I suppose it depends to what you are used to. VS is quite popular in game dev.
Personally I rely on Visual Assist X for refactoring and better code navigation. Also the debugger is pretty powerful, a lot better than XCode's one in my experience.
Java may appeal to some, but many of us just want C/C++ (Objective-C, allows that). Games on consoles and PC are normally not developed in Java for many good reasons. Game developers that want to transition to phones are likely to prefer to stay with C++ where they can use their tools of choice, such as Visual Studio.
In fact, I think that a few people out there already develop C++ on PC and keep the actual iPhone/XCode build on the side. This is a big plus for those that are already making games and would like to try to use their knowledge and tools for a cell phone game..
- Turn off theTV, laid down the YouTube, try avoiding the Internet if possible 8) - If you feel like wandering, wander within the project: add a less useful feature but fun to implement - Release often, or at least submit changes more often - Write about the project. Getting even just a couple of people interested can make a big difference for your motivation..
mafia won't do anything..for the same reasons why sharks don't eat lawyers;)
BTW he's not the president, nor many Italian's prime minister. He's a media mogul dinosaur (owns 3 major TV channels and bribes the channels he doesn't own directly). Many of us are waiting for the net to squash him down.
I saw this last week at Image Metrics's booth at Siggraph. Image Metrics is really about capturing facial motion and not so much about rendering.
It looks very real, only the face is weird.. in fact, only the face is synthetic (possibly just remorphed). When I realized that it was a re-animated face on top of an actual real world video I felt a bit cheated 8)
I'm not holding my breath. They've missed their big opportunity with the web already. People were writing cool media applets (allow me a plug) and Sun practically ignored those, stuff like Java 3D is a sign of old corporate business thinking. They should have embraced the more hacker-oriented developers.
It's 2007 and there is no solid reliable way to do your own rendering on a web browser.
Please, no more updates, this thing can only grow worse.
How about Google bringing decent Java performance on the Web ? Possibly with OpenGL ES like for Android.
Java on web browsers has possibly gotten worse with years. Sun loaded it so much with useless crap and didn't even try to get a proper way to vsync an applet (very important if you are trying to make a media application/game that requires the basic concept of frame-rate).
Current multi-media web dev is relegated to Flash, but I'm sure that there are many skilled programmers out there that would be glad to have a lean Java VM & API working in web browsers. Sun gave up long time ago, Google could take over and make it ubiquitous.
Mentioning robots evokes AI, but the key is that those carts are doused with cockroach sex hormones.
Show me a girl with a miniskirt and over knee stockings and I'll follow her not 60% but 100% of the times.
Now.. if only they would try get SMB to play nice with whatever Japanese encoding comes from Windows... (shift-jis ?) The Japanese file names coming form my Terastation NAS are mangled even when using XP on Parallels !
I'm not a version management buff, but I can definitely tell why Perforce is so expensive (compared to free alternatives) yet so widely used.
I work for a game company and it seems that most other game companies (with a decent budget) prefer Perforce.
EA also had a lecture at that conference..
I'm not in the business of explaining why one would choose a version control system over another (surely not in a dying topic on Slashdot 8). I just wanted to make it clear that Linus Torvalds speaks for itself and while he makes many good points, also doesn't consider the world of development in a broader sense.
Not every developer is a programmer. There is a lot of people out there that need to use version control systems without writing code or having to bother with command line.
Other than TortoiseSVN I remember trying RapidSVN but it wasn't quite usable. As far as SVN goes I personally just go by Tortoise.. and at work, it's pretty much Perforce, like for many other game companies.
The problem with the "lots of clients" thing is that they are all OS projects: the project is there, the actual product not quite.
Google uses Perforce.. that's a point. "Maybe, perhaps, Google uses a different front end" is not a point.
From what I've heard from the Google speaker himself, many just do command line with Perforce at Google.. but then again they aren't a game company with thousands of artists.
I'm not a Perforce fanboy, in fact I was against at first but there must be a reason if it's alive and well. For one thing, game dev business is more and more into perforce because SVN is not as efficient and because not everyone bases his or her work on a command line (you can be a coder and still use icons)
As far as the GIT UI.. You say it's not "as nice" as TortoiseSVN.. and I'm starting to get the point. Let alone the fact that it's still not for Windows...
So, while I think Linus Torvalds is a great man of our times I still think that he simply doesn't understand that there is a lot of territory that GIT doesn't even start to cover...plus of course I'm sure he doesn't mean people to take his strong opinions too seriously 8)
Can't read the article linked as it's being slashdotted but I saw the talk he did at Google and I have to say that he missed two big points:
Need support for the most diffused platforms (most you can get on Windows is a supposedly non-performing Cygwin version)
Need support for actual user interfaces other than "command line"
..many people need to version binaries, and many need a simple user interface.
In fact one of the handicaps of SVN is that it doesn't have a client like WinCVS. TortoiseSVN works nice, but most users just want a separate app.
So he can make his point as much as he wants, but there is a reason why 5000 employees at Google base their work on Perforce and not on GIT.
Assembly for shaders isn't written in stone. Graphics hardware is moving so fast that the concept of a fixed assembly for them is limiting. It's limiting for the hardware makers, limiting for the software developers. One can always squeeze that cycle somewhere, but it doesn't make sense. The problem with shaders are different ones, like integrating them with CPU code and balancing between dynamic branching and code permutations (combinations of features in a shader are selected either with an IF or with a bunch of includes.. so to speak).
Knowing assembly for shaders is definitely not worth it in my opinion. I highly doubt anyone uses it in the game industry. LUTs are very much used for common techniques such as PCF shadow mapping and what not in Cg and HLSL.
I think some assembly knowledge is important, at least to understand pointers. But, shaders are hardly written in assembly anymore, for all the good reasons.
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Thanks for the pointer.. 8) That's nice indeed.
I looked into the Android SDK once before, but I was quickly put off by the requirement to install Eclipse and some plugins for it.
I think that it's particularly important to keep things easy because most people that look into these SDKs do so as a hobby at first..
I suppose it depends to what you are used to. VS is quite popular in game dev.
Personally I rely on Visual Assist X for refactoring and better code navigation.
Also the debugger is pretty powerful, a lot better than XCode's one in my experience.
Java may appeal to some, but many of us just want C/C++ (Objective-C, allows that).
Games on consoles and PC are normally not developed in Java for many good reasons. Game developers that want to transition to phones are likely to prefer to stay with C++ where they can use their tools of choice, such as Visual Studio.
In fact, I think that a few people out there already develop C++ on PC and keep the actual iPhone/XCode build on the side. This is a big plus for those that are already making games and would like to try to use their knowledge and tools for a cell phone game..
Right, also Oakland was famous for this "high-tech system" to triangulate gun shots 8)
- Turn off theTV, laid down the YouTube, try avoiding the Internet if possible 8)
- If you feel like wandering, wander within the project: add a less useful feature but fun to implement
- Release often, or at least submit changes more often
- Write about the project. Getting even just a couple of people interested can make a big difference for your motivation..
mafia won't do anything ..for the same reasons why sharks don't eat lawyers ;)
BTW he's not the president, nor many Italian's prime minister. He's a media mogul dinosaur (owns 3 major TV channels and bribes the channels he doesn't own directly). Many of us are waiting for the net to squash him down.
He fears the Internet.
..a bit OT, but sometimes I wonder when will be the year of malaware on Linux or OS X.
Says brainwaves all over the places, but I wonder how much of the interaction is instead due to muscle movement sampling.
I saw this last week at Image Metrics's booth at Siggraph.
Image Metrics is really about capturing facial motion and not so much about rendering.
It looks very real, only the face is weird.. in fact, only the face is synthetic (possibly just remorphed).
When I realized that it was a re-animated face on top of an actual real world video I felt a bit cheated 8)
Abuse: troll on what basis ?
I'm not holding my breath. They've missed their big opportunity with the web already. People were writing cool media applets (allow me a plug) and Sun practically ignored those, stuff like Java 3D is a sign of old corporate business thinking. They should have embraced the more hacker-oriented developers.
It's 2007 and there is no solid reliable way to do your own rendering on a web browser.
Please, no more updates, this thing can only grow worse.
A bit offtopic...
How about Google bringing decent Java performance on the Web ? Possibly with OpenGL ES like for Android.
Java on web browsers has possibly gotten worse with years. Sun loaded it so much with useless crap and didn't even try to get a proper way to vsync an applet (very important if you are trying to make a media application/game that requires the basic concept of frame-rate).
Current multi-media web dev is relegated to Flash, but I'm sure that there are many skilled programmers out there that would be glad to have a lean Java VM & API working in web browsers. Sun gave up long time ago, Google could take over and make it ubiquitous.
Mentioning robots evokes AI, but the key is that those carts are doused with cockroach sex hormones.
Show me a girl with a miniskirt and over knee stockings and I'll follow her not 60% but 100% of the times.
Now.. if only they would try get SMB to play nice with whatever Japanese encoding comes from Windows... (shift-jis ?)
The Japanese file names coming form my Terastation NAS are mangled even when using XP on Parallels !
I wrote this 7 billion light years ago.
For one thing I was at Perforce User's Conference last May.
I'm not a version management buff, but I can definitely tell why Perforce is so expensive (compared to free alternatives) yet so widely used.
I work for a game company and it seems that most other game companies (with a decent budget) prefer Perforce.
EA also had a lecture at that conference..
I'm not in the business of explaining why one would choose a version control system over another (surely not in a dying topic on Slashdot 8). I just wanted to make it clear that Linus Torvalds speaks for itself and while he makes many good points, also doesn't consider the world of development in a broader sense.
This is becoming a joke... are you even somewhat close to development ?
You slashdot fanboys should love google right ?
Go ask google why it picked perforce, don't even argue with me.
Not every developer is a programmer.
There is a lot of people out there that need to use version control systems without writing code or having to bother with command line.
Other than TortoiseSVN I remember trying RapidSVN but it wasn't quite usable.
As far as SVN goes I personally just go by Tortoise.. and at work, it's pretty much Perforce, like for many other game companies.
The problem with the "lots of clients" thing is that they are all OS projects: the project is there, the actual product not quite.
Yeah well, sorry but you made no point.
..plus of course I'm sure he doesn't mean people to take his strong opinions too seriously 8)
Google uses Perforce.. that's a point. "Maybe, perhaps, Google uses a different front end" is not a point.
From what I've heard from the Google speaker himself, many just do command line with Perforce at Google.. but then again they aren't a game company with thousands of artists.
I'm not a Perforce fanboy, in fact I was against at first but there must be a reason if it's alive and well.
For one thing, game dev business is more and more into perforce because SVN is not as efficient and because not everyone bases his or her work on a command line (you can be a coder and still use icons)
As far as the GIT UI.. You say it's not "as nice" as TortoiseSVN.. and I'm starting to get the point. Let alone the fact that it's still not for Windows...
So, while I think Linus Torvalds is a great man of our times I still think that he simply doesn't understand that there is a lot of territory that GIT doesn't even start to cover.
Can't read the article linked as it's being slashdotted but I saw the talk he did at Google and I have to say that he missed two big points:
..many people need to version binaries, and many need a simple user interface.
In fact one of the handicaps of SVN is that it doesn't have a client like WinCVS. TortoiseSVN works nice, but most users just want a separate app.
So he can make his point as much as he wants, but there is a reason why 5000 employees at Google base their work on Perforce and not on GIT.
ole'Must add the "don't bring blue suits on Mars" discovery to the list.
Assembly for shaders isn't written in stone. Graphics hardware is moving so fast that the concept of a fixed assembly for them is limiting. It's limiting for the hardware makers, limiting for the software developers.
One can always squeeze that cycle somewhere, but it doesn't make sense. The problem with shaders are different ones, like integrating them with CPU code and balancing between dynamic branching and code permutations (combinations of features in a shader are selected either with an IF or with a bunch of includes.. so to speak).
Knowing assembly for shaders is definitely not worth it in my opinion. I highly doubt anyone uses it in the game industry.
LUTs are very much used for common techniques such as PCF shadow mapping and what not in Cg and HLSL.
I think some assembly knowledge is important, at least to understand pointers.
But, shaders are hardly written in assembly anymore, for all the good reasons.