Play a Call of Duty game on the consoles. I'm rather surprised myself as to how much I'm digging using a limiting control scheme. The game prides itself on the intensity of realism, and using analog sticks with limited turning and movement makes the game feel much closer to real life than twitch-mousing does.
and I hate the price of CDs over here. The retail price of CDs was creeping up over the $30AUD mark (but from memory dropped back down around the time the GST was introduced). It's only recently, something like the last two years, that labels like Universal have dropped the retail prices down to $20AUD.
Compare that with importing CDs. Especially with our current exchange rate, it's usually cheaper to order a few CDs online and get them shipped out than to buy the exact same CDs in stores out here. Store imports are even worse. Using Nine Inch Nails as an example, I paid $40 for the DVDA and $50 for the SACD special editions of The Downward Spiral. I could have gotten them much cheaper had I imported them myself.
Concert tickets though, I completely agree. It's almost costing as much to go to a single concert than it is to go to the Big Day Out these days - and I've been considering making next year's Big Day Out my last due to rising costs and declining quality.
All we need to do is move every 10 year old kid up north and give them a golf club. Those toads get quite some distance once skilled. It also has the dual benefit of teaching kids golf at an early age and thus ensuring them a solid professional life.
As other posters have noted, if you don't have the skill set then you shouldn't be worrying about engines quite yet.
How familiar are you with vector and matrix mathematics?
If you ever plan on doing ANYTHING in 3D, learn that. Trying to do anything without knowing the basics is just plain ludicrous.
Once you've gotten the hang of those, you can start coding. The mathematics are usually the biggest block to get over when programming in 3D. After learning that stuff, OpenGL or Direct3D will seem alot less daunting. Alternately, since there's alot more to 3D game programming than just learning a graphics API, you could then try making a mod or playing with one of the many engines listed in previous posts.
My own personal opinion though:
Engines are wrong. They're usually general purpose solutions when I want a specific solution. Engines are evaulated by companies/individuals based on features that they want. They'll usually go with the engine that has a balance between features and ease of use. One could argue that learning an engine and adding the features you want would be just as time consuming as writing your own engine from scratch (it's an argument that I ascribe to). As a learning environment, I really can't recommend anything better than reading tutorials; getting comfortable with the concepts; and then doing everything yourself. That's the approach I've taken, and I've found it to be a rather useful approach (it's the same with programming languages - did you learn the science behind it or did you only learn the syntax?).
I'm on a contract, but I've stayed with the same company for three years and have had my name on each game released by the company since that time (5 separate games, and not all for programming).
I knew a few guys from Perception, some being ex-employees of where I currently work and one being my best friend through high school. The situation does suck alot, but it's not an uncommon story. Perception may survive though - they used to be a multimedia company before tackling games. Letting go of the entire staff does spell doom for the game though, so I'm not expecting it to be released.
If the lock on button is trying to scan for info, you're in the wrong visor mode. There's normal, scan, thermal, and x-ray visor modes. The only mode you can scan objects in is the scan mode (as the name would indicate).
I digress. The control system perfectly suits an FPS for a console. Movement is done with one stick instead of two, freeing up your right thumb for all the extra buttons that the shoulders of the controller just doesn't have. The lock on button makes things so much easier than screwing around with the very imprecise analog sticks that are just trying to be a mouse but just doesn't cross the line. On the odd occasion that you have to look around, the freelook button is there, but notice that when you actually do have to use it there's no enemies around, or the enemies are something weak like the bugs that infest the ruins. The control scheme cuts out a lot of crap and makes the experience a whole lot better. It will be interesting to see how it works in multiplayer with Echoes though...
I never got the whole "standards for FPS's on consoles are different" argument. Metroid Prime is possibly one of the best FPS's I've ever played (despite the fact that they'd tell you it's not an FPS but a First Person Adventure - it's the same kind of argument that Deus Ex is an FPS instead of a hardcore RPG when it's really both).
Build/Doom engines are raycasters
No they're not. Wolfenstein 3D was a raycaster. Doom used a two dimensional BSP tree. Build from memory was more akin to a portal renderer than a raycaster. If Duke3D's look mode used raycasting, it wouldn't have looked as bad as it did. Raycasting sends a ray out for each pixel on your screen to see what it should draw there. Wolf3D was as quick as it was as it only did it for the horizontal pixels and consequently only had to perform ray casts about 300 times instead of 300x150 times (I think that was the rough render area of Wolf3D). Duke3D used a method known as shearing for its look mode, which basically stretches the screen vertically.
AMD says they have the capability to produce dual-core chips and will introduce the technology when they "feel there is a market need."
Didn't 3DFX say the same thing about 32 bit graphics cards?
Looks like the competition they'll be providing for the GBA is complete. The only thing the GBA did that the PSP didn't do was connectivity with another console.
They're all worrying about nothing. If they ever decided to put some thought in to advertising methods, they could come up with a system that works for everyone. Most of the time, people ignore the ads because it's always about stuff they couldn't care less about. What's wrong with specifying what kind of advertising you'd like to receive via your set top box? It could be easilly incorporated in to current technology, and it would certinaly be a more effective form of advertising as they'd finally be hitting the mark for everyone instead of hoping to get everyone with the current method of TV advertising - I know I'd rather see advertising for the Alias Season 2 boxset than women's hygene products.
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Play a Call of Duty game on the consoles. I'm rather surprised myself as to how much I'm digging using a limiting control scheme. The game prides itself on the intensity of realism, and using analog sticks with limited turning and movement makes the game feel much closer to real life than twitch-mousing does.
Remember how Nine Inch Nails released their music over BitTorrent?
So long for getting their next album legally over the internet if BitTorrent gets blocked.
Needs more Zombie Doom.
and I hate the price of CDs over here. The retail price of CDs was creeping up over the $30AUD mark (but from memory dropped back down around the time the GST was introduced). It's only recently, something like the last two years, that labels like Universal have dropped the retail prices down to $20AUD.
Compare that with importing CDs. Especially with our current exchange rate, it's usually cheaper to order a few CDs online and get them shipped out than to buy the exact same CDs in stores out here. Store imports are even worse. Using Nine Inch Nails as an example, I paid $40 for the DVDA and $50 for the SACD special editions of The Downward Spiral. I could have gotten them much cheaper had I imported them myself.
Concert tickets though, I completely agree. It's almost costing as much to go to a single concert than it is to go to the Big Day Out these days - and I've been considering making next year's Big Day Out my last due to rising costs and declining quality.
Why use the Wii-mote as drum sticks? Surely that would be a perfect opportunity for Nintendo to convince you of your need for more DK Bongos :-P
All we need to do is move every 10 year old kid up north and give them a golf club. Those toads get quite some distance once skilled. It also has the dual benefit of teaching kids golf at an early age and thus ensuring them a solid professional life.
As other posters have noted, if you don't have the skill set then you shouldn't be worrying about engines quite yet. How familiar are you with vector and matrix mathematics? If you ever plan on doing ANYTHING in 3D, learn that. Trying to do anything without knowing the basics is just plain ludicrous. Once you've gotten the hang of those, you can start coding. The mathematics are usually the biggest block to get over when programming in 3D. After learning that stuff, OpenGL or Direct3D will seem alot less daunting. Alternately, since there's alot more to 3D game programming than just learning a graphics API, you could then try making a mod or playing with one of the many engines listed in previous posts. My own personal opinion though: Engines are wrong. They're usually general purpose solutions when I want a specific solution. Engines are evaulated by companies/individuals based on features that they want. They'll usually go with the engine that has a balance between features and ease of use. One could argue that learning an engine and adding the features you want would be just as time consuming as writing your own engine from scratch (it's an argument that I ascribe to). As a learning environment, I really can't recommend anything better than reading tutorials; getting comfortable with the concepts; and then doing everything yourself. That's the approach I've taken, and I've found it to be a rather useful approach (it's the same with programming languages - did you learn the science behind it or did you only learn the syntax?).
I'm on a contract, but I've stayed with the same company for three years and have had my name on each game released by the company since that time (5 separate games, and not all for programming). I knew a few guys from Perception, some being ex-employees of where I currently work and one being my best friend through high school. The situation does suck alot, but it's not an uncommon story. Perception may survive though - they used to be a multimedia company before tackling games. Letting go of the entire staff does spell doom for the game though, so I'm not expecting it to be released.
So I stopped by the Australian version of Google news and scrolled down to the entertainment section. The top-story headline read "Snake bites great-grandmother".
:-P
How entertaining it is to find a mis-categorisation
...you HATE programmer art?
If the lock on button is trying to scan for info, you're in the wrong visor mode. There's normal, scan, thermal, and x-ray visor modes. The only mode you can scan objects in is the scan mode (as the name would indicate).
I digress. The control system perfectly suits an FPS for a console. Movement is done with one stick instead of two, freeing up your right thumb for all the extra buttons that the shoulders of the controller just doesn't have. The lock on button makes things so much easier than screwing around with the very imprecise analog sticks that are just trying to be a mouse but just doesn't cross the line. On the odd occasion that you have to look around, the freelook button is there, but notice that when you actually do have to use it there's no enemies around, or the enemies are something weak like the bugs that infest the ruins. The control scheme cuts out a lot of crap and makes the experience a whole lot better. It will be interesting to see how it works in multiplayer with Echoes though...
I never got the whole "standards for FPS's on consoles are different" argument. Metroid Prime is possibly one of the best FPS's I've ever played (despite the fact that they'd tell you it's not an FPS but a First Person Adventure - it's the same kind of argument that Deus Ex is an FPS instead of a hardcore RPG when it's really both).
How does he plan on shutting down the Ferrium project? The minute I read that, I instantly thought to myself that the fact that the source code for Freespace 2 has been available for some time which would be a huge dent in any attempt Derek tries to shut the project down. reveals that since the code for Ferrium isn't using any of the Interplay code it should be pretty safe. Of course, IANAL...
Build/Doom engines are raycasters No they're not. Wolfenstein 3D was a raycaster. Doom used a two dimensional BSP tree. Build from memory was more akin to a portal renderer than a raycaster. If Duke3D's look mode used raycasting, it wouldn't have looked as bad as it did. Raycasting sends a ray out for each pixel on your screen to see what it should draw there. Wolf3D was as quick as it was as it only did it for the horizontal pixels and consequently only had to perform ray casts about 300 times instead of 300x150 times (I think that was the rough render area of Wolf3D). Duke3D used a method known as shearing for its look mode, which basically stretches the screen vertically.
AMD says they have the capability to produce dual-core chips and will introduce the technology when they "feel there is a market need." Didn't 3DFX say the same thing about 32 bit graphics cards?
Remind me not to upgrade to Office Longhorn, it would slow my computer to a crawl...
Looks like the competition they'll be providing for the GBA is complete. The only thing the GBA did that the PSP didn't do was connectivity with another console.
They're all worrying about nothing. If they ever decided to put some thought in to advertising methods, they could come up with a system that works for everyone. Most of the time, people ignore the ads because it's always about stuff they couldn't care less about. What's wrong with specifying what kind of advertising you'd like to receive via your set top box? It could be easilly incorporated in to current technology, and it would certinaly be a more effective form of advertising as they'd finally be hitting the mark for everyone instead of hoping to get everyone with the current method of TV advertising - I know I'd rather see advertising for the Alias Season 2 boxset than women's hygene products.