What would you suggest to a C/C++ programmer who's insterested in the SFX industry? I assume you need to know OpenGL, linear algebra, Unix, maybe Renderman. What else is suggested -- demo programs, networking at SIGGRAPH, database work?
Also, what's the state of the SFX industry? I know it went through a shakeout a few years ago.
Or perhaps I should say I *heard* it demonstrated. It's a noisy game -- each item in the game makes a different sound, getting louder as you get closer. I think they also tweaked the sound each item made if it was behind you as opposed to in front of you (they played the sound backwards or something like that).
The demonstration was at the Boston Post Mortem meeting, which is a monthly meeting of local game developers and wanna-bees. I forget exactly when; it was a few months ago. Some random points:
They limited the maps so that the players were always on the same level. There were no stairs or jumping platforms or anything like that. They were limited by what they could "display" via the headphones. Although 3D sound API's exist, they didn't find any of them to be especially good for their game.
The blind player could whip any sighted person who was blind folded, but he could be beaten if the sighted player took off the blindfold & watched the screen.
Interestingly, there was a blind woman there who took the developer's challenge. I don't think she did too well since she was unfamiliar with both Quake & the sound interface.
Braille displays were mentioned, but they don't work well for twitch games. The refresh rate is way too slow.
Tim Keenan, the blind guy, mentioned there were other video games he liked to play. One was, I think, an old baseball game (for the Genesis?) which announced everything that was going on which enabled him to play.
Keenan briefly demonstrated the screen reader he uses to read web pages. It's basically a text-to-speech program that works with web pages. Wow, he had it set to one of the highest speed settings and it was basically unintelligible to me. Think of an auctioneer or that "world's fastest talker" guy from the old FedEx commercials -- this program read even faster than that & Keenan could still understand it.
The ZForm developers mentioned that while they learned a lot from the Quake prototype, they decided to make a card game since that made more business sense. The visually-impaired demographic is older (some people lose their sight later in life), and they're much more likely to play cards than Quake. Also, it's much easier to make an unambiguous aural interface for a card game than a twitch game.
Sean Barrett, the 3rd place winner, used to work for Looking Glass Studios, the game company which produced Thief, Flight Unlimited, the original System Shock, and many more games. He's quite a smart guy, too; he has KnuthBucks.
Dan Schmidt also used to work there, and has entered the IF competition in the past (see this). Looks like he donated some prizes this year.
Has anyone else with pro game dev experience written IF?
So what are people's experiences with digital cable? Here are mine:
We recently switch from RCN "regular" to RCN digital. This is in the Boston area.
Negatives:
1) The picture seems slightly worse. For example, the NYC scene behind David Letterman's desk shimmers, although Letterman himself doesn't.
2) RCN took away the "force tune" option, which forces the tuner to switch to different stations at a pre-set time. This was useful when taping more than one show on a night.
3) RCN screwed up our bill (sigh).
Plusses:
1) More channels, like VH1 classics, BBC America & more HBO channels (HBO Latino!). Also more music channels (no images, they're like radio stations w/o DJs).
2) It's cheaper, if you have a cable modem.
3) The TV Guide menu seems more useful, although it has ads now.
There are also digital artifacts when you switch channels, although that's really brief & doesn't bother us.
So, for now we're keeping it. Wish the image quality was better, although many channels have such variable image quality anyway that you get used to it. I've been spoiled by my DVDs. Everyone talks about how HDTV will give us such high quality video, but I think the broadcasters will just carve up the bandwidth & give us 4 crappy channels instead of one high-quality-video channel. After all, people will still watch it & they'll make more in ad revenue.
Go to http://www.guidestar.org (which provides info on nonprofits), and search for "Free Software" to bring up the FSF info.
There some interesting stuff there, esp. in the Form 990's:
- No one seems to draw a salary
- In '97, id software donated about $19K to the FSF, which was over $3K more than Red Hat did. (Is that the year Carmack won big at gambling & donated the proceeds?)
All in all, seems like it's a pretty low budget organization.
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of Paul Graham's book "On Lisp"? It seems to be out of print, and I haven't been able to find a copy at any used book sites (half.com, alibris, powells, etc.)
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What would you suggest to a C/C++ programmer who's insterested in the SFX industry? I assume you need to know OpenGL, linear algebra, Unix, maybe Renderman. What else is suggested -- demo programs, networking at SIGGRAPH, database work?
Also, what's the state of the SFX industry? I know it went through a shakeout a few years ago.
thanks.
Or perhaps I should say I *heard* it demonstrated. It's a noisy game -- each item in the game makes a different sound, getting louder as you get closer. I think they also tweaked the sound each item made if it was behind you as opposed to in front of you (they played the sound backwards or something like that).
The demonstration was at the Boston Post Mortem meeting, which is a monthly meeting of local game developers and wanna-bees. I forget exactly when; it was a few months ago. Some random points:
They limited the maps so that the players were always on the same level. There were no stairs or jumping platforms or anything like that. They were limited by what they could "display" via the headphones. Although 3D sound API's exist, they didn't find any of them to be especially good for their game.
The blind player could whip any sighted person who was blind folded, but he could be beaten if the sighted player took off the blindfold & watched the screen.
Interestingly, there was a blind woman there who took the developer's challenge. I don't think she did too well since she was unfamiliar with both Quake & the sound interface.
Braille displays were mentioned, but they don't work well for twitch games. The refresh rate is way too slow.
Tim Keenan, the blind guy, mentioned there were other video games he liked to play. One was, I think, an old baseball game (for the Genesis?) which announced everything that was going on which enabled him to play.
Keenan briefly demonstrated the screen reader he uses to read web pages. It's basically a text-to-speech program that works with web pages. Wow, he had it set to one of the highest speed settings and it was basically unintelligible to me. Think of an auctioneer or that "world's fastest talker" guy from the old FedEx commercials -- this program read even faster than that & Keenan could still understand it.
The ZForm developers mentioned that while they learned a lot from the Quake prototype, they decided to make a card game since that made more business sense. The visually-impaired demographic is older (some people lose their sight later in life), and they're much more likely to play cards than Quake. Also, it's much easier to make an unambiguous aural interface for a card game than a twitch game.
Dan Schmidt also used to work there, and has entered the IF competition in the past (see this). Looks like he donated some prizes this year.
Has anyone else with pro game dev experience written IF?
So what are people's experiences with digital cable? Here are mine:
We recently switch from RCN "regular" to RCN digital. This is in the Boston area.
Negatives:
1) The picture seems slightly worse. For example, the NYC scene behind David Letterman's desk shimmers, although Letterman himself doesn't.
2) RCN took away the "force tune" option, which forces the tuner to switch to different stations at a pre-set time. This was useful when taping more than one show on a night.
3) RCN screwed up our bill (sigh).
Plusses:
1) More channels, like VH1 classics, BBC America & more HBO channels (HBO Latino!). Also more music channels (no images, they're like radio stations w/o DJs).
2) It's cheaper, if you have a cable modem.
3) The TV Guide menu seems more useful, although it has ads now.
There are also digital artifacts when you switch channels, although that's really brief & doesn't bother us.
So, for now we're keeping it. Wish the image quality was better, although many channels have such variable image quality anyway that you get used to it. I've been spoiled by my DVDs. Everyone talks about how HDTV will give us such high quality video, but I think the broadcasters will just carve up the bandwidth & give us 4 crappy channels instead of one high-quality-video channel. After all, people will still watch it & they'll make more in ad revenue.
Go to http://www.guidestar.org (which provides info on nonprofits), and search for "Free Software" to bring up the FSF info.
There some interesting stuff there, esp. in the Form 990's:
- No one seems to draw a salary
- In '97, id software donated about $19K to the FSF, which was over $3K more than Red Hat did. (Is that the year Carmack won big at gambling & donated the proceeds?)
All in all, seems like it's a pretty low budget organization.
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of Paul Graham's book "On Lisp"? It seems to be out of print, and I haven't been able to find a copy at any used book sites (half.com, alibris, powells, etc.)
thanks.
allagash98@yahoo.com