the end-user's machine.Every project that we work on gets treated with the same care regardless of how large or how small. Our project managers, artists, and programmers work together to ensure that key details are figured out in the architecture and requirements phases of the project to guarantee project success.
We commit requirements to writing, use a systematic procedure to manage scope, conduct reviews of all requirements and designs, develop a comprehensive testing plan, and create an implementation plan that defines the order in which the software's functional components will be developed.
Our Process
When clients and vendors aren't in the same facility, tight communication is critical and more important than ever. The ForgeFX Extranet is central to our collaborative process. We use it to manage and track just about every aspect of our projects. Our extranet contains detailed project schedules, databases for tracking project tasks and milestones, contact information, and a host of other online utilities which allow us to work in a very efficient manner.With this tool in our arsenal ForgeFX tackles any project from an experienced position which assures that the development of a quality project is delivered on time and within the allotted budget.
We split every project into four phases: discovery, design, implementation, and testing. The discovery phase involves researching and documenting the requirements in order to choose the appropriate technology for the project. The design phase involves the creation of our project plan—from both a technical and creative perspecitive. During the implementation phase we are building out the project, sticking to our plan as much as possible while adapting to the realities of what the project requires as it evolves. These three phases tend to coexist and overlap each other to some extent which allows for changes to made without jeopardizing the project's timeline. At the conclusion of the implementation phase our projects enter a rigerous testing phase to ensure that end users don't have any problems. This is also the point at which the product gets run up the flag poll to make sure it meets the requirements laid out in the discovery phase.
Our Creative
The creativity that goes into all of our projects is often the first impression users get of our work. Typically this is portrayed through the art work and graphics used in the project but the creative ideas and implementation techniques are also very important. Much of our work is real-time 3D so the tools and techniques that we use to create our models, textures, and animations are critical to our projects.3D Studio Max is the industry standard 3D tool and is at the center of all of the 3D content that we create. Creative Director, David Vaillancourt, and his team of artists have been developing 3D Studio Max content for more than 10 years to develop a wide variety of projects for both online and offline platforms. With our focus on interactive 3D, and especially interactive 3D for the web, we have become masters of tools like 3D Studio Max and Maya in order to produce high quality work that is both visually appealing but also able to embrace the limitations of delivering online content to a wide audience.
In addition to our expertise using 3D packages, the ForgeFX creative staffers are also masters of the common industry standard tools used for creating 2D artwork. Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, and Freehand are tools we use every day to create everything from complex textures for 3D models to Flash-based vector graphics to commercial art for web sites and CD-ROMs.
Our Technology
ForgeFX is a technology agnostic company when it comes to developing software for our clients. During the first phase of every project we evaluate the project requirements in order to choose the most appropriate technology for the application. Our programmers are skilled in just about every popular authoring environment on the market today. From the front-end to the back-end we are able to develop every aspect of the project in order to deliver a complete solution.For much of our core business, interactive 3D, we use Macromedia Director MX to deliver textured real-time 3D simulations to users. This tool allows us to import models, textures, and animation coming from 3D Studio Max or Maya and into an environment that allows our programmers to add whatever level of interactivity the project requires in this object-oriented and extensible programming environment. With Director MX, we are also able to compile our applications to browser-based, desktop software, or DVD formats capable of running on just about any operating system or platform.
ForgeFX also develops a considerable amount web-based software in Macromedia Flash, the industry's most advanced authoring environment for creating interactive websites, digital experiences and mobile content. As Flash has evolved it has become a powerful tool for building interactive 2D appliations, and is capable of reaching the widest possible audience via the Flash player which is installed on 98% of computers, not to mention PDAs and cell phones.
Getting Started
When looking for a developer for your software project you can't make a better choice than hiring ForgeFX. If you have a project you would like to discuss with us please contact us at your earliest convenience.