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What to learn to be a graphics programmer

blog.demofox.org

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Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#71

Post by shermantanktop »

corysama wrote: post #56
markus_zhang wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I just want to program some rendering engine for a game that looks like DOOM 3 and its predecessors? I think that’s still quite doable?

Old 3D engine guy here. I highly encourage folks to make a 3D engine for fun and learning. Shipping a game with it would be a cherry on top. Come join us in r/graphicsprograming, r/gameenginedevs and the graphics programming discord.

Seems like a lot of people work for a long time perfecting their special flavor of ice cream and never quite get to the cherry on top.

A lot to be learned from building a 3D engine, no doubt, but anecdotally the chances that it will lead a working game that anyone wants to play seem low. That's not a bad thing, unless they tell themselves they are going to ship a game any day now, just as soon as they do X, then Y, then Z, ...

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#72

Post by dakolli »

michaelchisari wrote: post #66
readme wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, which fields would you say are the best to just be mediocre in?

Nepo baby. Joking (sort of). I can't say I know of any in the fields I'm familiar with. I've watched tech get increasingly top-heavy since the covid hiring boom and bust, although it was already trending that way. There are a lot of fields dominated by boomers on the verge of retirement that are the safest bet for people who want to be good and make a good living but don't care to be extraordinary. I've heard that fr…

Nobody who has ambitions of being the top of their field in engineering wants to be a water treatment specialists, arborist or actuary (maybe actuary if you're a stats nerd). What you're saying is go do something on the based on the potential for you to be professionally successful.. What about people doing things they love?

I hate these people telling people who love to do a certain thing that they should just become a plumber or an electrician. Not everything is about spending your life to make as much pieces of paper the govt tells you are worth something.

I'd rather be in poverty working with computers everyday and doing what I love than make 10k a month being a plumber. I actually can't stand you people.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#73

Post by dmarcos »

dapper_w0lf wrote: post #68
dmarcos wrote: post #49

I created and still maintain A-Frame (aframe.io). It’s been a gentle gateway to learn 3D graphics for a decade. Cool community if I can say so ha ha. Web is a great way to share stuff as you learn, collect feedback and get visibility. Many cases in the community of people that ended up doing 3d graphics professionally.

Wow, I wrote my master's thesis using A-Frame! Honestly, I'd love to give you my deepest gratitude for what you did with A-frame. I wasn't a programmer at the time and had very little experience but A-Frame helped me realise my idea in a really intuitive way. I occasionally look back at the repo and cringe from how bad my code was back then but if it wasn't for that project I doubt I would be where I am today. Thank…

Thanks so much! Really happy to hear. It makes all sweat, blood and tears of open source maintenance worth it.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#74

Post by fastball »

sph wrote: post #28
KellyCriterion wrote: post #15

Today, I would not recommend anybody to go into graphics programming: I started in 2001, when NVidias first Geforce 1 ("the Gigatexl shadercard") was first announced: The field developed since then with so much speed and innovations, it blows my mind of. Compared to what we could do 25years ago, the tech today is just fu*ing impressive. Though, with this impressiveness comes a big "but": The space is developing at a…

I really dislike people that got into a thing and then try to discourage others. “Don’t be like me! I wasted my entire life” which is bullshit from a jaded person that lost passion. Telling people to stay away from graphics programming is not how to entice tomorrow’s John Carmack. So here’s another perspective. If all you have done is web apps and Kubernetes, for example, do get into graphics programming. The feedbac…

"These annoying, jaded horse-drawn cart builders, cautioning youngsters from getting into the field in 1908."

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#75

Post by bsder »

sph wrote: post #67
bsder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really dislike people that got into a thing and then try to discourage others. “Don’t be like me! I wasted my entire life” which is bullshit from a jaded person that lost passion. Telling people to stay away from graphics programming is not how to entice tomorrow’s John Carmack. Given that almost everyone who wants to be a "graphics programmer" is also somehow gaming industry adjacent, it is extremely fair to war…

> Which kind of "graphics programmer" are you even going to be? If one follows OP's advice, none at all. > it is extremely fair to ward them off from the folly I completely disagree with this. It is a damaging and unproductive attitude to teach beginners and young people. Who are you to say their future career prospect is a folly? The only thing that defines the talents of tomorrow is that they have ignored such advi…

> Who are you to say their future career prospect is a folly?

Someone who watched an industry chew up and spit out far too many young people. That's who and that's why I'm qualified.

> The only thing that defines the talents of tomorrow is that they have ignored such advice and then pushed forward the state of the art in ways you couldn't even imagine. This is how progress works.

You would encourage an individual to walk a path that is 90%(95%/99%) likely to damage their life horribly in the name of "progress"? Really? That's ... more than a little inhumane.

Would you encourage someone who likes writing to be a "journalist" right now? I should hope not. I wouldn't tell them to not write, but I sure would try to find a better way to channel that skill.

Or perhaps, if we substituted "pro basketball player" for "graphics programming" perhaps you could see the folly? Although, at least the individual playing basketball would gain the immediate benefits of being quite fit while the graphics programmer would enjoy no such side benefit.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#76

Post by nicebyte »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #15

Today, I would not recommend anybody to go into graphics programming: I started in 2001, when NVidias first Geforce 1 ("the Gigatexl shadercard") was first announced: The field developed since then with so much speed and innovations, it blows my mind of. Compared to what we could do 25years ago, the tech today is just fu*ing impressive. Though, with this impressiveness comes a big "but": The space is developing at a…

Ridiculous justification.

"Where is todays Jon Carmack?"

Where is the "John Carmack" of ML? Where is the John Carmack of physics? This hero worship crap needs to be left in the past. There isn't a singular active researcher you can point to and say "this person has made the field what it is today". There are very influential papers, but they all have multiple contributors. Is that really a valid reason to not engage in a particular area of research or engineering?

And who cares anyway? No matter what you choose to do with your time, chances are that you will not have that much of an impact on your chosen discipline. You should choose how to spend your time based on whether an activity genuinely interests you, not on whether you think it would be easy to get recognition.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#77

Post by playorizaya »

SirHackalot wrote: post #20
playorizaya wrote: post #11

1. Familiarity with all GL APIs, but deep focus on 1 or 2. If you want to work with Windows, probably DirectX. 2. Make awesome shaders. Check this out: https://fragcoord.xyz I would say being a long-time user of Photoshop and Blender helps a lot. It's not a main tool, but supplemental. Maybe AI will take over some of this though. Hell, maybe that other stuff too, hahaha!

Why outsource my learning to Al? The whole point is the joy of the process. I could easily take a photo of a scene (since the inception of photography) instead of learning to paint it, but I would gain no skills through that. People still paint. I'm just tired, boss... I yearn for a past when we didn't have to end every conversation with a disclaimer about Al taking over.

Yeah depends what/why you wanna do.

As a kid I wanted to make games when I got older, I always saw learning to program as a means to that end.

It wasn’t until I was deep into my career that I started developing all these preferences and ego and suddenly caring about the craft of the craft - specializing in work I never imagined spending so much time and energy on, career aspects I never meant to work into my personal identity.

Part of me feels a huge sense of relief with LLMs and image gen - because finally I don’t have to be the maniac anymore! The machine can be the machine again, I don’t have to sit at an IDE for 13 hours grinding out tedium.

Now I can make games, now I can do art.

In that sense it’s a lot like the early arts and literature movements - a renaissance - where the printing press, canvas, international finance, and the enabling of the rapid production of ideas paid off tremendously in the following decades and centuries.

We’ll get great films, games, stories, and research because of this stuff. And then great innovation - stuff we could not do without it at unimaginable scales.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#78

Post by nicebyte »

My only additions to the article would be to study your probability/statistics (can't do efficient path tracing without it) and get comfortable with integrals, especially integrals on a sphere (physically based rendering will be a lot easier to understand).

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#79

Post by zerr »

sph wrote: post #28
KellyCriterion wrote: post #15

Today, I would not recommend anybody to go into graphics programming: I started in 2001, when NVidias first Geforce 1 ("the Gigatexl shadercard") was first announced: The field developed since then with so much speed and innovations, it blows my mind of. Compared to what we could do 25years ago, the tech today is just fu*ing impressive. Though, with this impressiveness comes a big "but": The space is developing at a…

I really dislike people that got into a thing and then try to discourage others. “Don’t be like me! I wasted my entire life” which is bullshit from a jaded person that lost passion. Telling people to stay away from graphics programming is not how to entice tomorrow’s John Carmack. So here’s another perspective. If all you have done is web apps and Kubernetes, for example, do get into graphics programming. The feedbac…

Isn't it mostly shaders programming nowadays?

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#80

Post by anthk »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #15

Today, I would not recommend anybody to go into graphics programming: I started in 2001, when NVidias first Geforce 1 ("the Gigatexl shadercard") was first announced: The field developed since then with so much speed and innovations, it blows my mind of. Compared to what we could do 25years ago, the tech today is just fu*ing impressive. Though, with this impressiveness comes a big "but": The space is developing at a…

Fabrice Bellard.
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