Thank you *very much*. I'm tired of reading people's bullshit, thinking networking an FPS is easy and shouldn't require much bandwidth, while making sure that no one can cheat easily.
This is why I wish my company either had shorter core hours, or only have core hours 4 days a week. I really have trouble falling asleep at night, but once I'm asleep, I can stay asleep just fine. If I could fall asleep on my own time and come in on my own time, I'd be much more productive/code better, because I wouldn't be as tired.
I think there's definitely something to be said for having only 4 hours of core hours a day. While everyone would still be required to work their 40 hours during the week, you'd only be required to be at work during those 4 hours, and could decide when you wanted to work the other 20 hours.
Linux is an OS, as is Windows. That doesn't make it "not a PC."
No, there is not a length certification process for PC patches. You also don't have to pay Sony/Microsoft to release a patch on the PC.
And finally, you will never get 360/PS3 play going, ever. Sony and Microsoft will not play nice, they provide two completely different APIs, and have completely different security/encryption aspects.
Not really. Ray-tracing is also very good for high-density scenes. Hundreds of thousands to millions of triangles are just fine with ray-tracing, whereas it would completely bog down a normal T&L rasterizer. This is because you really only need to do 1 ray per screen-pixel with raytracing vs. an astounding amount of operations for each vertex (and possibly each texel/fragment, as well) for a normal rasterizer.
I'd say a good half of the high school/college drop outs you'll meet are "underachievers" who decided the system wasn't for them, or that they were too smart to fit into our "lowest common denominator speed" education system. I truly believe there are a lot of very smart people out there whose lives are being wasted because they *can't* fit into the system.
I don't think I'm the exception, but I also don't think I'm the majority. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It's not Gamestop's job to decide. Honestly, who the hell is a Gamestop manager to make decisions on the lives of someone else's child, especially for something so minor that doesn't really matter? It just seems like the guy was on a power trip.
I graduated high school with a 2.2 GPA. I *hated* class (but loved high school, since I got to hang out with my friends). Most of my classes were boring and slow, especially AP Comp. Sci. I played video games for *at least* 20-30 hours a week throughout high school.
Where am I now? Volition, Inc. I'm a game programmer.
Grades are bullshit, mostly. They're a measure of your desire to let the system mold you, your tolerance for menial busy-work, and your memorization skills. Not all classes are like that (very few at my college were, so I actually liked those classes and studied), but most public education is like that.
It's none of Gamestop's business what grades kids get. Leave the parenting to the parents.
1. OpenGL is to DirectX as assembly is to high-level programming languages. You can do the same stuff in either, mostly, but DirectX takes a higher-level approach to it than OpenGL does. 2. OpenGL lags behind the industry and DirectX. 3. OpenGL has a plugin/module approach to it, with extensions. DirectX is all one package. I don't want to have to hunt an extension for something simple like non-power of 2 textures, or billboarded sprites.
Don't assume. There are two big issues, aside from what you stated, here:
1. Drivers not sticking to spec. Many drivers have many bugs that game devs have to work around. 2. Legacy support leads to sub-optimal performance. When driver devs need to choose whether they'll devote their time to legacy support or a new whiz-bang feature, sometimes they choose the whiz-bang feature.
Maybe it's a specific feature in Word thbat's the problem? I've read/written multi-hundred page design and tech design docs for games that have bookmarks, lots of headings and subheadings, lots of inline images, tables, and Visio documents, and didn't have any problems.
Full Sail's main focus is on programming, but they do also teach design. You fully design and develop two projects while at Full Sail, each requiring a full-fledged design doc that you're graded on. You're right, though, it's definitely not a design school.
*sigh* I hate when these threads show up. It always means I need to write long-winded rebuttals to people who don't understand that there are real gaming schools out there other than "Tighten Up The Graphics On Level 3" University.
I went to Full Sail for Game Development (programming), graduated with my bachelor's in 21 months. I'm currently working as a programmer for Volition, Inc. We also have grads from Digipen and Guild Hall working here.
The biggest thing to remember about a game school is this: a school doesn't teach you anything, it allows you to learn. If you don't put in the effort, you'll get nothing out of it. The people that got the most out of a game school, like myself, were working on side projects throughout their time at school. If you aren't motivated while in school to work on games, and don't take time to learn outside of school, then a game school isn't for you. Period.
Is it harder to get a job outside of games with a game degree? That depends. I went for programming, and I know that I am significantly more qualified for a non-game programming job now than I was before I went. That being said, there are still a lot of people out there who think all game schools are a joke, because they've only met the game school failures, or think all game schools are like the fly-by-night universities they see advertised on TV.
Full Sail's Game Development program not only has gaming-centric classes like Game Design Fundamentals, where you learn to write a design doc, and DirectX, but also calculus, linear algebra, and a mythology class. You learn what you would at a normal school, but what makes them great classes is that they're tailored towards games. In linear algebra, the focus is on matrices and matrix math. In our psychology class, some time is devoted to color theory and how different cultures perceive the meaning of colors.
Really, the bottom line is that if you are 100% sure you want to go into games, and you have the motivation to put in 80 hour weeks for months in school between side projects, classes, and school projects, a game school *may* be a good choice for you. Don't discount a good school just because its emphasis is on games.
I'm a programmer at Volition, Inc. I don't work insane hours (though, I haven't crunched yet). I'm paid well. My managers are great. I love coming into work every day. You're making terrible generalizations that don't apply to a lot of places. They could also apply to non-game companies. It's like you're just hateful of the working world in general.
We have Full Sail, Digipen, and Guild Hall grads working here, right now. I went to Full Sail, myself.
Whatever you do, don't listen to the above idiot. Do what you love.
Rote memorization is a sign of intelligence and culture? My favorite poem is "Charge of the Light Brigade," but there's no way I could recite the entire thing. I know people with photographic memories that could recite an entire act from Shakespeare, but not understand any of it. I get your point, but that's a poor way of phrasing it.
First off, the article is *not* about Eclipse vs. Visual Studio.
Secondly, people keep talking about how Eclipse is used via plugins, mostly, and with plugins, it's better than Visual Studio. Well, if you're going to have plugins/add-ons for Eclipse, let's make it fair and do the same for Visual Studio. Let's toss in Visual AssistX and Incredibuild.
I'm not saying one is superior to the other, since I've never used Eclipse, but I am saying that if you're going to compare them, be fair about it.
Just because the IP belongs to the company doesn't mean it's a company decision. I've made plenty of edits from school/work. It doesn't mean those edits were endorsed or even known to the company.
With Wikipedia, you edit the topics you're interested in. If you work in a certain industry or a certain company, you'll most likely edit pages related to it.
Now here's my own advice: be good at what you do. I got hired straight out of school making good money at a good company working on great stuff. Work on side projects. Choose a specialty. Hone your skills.
Yes, the circular logic *sucks,* but try harder. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't.
*shrugs* I really don't have a problem with that. There's a difference between stealing an idea and getting inspiration. If I came up with some sweet algorithm and someone else copied it for commercial use with me getting no benefit, I'd be pissed.
The bottom line is that if someone is making money off of my work, I should be included.
*shrugs* I'm not about "the movement." I'm about being nice and helping people. It might not be capital-O Open Source or capital-F Free, but it would definitely still count as open source, by the sheer fact that the source is out there for public use.
I think people get way too worked up about "the movement" and focus too much on ideals, rather than reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you *very much*. I'm tired of reading people's bullshit, thinking networking an FPS is easy and shouldn't require much bandwidth, while making sure that no one can cheat easily.
To those that think it is: try it.
This is why I wish my company either had shorter core hours, or only have core hours 4 days a week. I really have trouble falling asleep at night, but once I'm asleep, I can stay asleep just fine. If I could fall asleep on my own time and come in on my own time, I'd be much more productive/code better, because I wouldn't be as tired.
I think there's definitely something to be said for having only 4 hours of core hours a day. While everyone would still be required to work their 40 hours during the week, you'd only be required to be at work during those 4 hours, and could decide when you wanted to work the other 20 hours.
Linux is an OS, as is Windows. That doesn't make it "not a PC."
No, there is not a length certification process for PC patches. You also don't have to pay Sony/Microsoft to release a patch on the PC.
And finally, you will never get 360/PS3 play going, ever. Sony and Microsoft will not play nice, they provide two completely different APIs, and have completely different security/encryption aspects.
Not really. Ray-tracing is also very good for high-density scenes. Hundreds of thousands to millions of triangles are just fine with ray-tracing, whereas it would completely bog down a normal T&L rasterizer. This is because you really only need to do 1 ray per screen-pixel with raytracing vs. an astounding amount of operations for each vertex (and possibly each texel/fragment, as well) for a normal rasterizer.
SMS is a different protocol which requires a different infrastructure. The prices are high, but it's not just as easy as normal data transfer.
That depends on your job, now, doesn't it?
I'd say a good half of the high school/college drop outs you'll meet are "underachievers" who decided the system wasn't for them, or that they were too smart to fit into our "lowest common denominator speed" education system. I truly believe there are a lot of very smart people out there whose lives are being wasted because they *can't* fit into the system.
I don't think I'm the exception, but I also don't think I'm the majority. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It's not Gamestop's job to decide. Honestly, who the hell is a Gamestop manager to make decisions on the lives of someone else's child, especially for something so minor that doesn't really matter? It just seems like the guy was on a power trip.
I graduated high school with a 2.2 GPA. I *hated* class (but loved high school, since I got to hang out with my friends). Most of my classes were boring and slow, especially AP Comp. Sci. I played video games for *at least* 20-30 hours a week throughout high school.
Where am I now? Volition, Inc. I'm a game programmer.
Grades are bullshit, mostly. They're a measure of your desire to let the system mold you, your tolerance for menial busy-work, and your memorization skills. Not all classes are like that (very few at my college were, so I actually liked those classes and studied), but most public education is like that.
It's none of Gamestop's business what grades kids get. Leave the parenting to the parents.
A few reasons why I choose DirectX over OpenGL:
1. OpenGL is to DirectX as assembly is to high-level programming languages. You can do the same stuff in either, mostly, but DirectX takes a higher-level approach to it than OpenGL does.
2. OpenGL lags behind the industry and DirectX.
3. OpenGL has a plugin/module approach to it, with extensions. DirectX is all one package. I don't want to have to hunt an extension for something simple like non-power of 2 textures, or billboarded sprites.
Don't assume. There are two big issues, aside from what you stated, here:
1. Drivers not sticking to spec. Many drivers have many bugs that game devs have to work around.
2. Legacy support leads to sub-optimal performance. When driver devs need to choose whether they'll devote their time to legacy support or a new whiz-bang feature, sometimes they choose the whiz-bang feature.
Maybe it's a specific feature in Word thbat's the problem? I've read/written multi-hundred page design and tech design docs for games that have bookmarks, lots of headings and subheadings, lots of inline images, tables, and Visio documents, and didn't have any problems.
Full Sail's main focus is on programming, but they do also teach design. You fully design and develop two projects while at Full Sail, each requiring a full-fledged design doc that you're graded on. You're right, though, it's definitely not a design school.
*sigh* I hate when these threads show up. It always means I need to write long-winded rebuttals to people who don't understand that there are real gaming schools out there other than "Tighten Up The Graphics On Level 3" University.
I went to Full Sail for Game Development (programming), graduated with my bachelor's in 21 months. I'm currently working as a programmer for Volition, Inc. We also have grads from Digipen and Guild Hall working here.
The biggest thing to remember about a game school is this: a school doesn't teach you anything, it allows you to learn. If you don't put in the effort, you'll get nothing out of it. The people that got the most out of a game school, like myself, were working on side projects throughout their time at school. If you aren't motivated while in school to work on games, and don't take time to learn outside of school, then a game school isn't for you. Period.
Is it harder to get a job outside of games with a game degree? That depends. I went for programming, and I know that I am significantly more qualified for a non-game programming job now than I was before I went. That being said, there are still a lot of people out there who think all game schools are a joke, because they've only met the game school failures, or think all game schools are like the fly-by-night universities they see advertised on TV.
Full Sail's Game Development program not only has gaming-centric classes like Game Design Fundamentals, where you learn to write a design doc, and DirectX, but also calculus, linear algebra, and a mythology class. You learn what you would at a normal school, but what makes them great classes is that they're tailored towards games. In linear algebra, the focus is on matrices and matrix math. In our psychology class, some time is devoted to color theory and how different cultures perceive the meaning of colors.
Really, the bottom line is that if you are 100% sure you want to go into games, and you have the motivation to put in 80 hour weeks for months in school between side projects, classes, and school projects, a game school *may* be a good choice for you. Don't discount a good school just because its emphasis is on games.
So very wrong on both counts.
Wee! Bad Analogy Guy, indeed!
I'm a programmer at Volition, Inc. I don't work insane hours (though, I haven't crunched yet). I'm paid well. My managers are great. I love coming into work every day. You're making terrible generalizations that don't apply to a lot of places. They could also apply to non-game companies. It's like you're just hateful of the working world in general.
We have Full Sail, Digipen, and Guild Hall grads working here, right now. I went to Full Sail, myself.
Whatever you do, don't listen to the above idiot. Do what you love.
Rote memorization is a sign of intelligence and culture? My favorite poem is "Charge of the Light Brigade," but there's no way I could recite the entire thing. I know people with photographic memories that could recite an entire act from Shakespeare, but not understand any of it. I get your point, but that's a poor way of phrasing it.
Technically, Freespace 2 wasn't freeware. It's EULA just allowed you to freely copy it to friends.
That is one of the funniest things I've read in a while. I expect this type of comedy gold from Fark, not from Slashdot :-)
First off, the article is *not* about Eclipse vs. Visual Studio.
Secondly, people keep talking about how Eclipse is used via plugins, mostly, and with plugins, it's better than Visual Studio. Well, if you're going to have plugins/add-ons for Eclipse, let's make it fair and do the same for Visual Studio. Let's toss in Visual AssistX and Incredibuild.
I'm not saying one is superior to the other, since I've never used Eclipse, but I am saying that if you're going to compare them, be fair about it.
Just because the IP belongs to the company doesn't mean it's a company decision. I've made plenty of edits from school/work. It doesn't mean those edits were endorsed or even known to the company.
With Wikipedia, you edit the topics you're interested in. If you work in a certain industry or a certain company, you'll most likely edit pages related to it.
Legal. Breaking street dates is bad juju.
As everyone else mentioned, intern.
Now here's my own advice: be good at what you do. I got hired straight out of school making good money at a good company working on great stuff. Work on side projects. Choose a specialty. Hone your skills.
Yes, the circular logic *sucks,* but try harder. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't.
*shrugs* I really don't have a problem with that. There's a difference between stealing an idea and getting inspiration. If I came up with some sweet algorithm and someone else copied it for commercial use with me getting no benefit, I'd be pissed.
The bottom line is that if someone is making money off of my work, I should be included.
*shrugs* I'm not about "the movement." I'm about being nice and helping people. It might not be capital-O Open Source or capital-F Free, but it would definitely still count as open source, by the sheer fact that the source is out there for public use.
I think people get way too worked up about "the movement" and focus too much on ideals, rather than reality.
It is open source. The source is out there and freely modifiable. It's not capital-F Free, but it is open source.