Game engines as an art form • Hacker News Board

Re: Game engines as an art form

#51

Post by abnercoimbre » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #25

et1337 wrote: post #2

> If you had asked me why I’d been so dedicated to developing the same game engine for so long, I probably wouldn’t have had a very good answer for you until somewhat recently. Perhaps I would have cracked a joke about game engine development being a basic human need for me, right up there with food, water, and oxygen, but obviously we all know that’s not a real answer. I was exactly this person for a long time. I to…

> I've realized that game development is a great coping mechanism to help you feel safe and in control. You are the master of your own universe. For some reason it also helps you feel worthy, like you've accomplished something. > I'm not saying gamedev is bad, but I think a lot of people unknowingly use it to self-medicate. Great insight - IMHO, among the most valuable people can have in life. Of course it is not par…

Am I missing something on the sex partner comment? Courting consenting adults for fun and pleasure may be done safely and it's a fine creative outlet. For example those on PrEP need to undergo tests four times a year (for HIV and all common STIs) if they want to keep the pill. That's excellent sexual health care if you ask me.

Re: Game engines as an art form

#52

Post by sprkwd » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:25 AM UTC

pengstrom wrote: post #28

et1337 wrote: post #2

> If you had asked me why I’d been so dedicated to developing the same game engine for so long, I probably wouldn’t have had a very good answer for you until somewhat recently. Perhaps I would have cracked a joke about game engine development being a basic human need for me, right up there with food, water, and oxygen, but obviously we all know that’s not a real answer. I was exactly this person for a long time. I to…

Knowing that the "computer nerd" is the archetypical male fight/flight hybrid coping mechanism from childhood trauma, this is unsurprising. A lot of my own life struggles became easier to understand when I started unwrapping my trauma with a therapist.

I am interested in this theory and how it might to apply to me. Do you have anything I can look at to back this statement up?

Re: Game engines as an art form

#53

Post by bullen » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #35

bullen wrote: post #4

3D A&V multiplayer is the final medium/media. Game engines are the final craft. Programming is a higher art than painting or music.

> Programming is a higher art than painting or music. No it's not, and it is imho a delusion to think otherwise. Programming is engineering, it is about finding the best solution based on a series of requirements (performance, readability, time, etc). There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field. I don't understand this narrative of making it seem a c…

In the long term all audio/visual art is going to devalue in the face of programming because making things go has more value, and programming uses graphics and sounds to make them move, without programming textures, polygons and sound waves are just meaningless... Artists have always used technology: canvas, paintbrush, instrument, etc. But eventually the technology itself becomes the meaning.

You can see this in game programmers that only use technology to draw/play (shaders, proc. gen. etc.). The medium becomes the media!

I understand it is hard to see now, since humans take a long time adapting to things but this 50 year old craft (the youngest craft we have and possibly the last ever to be discovered by humans) will eventually be the master craft once programmers realize they don't need companies to earn value that allow them to pay for real physical things.

It will take time, but in the large perspective of civilizations it will happen in a heartbeat, historians will write that it allready happened!

Re: Game engines as an art form

#54

Post by wolverine876 » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

abnercoimbre wrote: post #51

wolverine876 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've realized that game development is a great coping mechanism to help you feel safe and in control. You are the master of your own universe. For some reason it also helps you feel worthy, like you've accomplished something. > I'm not saying gamedev is bad, but I think a lot of people unknowingly use it to self-medicate. Great insight - IMHO, among the most valuable people can have in life. Of course it is not par…

Am I missing something on the sex partner comment? Courting consenting adults for fun and pleasure may be done safely and it's a fine creative outlet. For example those on PrEP need to undergo tests four times a year (for HIV and all common STIs) if they want to keep the pill. That's excellent sexual health care if you ask me.

> That's excellent sexual health care if you ask me.

I am talking about emotional health, not physical.

> Courting consenting adults for fun and pleasure may be done safely and it's a fine creative outlet.

Most things can be healthy or not; we are not talking about the actions but, again, the emotions. Cleaning your kitchen can be a healthy outlet; doing it because of OCD seems probably unhealthy. Very generally speaking, serial sexual partners to satisfy needs for control, mastery, security, etc. seems like not the most emotionally healthy solution. (It has nothing to do with sex in particular nor with some puritanical view of it.)