A way into professional coding?
Archives Forums/Blitz3D SDK Programming/A way into professional coding?
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| I'm looking to eventually go from being a hobbyist Blitz coder to a fulltime games industry programmer (like many others here). Would using the blitzSDK be a good way to transition from Blitz to C++? i.e. would employers take you more seriously as you would be programming in C++ and using blitz3D as the engine for your graphics. And then also using C++ to interface with files and databases. |
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| I would say YES... in the short term. I don't think industry would be interested in your knowledge of B3DSDK, because it's not something they use, but if it get's you using C++, you are making headway. Once you have C under your belt, look at using it with OpenGL or DirectX. Figure out exactly where you're aiming. C++ is probably the one to go for if you want to be an engine monkey, developing the core code which others use to create games. |
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| Well.. if thats what you want to do, then already knowing the Media commands would probably make learning C++ that bit easier. However Like Nomen I dont expect the B3DSDK knowlage to be much use outside this relm. I would concider XNA over OPenGl or DirectX thou. |
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| well there's no way I want to learn standard directx coding. It would take far too long, and i really just want to make games, not re-invent the wheel. Real studios don't program it directly anyway, they use engines don't they? So I see using the blitz3dSDK as similar to using the unreal engine. Then there's always XNA |
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| There are engine programming jobs, ai programming jobs, etc, programming is particularly specialized now... It is better to have a thorough knowledge of C++ and C#. From text handling, operating system handling, files, and data. Then you should know logic inside out and problem solving. Once you have those two you can probably past most entry level programming job requirements. |
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| Short answer is yes. No need to even mention which sdk you are using. Simply say your program was written in C or C++ using a directx wrapper library. |
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| so basically, if i download visual c++ express then use the blitz3dSDK to write games, I could use these to get a junior games programming job? |
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| I would say its a good start. As you said, a lot of studios use a graphics engine. We use Renderware and is that so much removed from B3DSDK? :) If you can show you can manipulate the geometry well and show you have an understanding of the underlying transformations, verts, normals and other such associated concepts, then you should be able to get your foot on the first step of the ladder. There is no way a studio would expect a newbie coder to know something like Renderware, as the cost is very high and is usually only available to developers, not hobbyists. |
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| To all you "professionals" that read this. Do you use visual studio? And if a person applied for a programming job, who had experience in visual C++ express edition, using blitz3DSDK as his 3D engine, and showed you some good quality demos/games, would that be good enough? I'm basically wanting to focus the next two years of my life on getting a professional games development job and want to know if this is the best way to acheive this. |
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| Hmmm well the best advice I've ever seen handed out by industry professionals is the following: Don't stress out too much about what language and what SDK you use, just concentrate on making a complete game to demonstrate that you are a) capable of finishing a product that you start, and b) that you can program. The sort of programmer they tend to be interested in is someone who can learn to use whatever tools/SDK's/languages etc. are given to them to use. Not all development houses use the same development packages and the language used is not always C++ (by all programmers on a given project), despite that usually being the only language you see pushed on forums. The companies in "big" business aren't interested in spending years writing complete engines in C++ from scratch for their next project (although this does happen from time to time, often in someones spare time however) - they are in the business to make money and keeping their investors happy (or at least off of their backs). This means getting the product out on the chosen platforms as quickly as possible. I apologise for my terrible sentence structure, grammar, rambling, the gerbils and an extremely upset aardvark etc. I'm very, very tired. :) [Edit: Oh I should point out that I am not a professional programmer, I just used to know a few in the business. So feel free to ignore any parts of the above - it's probably out of date information.] |
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| What Jazz said. We use visial studio for PC and Playstation work. We also use Codewarrior for Nintendo stuff. |
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| What Big& and Jazz said. But..... It's not all fun and games in the games industry though. Quite often teams are overworked and forced into unrealistic deadlined by publishers.. Oh, and the pay is usually less than the going rate in the 'real-world'. The current employment climate is also quite unstable - although it does appear to have settled down again over the past 18 months. I left the industry and never looked back. Good times though. |
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| > so basically, if i download visual c++ express then use the blitz3dSDK to write games, I could use these to get a junior games programming job? Yes, and somebody on these boards recently got a first job by showing a game he had written in plain old BlitzBasic (or Max, I forget which). Having the ability to code in C/C++ gives a little extra ooomph to the resume though. |
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| That's good to know. I've been partly putting off giving my all to using Blitz3D as I've been thinking that it wouldn't help me get into the commercial games industry, but this thread has helped change my mind. I'm now thinking of producing one or two big games using Blitz3D to show game development understanding and design, then a couple of casual games written in C++ to demonstrate C++ coding ability. |
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| If coding is your thing please do stick with C++ and blitz sdk... the C++ portion really is the thing to learn for a commercial job, and its much harder going from basic to C++. So be C++ now and use the sdk. |
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| i.e. would employers take you more seriously as you would be programming in C++... Yes. As a professional programmer AND one who HIRES professional programmers for projects, I look for people with a command of C/C++. A grasp of a mainline scripting language such as Python is also desirable. Coding in an obscure SDK such as BlitzSDK is of little to no value... |
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| little to no value?!?! don't you all use engines that work like Blitz3D SDK? C/C++ is a very general thing to ask for. What graphics library should i be working in? Should I be using .Net or win32? Surely to program something good using Blitz3dSDK you need a very good grasp of C++? Doesn't a head for game design and mechanics count for anything? This is so confusing with everyone giving opposite views. |
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| What graphics library should i be working in? One that requires you to have some understanding of the concepts within it, rather than one which does it all for you. Blitz3D hides so much of the stuff you'd need to know to be able to do anything at all in most 3d engines that a prospective employer simply could not tell if you knew it or not. At what point are you required to do matrix, quaternion or even vector math in a B3D app? Never, because it does it all for you. You *might* have used all three, but you might not. I've written half a dozen games in B3D, two pretty big ones, and I've never gone beyond mid-level vector math in any of them. When I took the next step up and started using TV3D, I had to ( actually, I didn't *have* to, but the game I wanted to make pretty much determined it ) start learning quaternion and matrix math. Even now I'm doing some of the actual math with helper functions, but I still need to know what operations I need to use, and I never did in Blitz. In Blitz you get cool stuff like AlignToVector and TFormPoint which do it all for you. |
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| Rather begs the question why such libs don't have such helper functions as blitz, doesn't it? :) |
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| Rather begs the question why such libs don't have such helper functions as blitz, doesn't it? :) It's not the having them that's the issue - many do have them - it's the *only* having them that's the problem. You can't use Quaternions or Matrices with Blitz3D even if you know how to. These days, games are not being programmed in C++, they're programmed in Lua or Python. So if you're after a job that requires C++, you're after a low-level job, engine programmer or at least expected to work with the engine at a low level, in which case you may well be the guy who's required to *write* those helper functions, not use them. |
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| k - I see. |
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| It takes a long time to transition from basic to C++, and there are a huge number of gotchas. For most people its months. Why then, would an employer take you on if he cannot immediately put you to work? consider that. C++ and blitzsdk is perfectly fine for any employer. Just don't use basic. |
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