Ask HN: What's your favorite programmer niche?

Post by sebastianconcpt » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

mysterydip wrote: post #42

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot on this lately. Why is that? Just hobby or there is positive economical return?

There was a short period of time where software rendering engines were able to do some interesting things before hardware rendering took over and they all died out. There is still untapped potential in a lot of the techniques, which is fun exploring. I'm using them for a game I will be releasing. I think very few games these days regardless of engine used or graphical style has a chance of a net positive return, so t…

Kind of algorithmic-archeology. And that game of yours, just curious, you did it as a side-project or more serious? Solo or in a team?

Post by mysterydip » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 11:52 PM UTC

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #111

mysterydip wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a short period of time where software rendering engines were able to do some interesting things before hardware rendering took over and they all died out. There is still untapped potential in a lot of the techniques, which is fun exploring. I'm using them for a game I will be releasing. I think very few games these days regardless of engine used or graphical style has a chance of a net positive return, so t…

Kind of algorithmic-archeology. And that game of yours, just curious, you did it as a side-project or more serious? Solo or in a team?

Yeah, it's neat to see how people solved problems. It feels good to say "this is the algorithm that adds lighting" rather than "I set the camera at xyz, a light at xyz, a model at xyz, and called render()". Today I added some code to create comic-style outlines of objects.

I have a small library of books from the era on 3D graphics that are fun to read through (I especially like the speculation on how DOOM achieved its speed and "realism"). Andre LaMothe and Christopher Lampton have some good stuff, plus the black book of Michael Abrash.

I tried doing indie gamedev as a full time job for a year a while back, learned that was a quick way to lose all my savings :) so now I do it as a side project while having a full time job. If any of my games bring in some pocket change, all the better. Less stress for sure but also much slower progress. My brother does the music and sounds, and I do the code and graphics (plus some commissioned assets).

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite programmer niche?

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite programmer niche?