[Superbug]

Hi Ceenda, i just went to your site today and was amazed by that 3D engine (Both). I want to make games for a living (trying to get a comp sci degree in university - 1st year so far ), so i was wondering what education you have, and every gooey detail about your engine, time it took to create etc. I would love to make 3D worlds, texture em, make stories etc....i want to create worlds for a living. Not to unreasonable i hope

thanks ceenda

[Jenn]

I think it is rude to dirct notes at people. Why dont you just email them..

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DarkChyld

[iska]

I dont think it's rude, but emailing one is much better option, simply because these things are personal and dont belong here.
You know.. Enuff message flooding without them

hope this thread ends here

*crosses his fingers*

--iska

[ceenda]

Hi there Superbug.

Glad you like them. You can take the source code for both of them and play around with them as much as you like.

You say you're on a CS degree, well, you're already on the right track as most games companies look for CS, Maths or Physics graduates. A "demo reel" is also another good thing to have. Basically, it's a CD with all your programming efforts on it. It's also good to write a small game to show companies that you are 'up to the task'.

I am generally fascinated by landscape engines. Fractals have always interested me, so, I guess that these engines were made out of a desire to experiment in that field.

If you want to learn any 3D programming API, then I suggest OpenGL. You can get the libraries, read the documentation and find out what other people have done with OpenGL at their site - www.opengl.org

Direct3D is good, but it's rated as being slower than OpenGL when tested on the latest 3D cards. OpenGL also has a more intuitive Matrix stack approach(you'll probably learn about matrix math on your course). However, Microsoft claim that the new Direct3D has a more OpenGL-like API - that's desparation I guess...

As for the engine, well, for the LOD one I read a paper on Quadtrees (listed on the page there) in order to figure out how the algorithm worked and wrote some custom texturing code. The OpenGL geometry pipeline handles things like rotations etc.

The Caladan one is just a static heightfield( a grid of points ) connected by polygons. There's a bit of a fantasy element in there as well. The airship and castle was designed in TrueSpace and exported as an ASC file. The ASC loading code isn't too robust, but it does the job. The textures are just Windows BMP files.

At the end of the day Superbug, there are people in the games world (Peter Molyneux of Bullfrog for instance) who, to my knowledge, have no University education, but stunned the gaming world by having a great idea and the stamina to learn to program and put that idea into practice.

quote

Quote:

i want to create worlds

Well, as I say, that is the inspiration that inspires programmers and artists alike, and you'll do well with that in mind.



[This message has been edited by ceenda (edited September 12, 2000).]

[Superbug]

Thanks a lot ceenda, that was super helpful! I am now officially inspired. As for jenn :P

[Farwalker]

Thanks for the good info Ceenda.



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