About my “work” (lol)
As a C++ engineer, for years I’ve been building (on and off, mostly off) my own set of tools to something that resembles a start of game engine. I like to do things myself, but am very lazy 😴.
I was trained to be a 3d game programmer. Unfortunately I could not get a job in that field, and I did not really keep in touch with advancements.
I’m considering all this as a hobby, I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. I like to program my own things, if they’re sub-par then so be it, my livelihood is not based on it 😎.
What do I want to achieve?
Well that’s a tough one. As a younger and more naive person I’d always wanted to make video games. I kind of lost that drive, after years of not putting enough time and energy to get result that would match my ambitions.
But I am trying this new approach with this website. Hopefully laying things down will help me be more productive.
And if it doesn’t work, doing more writing is never a bad thing anyway 👨🏼💻.
I try to set goals all the time, and I keep changing my mind. I don’t have self-discipline, and it’s essential if you want to actually do anything.
Discipline is freedom.
The road ahead is long, but I will keep that in mind.
Method
I’m very into DIY when it comes to coding. Of course this slows me down ridiculously, and may be one of the main reasons I haven’t done anything cool yet.
But it’s also very enjoyable to know most of the code was written by yourself. Of course I’m not talented enough to reinvent every wheel, I still use well known libraries for things like compression and image loading / saving, and will probably add more when needed.
Just for fun and because I like to slow myself down, I’m not using STL and wrote my own common objects like string & containers.
Side note: At work I’m obviously not as crazy and will do things properly and efficiently.
Did I say I was lazy? and crazy?
I’m okay with working with old versions of OpenGL (3.3 I think 🤷♂️), I’m confident I can achieve something with a decent look with “ancient” techniques.
I’m a terrible artist (as you surely will see if you look at my movie blog posts 🤮), and would go crazy drawing my own assets. I remember using 3dsMAX as being an excruciating experience.
I could ask the help of artists, or get assets free of rights.
But no, I want to have total control, and will take the hard road 😈.
I really like procedural generation, it’s a really cool challenge to make it all work and do all the heavy lifting for you.
Conclusion
Best of luck to myself, I will need it !
