Mobile: (+91) 98230 16832 • Email: pranav@pranavnegandhi.com
Experience
Jan 2005-August 2007 / Fractal Ink / Mumbai
Software Developer
- Developed data-driven websites, online games and multimedia presentations
- Used common web and multimedia technologies such as PHP-MySQL, ASP-MS Access and Flash
- Began to apply common design patterns during development
- Introduced development practices such as coding conventions, version control, defect tracking, daily builds and functional specifications
- Also performed project management and client servicing duties for several projects
- Projects of note -
- Website for Eskimo Models India
Eskimo Models is an Icelandic modeling agency, and has recently stepped into the Indian market. Their Indian website, available at www.eskimomodels.com, is a data driven website to display portfolios of their models. Technologies used are PHP, MySQL and Flash.
- Website for Niteen Parulekar Associates Pvt. Ltd.
NPAPL is a leading architectural firm, with a client list reading like the who’s who of Indian industry. Their website gallery has frequent updates, displaying in a richly interactive front end. Rather than having our designers create animations for each project in Flash, I chose to write some tweening code in Actionscript. The back end uses ASP and MS Access, returns responses in XML, which the Flash movie parses and uses to load image files.
- Vegas Solitaire for Harrods Online Casino
Harrods Online Casino uses a 3-tier architecture for all their games, made up of a rich client, a game-specific server-side component, and a common database. Their client is developed in Flash and acts as front-end to the moves which are validated and executed on the server. It communicates with the back-end using XML. Vegas Casino is also developed using the same model.
Although the data-processing happens on the server, the front-end features plenty of animation and special effects, which are triggered and performed through code without using the Flash timeline. All animation code is asynchronous, so that the UI remains responsive to user clicks at all times.
- Website for Fractal Ink
Being an in-house project, the Fractal Ink website had been taking a back-seat to revenue generating projects. Even a year after the site design had been created, the team had been unable to execute it. I took the responsibility of getting the new site live within two-months, while continuing to work upon existing assignments.
My strategy was to offload as much work from the designers onto the programmers, who had a fair amount of similar code from previous projects. The portfolio backend was created using this code, while making it more reusable. It was made with an ASP-MS Access back-end, and tied up to a Flash front-end. Static HTML pages were converted from table-based layouts to XHTML.
A content management system for the portfolio is currently in the pipeline.
- Visual Redesign for Sporting Index Texas Hold'em
Sporting Index is a well-known brand in online casinos in the United Kingdom. They periodically update the visual design of their games to make them appear fresh and appealing to visitors. They contracted Fractal Ink to rework the visual design for Texas Hold'em. We spun off a visual design based upon their newer games. The challenge, however, was in upgrading the look and feel of the older codebase, which was tightly integrated into the functional and business logic, without breaking any existing functionality. Having a wishlist of new features to add to the list made the going more ardous.
Not only did we deliver all but one items on the wishlist, we also fixed several bugs inherent in the legacy code along the way.
Feb 2004-Dec 2004 / Cyber Backoffice / Mumbai
Project Coordinator
- Managed web and multimedia branding projects
- Provided technical inputs to the marketing team and translated requirements into functional documents for the developers
- Established schedules and effort estimates for projects
- Provided inputs on proposals and costs to marketing team
- Serviced clients on a regular basis
- Projects of note -
- Project pitches for Pheroze Kudianavala Consulting Engineers
PKCE, a Mumbai based engineering and architecture firm, regularly sources its multimedia presentations from CBO. The presentations required a walkthrough of the site plan for which the tender was being submitted, playing inside a multimedia presentation.
- RKS Design website
A website for a design house in California, USA, this project was intended as their online portfolio. It required a solution that displayed their 100+ product designs in a rich, animated front-end. This project used a Flash front-end and a PHP-MySQL back-end.
Jan 2001–Aug 2003 / Learnet India Ltd. / Mumbai
Senior Multimedia Developer
- Led teams of 2-4 people in the creation of e-learning projects
- Used Macromedia Director for almost all development
- Gained proficiency in object oriented development and relational databases
- Established coding conventions and code review guidelines
- Projects of note -
- CISF Fire fighting Simulator
Central Industrial Security Forces is a government organization, providing security to establishments such as airports, ministry offices and docks. This simulator, for their fire fighting wing, was a multi-player, scenario driven application that let the users test their response to emergency situations. Scenarios were fed into a database, along with response options. Each response affected the spread of fire in the structure. The situation was displayed to the user through pre-rendered 3D images.
- Physics - My Own Labs
A collection of physics based simulators for higher secondary students, these tools used a game based approach to teach students concepts such as motion, lens and mirrors and gravity.
Nov 1999–Dec 2000 / Computer Canvas / Mumbai
Multimedia Developer
- Designed and implemented multimedia projects such as CD-ROM’s, kiosks and online games, using Macromedia Director
- Also provided support as a 3D artist, using 3D Studio MAX
- Projects of note –
- TexTrade kiosk
This multimedia kiosk was deployed at the exhibition held by the German Textile Federation in Berlin. It was used to showcase designs for the coming season by TexTrade using a virtual reality viewer. Designs were mapped onto 3D views and stored in pre-rendered libraries. When users chose to view a particular design, it was retrieved from the library and displayed. Focus was on realism of the 3D view.
- Indian Oil Corporation directory kiosk
IOC used this kiosk to promote its brand while providing a public service. The directory was deployed at prime locations in the city which were frequented by tourists. It was a comprehensive database of information related to the city, ranging from emergency services to night-spots. Since the product was aimed at novice users, it used a touch-screen interface. The design and programming hence had to be done keeping these factors in mind.
- GoBananaz.com
This gaming website was intended to provided free online games to visitors along with a score tracking mechanism. Users could exchange score points for gifts from sponsors. All games were developed in Macromedia Director, and communicated with a score chart developed in ASP and MS-Access.
Education
1998-1999 / Jai Hind College / Mumbai
Completed F.Y.J.C (Arts) from Mumbai University with 67%
1996-1997 / St. Mary’s School / Mumbai
Completed I.C.S.E. from the Delhi Board with 71%
Projects
I have taken up several programming projects during my spare time. Some of the more notable ones are mentioned below.
Flash class library for game development
After going through a few projects in Flash it dawned upon me that we were reinventing the wheel for common functionalities every time – content loaders, UI widgets and handling keyboard and mouse events.
I had already created a broad plan for a class library several years ago, to be developed in Director. I fleshed out details and implemented it in Flash. Since the library core is fairly extensible, new functionalities can be added as required.
A chat application in Macromedia Director, using the Multiuser Server
Macromedia introduced their Multiuser Server with version 7 of Director. This server was aimed and allowing developers to build collaborative applications in Director. Samples that were provided with the installation were a chat and whiteboard application and a tic-tac-toe game. I took upon the exercise of building a chat application, based upon the sample that was provided.
The application core abstracted the broad API of the server into something more task-oriented. The script was optimized for creating chat rooms, and hence had a number of features to automate common tasks such as updating user lists, sending messages to groups of users and managing rooms.
The core was one of the earliest MUS abstraction layers to be released as open-source, and was well appreciated by the developer community.
Entrepreneur - A basic double-entry bookkeeping application
Although I have never been much of an accounts fan, I found it very natural that accounting principles be expressed in a computer program. For my final project in Computer Studies during the 9th standard, I used GW-BASIC to write a basic double-entry bookkeeping application. In addition to keeping track of income and outgoings, it also let users note down investments. It had a feature that alerted users when the maturity date of an investment was reached.