RE: need a real programmer!
- From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 22:20:33 -0400
I will add a little bit to this. My daughter at the age of 13 wrote her own
2d video game a lot like the Simsons or BC at the arcade. She never touched
a line of code and it was pretty amazing. I can?t remember the name of the
engine now but at the time it already had over 40 games it was used for my
daughters had a very short story line but if she would have continued it it
would have been just as good as the previously mentioned games. She is now
22 so that goes back a ways. You are both right of course if you want to do
something so unique you have to get down and dirty but if you?re out to make
the latest theme based 3d game then as Sina has listed you have so many
choices and while some costs are ridiculous as was mentioned $350,000 for
one of them well go ahead and see how much it will pay the coders to get to
the level that game engine is already at when you could already have your
story out and people paying you. I love this list though it will take me a
while to get through it. I miss the engines that ran Doom clones they even
had one that had a text interface that was really cool. I have also judged
for the AGT contest in the past and that was one cool game engine. But it
was very limited even though many people wrote games for it and heck even a
high school used it to teach their library and the dewy decimal system. Man
that dates me. Oh well I am not trying to jump in on an argument because I
don?t really see this as one. I just wanted to say it is getting closer and
closer to a building block style coding system now days. In 2000 American
Express used a doom like game engine to create a game that their employees
could hunt their bosses on their lunch break and you know a company would
not do something like that if they had to code how a bullet would fly.
Ken
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:23 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: need a real programmer!
When I said folks I did mean houses, so that included folks like Bungee,
sorry about spelling, and for example the bioware guys on bioshock, and so
on, not folks == individuals, but sorry for the ambiguity there.
As for coding from a single independent developer, that?s actually where I
was going for more of the drag and drop, of course assuming one is sighted
and can use this interface, kind of development.
You actually left off tons of details from your game development spiel, but
did nothing to convince me, since I am already agreeing with you it?s a
complicated, or at least, intricate process, if not complicated. Some, but
hardly most, games have Hollywood budgets these days in the tens of millions
of dollars, and the development effort often reflects this, as well as the
production value at the end of the day, assuming of course they don?t screw
the pooch in the middle, which is what often happens with folks who do game
design, and other aspects being ignored by upper management, if you hear
vetrrins tell it.
I also noticed you simply iterated through one game to make your sentence
appear longer, which is fine, and thanks for all the prolific examples of
the same house doing the same thing, but it really doesn?t contribute new
information. I already absolutely agree that folks design their own physics
engines or actually mainly, their own graphics ones, but what I?m saying is
that a majority of games in the market do not do this. That you can find
information on probably from some conferences in game design, or even some
industry publications.
I actually have several friends in the games industry at various shops in
various positions, all the way from lowly pee-on tester, the guys who do the
real hard work if you?ll permit me to say so, to game designers, backend
coders, and I knew two gentleman who did the low level assembly, back in the
day, to eak out every piece of performance back when such things are common.
These days, that?s been transformed to cuda or OpenCL routines that can be
procedurally generated based on preexisting snippets; for example, I know
how to pick up weapons so I can reuse this code to accelerate a
multithreaded animation of one thousand dudes doing the same thing. Stuff
like that.
So, yes, some of the most successful games have done this, but for the most
part, a lot of your regular average games are using engines from other
folks.
Now, you and I could go back and forth and each be half right and get upset,
but A. I don?t want to do that, and B. I didn?t provide any sources, so I
feel it?s perfectly fine that you didn?t either, but we both are guilty of
simply saying this, that, and the other thing without actually providing any
credible references; thus, we can either stop the argument here, or actually
bother to cite some of our claims.
But, please accept my apologies for not providing details in my last email,
and for being abrupt. I am sorry for that.
Here are some details on what I?m referring to:
Sony?s fire engine, alone, is responsible for the following 30 games, and
this is a partial list only:
Oh, and it?s completely free to use by the way.
Game Developer Studio Title Release Date
Alvion Malicious October 27, 2010 (Japan)
Big Ant Studios Rugby League Live August 27, 2010 (New Zealand)
September 2, 2010 (Australia) / November 5, 2010 (Europe)
Boolat Games Topatoi July 2, 2009 (Europe)
October 15, 2009 (North America)
Capybara Games Critter Crunch[9][10] October 8, 2009
(North America)
November 19, 2009 (Europe)
Codemasters Colin McRae: Dirt September 11, 2007 (North
America)
September 14, 2007 (Europe)
Codemasters Race Driver: Grid May 30, 2008 (Europe)
June 3, 2008 (North America)
Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Gust Corporation,
Nippon Ichi Software, Sega Hyperdimension Neptunia July 29,
2010 (Japan)
February 15, 2011 (North America) / March 4, 2011 (Europe)
Doublesix Games Burn Zombie Burn! March 26, 2009 (North
America, Europe)
FluffyLogic Savage Moon December 24, 2008 (Europe)
January 29, 2009 (North America)
From Software Another Century's Episode: R August 19, 2010 (Japan)
From Software Demon's Souls February 5, 2009 (Japan)
October 6, 2009 (North America) / June 25, 2010 (Europe)
Game Republic Catan December 18, 2008 (Japan)
May 12, 2010 (Europe) / June 15, 2010 (North America)
Gust Corporation Atelier Rorona: Alchemist of Arland[11]
June 25, 2009 (Japan)
September 28, 2010 (North America) / October 22, 2010 (Europe)
Gust Corporation Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel[11]
January 28, 2010 (Japan)
March 15, 2011 (North America)
Gust Corporation Atelier Totori: Alchemist of Arland 2[11]
June 24, 2010 (Japan)
Gust Corporation Atelier Meruru: Alchemist of Arland 3[11]
June, 2011 (Japan)
HandCircus Okabu Summer, 2011
Irem PachiPara DL Hyper Sea Story In Karibu July 2, 2008 (Japan)
Irem Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4: Summer Memories February 24, 2011
(Japan)
Nippon Ichi Software, Idea Factory Trinity Universe
October 1, 2009 (Japan)
June 25, 2010 (Europe) / June 29, 2010 (North America)
Nippon Ichi Software Last Rebellion January 28, 2010 (Japan)
February 23, 2010 (North America) / March 26, 2010 (Europe)
Nippon Ichi Software Disgaea 4 February 24, 2011 (Japan)
September 6, 2011 (North America)
Sony Computer Entertainment Gravity Daze Japan, 2011
Seed Studios Under Siege[11] April 2011
Sidhe Interactive GripShift January 4, 2007 (North
America)
March 23, 2007 (Europe)
Sidhe Interactive Shatter[12][13] July 23, 2009
thatgamecompany flOw February 22, 2007 (North America)
March 23, 2007 (Europe) / May 11, 2007 (Japan)
thatgamecompany[2] Flower February 12, 2009
thatgamecompany Journey 2011
that was from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhyreEngine
the Source game engine is responsible for the Garry?s mod physics sandbox,
but also for these rather notable games:
Counter-Strike: Source
Half-Life 2
Day of Defeat: Source
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Team Fortress 2
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Dino D-Day
Portal
Portal 2
beat-em-up Zeno Clash
Vindictus
got that from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_engine
speaking of that Unreal engine, there are over three hundred (300) games,
just in the private industry, not even counting
education/manufacturing/military that use it.
found that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games
as for completely free, and open source to boot, engines, please see this
list:
Aleph One
Allegro library
Ardor3D
Axiom Engine
Blender
Build engine
BRGameEngine
Cafu Engine
ClanLib
Cocos2d
Corona SDK
Crystal Space
Cube
Cube 2
Delta3d
DGD
DXFramework
Env3D
Exult
Flexible Isometric Free Engine
Flixel
Genesis3D
id Tech 1
id Tech 2
id Tech 3
ioquake3
Jake2
JGame
jMonkeyEngine
Jogre
Lightweight Java Game Library
LÖVE2d
Nebula Device
OpenSceneGraph
ORX
Panda3D
PixelLight
PLIB
Quake engine
Retribution Engine
Second Life
Sge2d
Sphere
Spring
Storymoto
Stratagus
Got that from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines
as for completely free, but no source included, engines, see this list:
Adventure Game Studio ? Mostly used to develop third-person pre-rendered
adventure games, this engine is one of the most popular for developing
amateur adventure games.
dim3 ? Freeware 3D javascript engine for the Mac (although finished games
are cross platform).
DX Studio ? A freeware 3D game engine with complete tools for 3D video game
development. Upgrading to paid licenses would unlock extra features.
Unity ? An open-ended 3D game/interactive software engine for web, Windows,
and Mac OS X. Upgrading to paid licenses can additionally enable support for
the iPhone, Android, Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, and the Xbox 360.
Unreal Engine ? Considered one of the most popular game engines in the top
market. The free edition, called UDK (a binary release of the engine),
allows you to use the engine for commercial purposes under specific
terms[4].
World Builder ? A classic Mac OS game engine.
Wintermute Engine ? A runtime and development tools for creating 2D and 2.5D
point'n'click adventure games (Windows) . A "lite" Version is also
available, but without the 3D Actor function (Windows, MAC, Linux)[5][6]
RGSS ? An engine made by enterbrain to create RPG's using RPG Maker XP.
RGSS2 was used for RPG Maker VX.
Got that from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines
and the various lists go on and on.
a lot of folks create a lot of games! A mere fraction of a fraction of those
folks create the engines. That?s all I was saying.
Take care,
Sina
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher
Coale
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 4:08 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: need a real programmer!
Sina, that is not true at all. Game programming (graphics/engine
development) is my niche and my main programming focus. In fact, I am
working on an "up-to-date (shader model 5.0)" 2.5D game engine at the moment
as well as a game to showcase it. When you say "very few bother coding", you
are way off. Game development involves quite a lot of coding, whether you
use an engine or not.
That aside, game development isn't simply "drag this here and drop that
there." You are sadly mistaken. Yes, you can use things like 3D Game Maker
or Unity3D but there are a reason why the big sellers never do. Halo, Halo
2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, Halo: ODST, Halo Reach, and Halo 4 all use their own
custom engine and Havok physics (yes, you are right about the physics part)
and have made billions. Most Xbox and Xbox 360 titles use their own engine.
Why? Because they want the most control and premade engines do not offer
that (and definitely not these drag-and-drop engines).
Aside from that you need to understand the marketing aspect of using someone
else's game engine. There are publishing royalties as well as licensing
requirements to use some of the great engines. Unreal Engine, for example,
runs upwards of $350,000 for a single license on top of royalty fees. For
the limited feature UDK, you can expect to pay $2,500 per seat (i.e. per
programmer) and then 25% on all revenue beyond $10,000. And to speak
bluntly, all of the free 3D game engines are rather shitty and outdated. If
you want a good engine, you'll be paying quite a bit of potential revenue
for it.
Aside from the business aspect of game engines, you really need to
understand the amount of work that goes into making a game, because I don't
think you understand it. So let me structure it for you:
You have your artists: texture artists, model artists, concept artists,
level and map artists/designers, etc. (this here is expensive)
You have your musicians: sound effects planners and designers, music
planners and designer, etc.
You have your English majors: story development, planning, dialogue, etc.
You have your programmers: asset programmers, engine programmers, physics
programmers, audio programmers, effects (shader) programmers, etc.
This is why high-end games spend millions in production. It is not simply a
"drag and drop" job.
For the independent developer like myself, you are stuck doing all of these
tasks on your own, and it is a headache. Now, I have to ask -- have you ever
even done game development?
On 8/3/2011 7:59 AM, Sina Bahram wrote:
Tyler, that?s exactly what folks do, and they make even more money than
that. Putting that cluelessness aside, I do see now that you said 1000/fps
instead of 1000FPS, which is completely different, so sorry about the
question, but the comment still stands.
Oh, and lots of those engines are actually not terribly expensive at all,
and are completely free for students, by the way.
Take care,
Sina
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Littlefield,
Tyler
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 10:42 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: need a real programmer!
You clearly didn't read my message. I said 1000 ms in a second, and 60 fps.
not 1000 fps.
Second, there are game engines, have you seen the price of unreal? I've also
spoken to folks who use it, and they say it's rather messy.
You won't code the physics by hand; you'll use a lib like bullet, but you'll
still have to set it up to do what it needs. If game programming were "drag
and drop game-maker style, throw in a script or two here or there and voila,
everyone would have the next halo and Bunji wouldn't be making upwards of
250 million.
On 8/3/2011 7:30 AM, Sina Bahram wrote:
One question and one comment:
Why on earth 1,000 FPS? This is strictly based on hardware, but still. I?m
not sure I know any game on the market that runs that high. Most games are
perfectly glossy at 60fp/s, and technically 30 to 40 is all you really need
for smooth operations.
The comment is, actually all of the stuff you mentioned is now handled by
game engines themselves; for example, Unity3D, the unreal engine, etc. etc.
thus, all the game designer has to really do is come up with the story and
some of the objects in the scene. Drag and drop some of those objects, write
some really high level code to stitch things together; for example,
collision triggers for when your character collides with the gun or med
pack, and then call it a day, after of course all the media such as sound
and images are done.
Very few folks in the industry bother coding the physics, and by very few, I
really do think you could count them on your hands. The reason is that the
physics just don?t change. They get better, sure, but it?s not like you?re
going to need different physics, just different values, and those values are
flexible and changeable within the engine.
Take care,
Sina
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Littlefield,
Tyler
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 10:11 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: need a real programmer!
It's not to bad to think up a design, Jim. What gets dificult is when you
get to implement the game. If you're doing real-time 2d or 3d, you've got a
lot to think about.
First, it's realtime, so you'll have to set up the fps so that you'll have a
way to manage the distance and you can use that with physics. If you have
graphics, you'll have thousands of vertacies to manage per object for things
like colision detection and rendering the graphic. You've also got to insure
that your game can fit in all it's rendering and update operations in:
(1000/FPS), where 1000 is the number of milliseconds in a second, and FPS is
the frames-per-second, usually around 60, which leaves you about 16 ms to do
everything in.
Thinking up all sorts of ideas isn't all that difficult. It's the
implementation process and getting those ideas into real working usable code
that is fun.
On 8/3/2011 6:58 AM, Homme, James wrote:
Hay Elf,
How do you hold all that game planning stuff in your head.
Jim
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Littlefield,
Tyler
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 9:46 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: need a real programmer!
It does not require flash to pull off something of quality. There are a few
games written in c#, they can use directx. c++ is still my prefered choice,
and the language I"m creating my current game in.
On 8/3/2011 2:07 AM, RicksPlace wrote:
Hi Inthane: I'm not sure if I am the Rick you mentioned but I
remember your original post a little.
I am a VB.net / Sql CE or Sql Server guy for the most part. I am experienced
in Business Apps. Now, Game production is quite diferent.
I don't know how well suited CSharp or any of the MS languages are for the
purpose of game creation. I am thinking of the 2 main technicals of a game
that is logic flow and the UI element processing.
When it comes to the logic flow that might be doable easily enough but I'm
not at all sure about handling audio / video technicals. I would guess it
would require Flash or Silverlight to pull off something of real quality for
sighted people and I'm not sure about what else could be used in their place
for quality Audio control.
I would think that those 2 technicals would be the foundation of at least
the UI components of a game like you describe.
I haven't worked in Flash and I am still in VB.net 2008 since WindowEyes
won't work well with UIA and not at all with WPF which is what Silverlight
is all about.
My guess you were talking to the other Rick I have seen on list from time to
time but if it was me, and I will help you with your app if I can, I don't
have the tools to develop a really killer game like I would imagine you
would want to do to compete with other companies out there.
Also, if you are going to go cross-platform you should keep that in mind
from the very start of the project and select tools and skill sets
accordingly.
Finally, if you are going to develop action games with any quality visuals
you will, of course, need a sighted person, best a Programmer type, to
design, test and coordinate visuals with logic flow, timing and audio and
all that jazz.
How you might use the graphics and perhaps the digitized images of real
characters wwould be beyond what I have done and I wouldn't know how to
learn to do that without having some vision.
So, if me, I'll have to back out since I don't have the skill set necessary
for the UI portion of the gaming arena and might not be up to speed with the
logic flow which might be some form of AI in advanced senarios.
Now, if you need a program to track your income, handle some accounting or
any inventory control from those apps, well I could do that.
Keep posting up about your progress though since it would be pretty cool to
be able to use those types of advanced tools to create interactive Science
Fiction.
Later Inthane:
Rick USA
----- Original Message -----
From: inthane <mailto:inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 10:54 PM
Subject: Re: need a real programmer!
hello again folks,
there is a lot of things going on in my life so at times my responses
are going to be a bit slow to show up!
ok, I've had responses on my original query from Roger, Q, Ramit, Mesut,
and a helpful hand offered from rick
first, Q, as I said in a personal reply to you for most of my needs, I
need a partner, I don't have the capital to afford to have you build
them and need to then sell them. though I may ask you about a private
program I need in a few days(since its a personal application, its not
going to make money so I'm going to probably have to pay someone to
build it)
roger and rick, I have one application that's more of a database
application that needs to be able to swiftly bring up a selected number
of information entries , and make run functions on said data and display
the results back to me quickly simply and rapidly . I'll contact you
about it off list OK?
now for everyone else (that would be Ramit, Mesut, and roger if he is
still interested in game programming)
you guys asked some questions so here are my answers to the best of my
ability:
Question 1. for which platform do you envisage to have these games?:
answer: what I am aiming for, are (at first) windows based screen reader
friendly games that are playable by both sighted and VI folks, that will
go to levels that such games have been, and beyond!
language is fairly open though I would like to keep it out of the
esoterics or the les flexible languages like lisp and/or working in
flash
c++, C#, those would be my preferences myself, but not a requirement
these games run the gambit from fairly simple shooter games (I have one
fashioned after an old arcade game that I believe folks would have a
blast with, I know of many a worn out arcade machine that ran it) all
the way up to puzzle games, semi role playing games like shades of doom
and lone wolf, and beyond these into full on RPG and multi player game
scenarios
I used to work for a game company, games for the blind, but the owner,
I'll just say he had some issues that caused the company to close up
titer than a goblins backside, and then it disappeared from the web
totally after a minor try at a come back.
I was already long gone when that happened, but I have game designs in
my head, that I was going to suggest to that former boss, along with
experience in game writing (in the pencil and paper role playing game
genre's that can produce some fun, exciting and complex games.
I also was known for, if not finding "the way" to do things, leading the
programmers to look at things so they could figure out how to do them,
as well as a knack for spotting and adding the "nice details" that were
missing from the games produced.
question 2. What would be the potential of earnings can you foresee from
these games?:
answer: hmmm, GMA games is still running so they must be making enough,
they have in fact added a game to there line that sounds very similar to
one of my concepts blast it! but anyway, I also remember my old
boss/partner saying that he had just received a check for 10,000 dollars
from the company he used for his online site's game purchasing payment,
a smaller company that was in competition with PayPal in it's early
days.
so I see good potential for a profitable partnership here.
question 3. Can you provide more info regarding games you have in mind?
as stated above, I have things from one or two person arcade style
games, to multi player games (one computer or many) all the way up to
multi person RPG games similar to doom, Diablo, and masters of Orion
I work just as well in science fiction, and fantasy, along with cross
Genre creations of current times/science fiction, current time/fantasy,
some with war games, so on and so forth.
now my #4. what I am looking for is/are a partner or partners who want
to work together with me to create some fun games and see if we can earn
ourselves some elevated living capital! but without hanging ourselves
out to dry with our current existence!
I would be willing to go into a simple 50/50 agreement for the first
simple game, and then we... would invest the income from that back into
the enterprise to make it legal, safe for us (I'm thinking an LLD here)
and then formalize the company for fun and profit.
so, now that you have details, what do you folks think?
inthaneelf
inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--
Take care,
Ty
my website:
http://tds-solutions.net
my blog:
http://tds-solutions.net/blog
skype: st8amnd127
My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features!
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--
Take care,
Ty
my website:
http://tds-solutions.net
my blog:
http://tds-solutions.net/blog
skype: st8amnd127
My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features!
--
Take care,
Ty
my website:
http://tds-solutions.net
my blog:
http://tds-solutions.net/blog
skype: st8amnd127
My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features!
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