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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

#241

Post by JoeyJoJoJr »

Chinjut wrote: post #203
JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 2D games I can usually tell if it is made in Unity, and I don’t even develop with Unity. Hollow Knight for instance does not get me immersed like I do for Celeste or Bolatro. When I look at Hallow Knight I see moving animated sprites instead of characters, and it’s like that for the majority of 2D Unity games for me.

When you look at Super Mario World, do you see moving animated sprites?

I would say yes, but only because I have played that game to death since childhood and would really only play it now with a more analytical/developer mindset, so the illusion is no longer present.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#242

Post by doodlesarefun »

shikshake wrote: post #234
doodlesarefun wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any suggestion for paths into tech art? I'm very strong in traditional media, I know my way around photoshop & blender very well[0] and I've self-studied programming to a level where I can read lower-level (c/c++) code and know what it's doing. I even got a PR merged into blender once! But I have no industry connection and my public portfolio is mostly charcoal and oil. The company that flew my drone animations is sm…

If you're asking for video games/creative studios, unfortunately my best advice is have good connections and a strong public portfolio. Both of these are solvable problems. Your skills aren't immediately applicable to a tech artist role. You need to learn about the graphics pipeline (high-level) and how 3D models and particle effects are rendered behind the scenes, plus knowing specific tricks for rendering different…

Thank you!

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#243

Post by bmitc »

flohofwoe wrote: post #197
bmitc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to do something different. I want to make desktop applications that utilize 2d and 3d graphics. These aren't games, and so while game engines can work, they are a heavyweight fit. And this is certainly not game engine programming, although there may need to be a way to program a 2d system rather than relying on the litany of 2d graphics libraries that all have major limitations.

Godot is actually a good choice for that use case and compared to Unity or Unreal Engine fairly lightweight: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/ui/creating...

I have looked at Godot before but each time stayed away from diving into it for various reasons I can't remember at the moment. I thought about creating F# bindings for it at some point.

How are the Rust bindings? How would it compare to using Bevy?

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#244

Post by TheSamFischer »

flohofwoe wrote: post #175
TheSamFischer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you’ve written one before, it’s the natural learning curve. You can always generate one using LLM if you don’t care about how it actually works.

> You can always generate one using LLM if you don’t care about how it actually works. Lol, right. That might work for some of the runtime parts of a very simple engine, but not the other 90%, especially when you "don't care about how it actually works". A game engine (like UE or Unity) easily exceeds the complexity of an entire desktop operating system (not necessarily in line count, but in number of features, their…

I’m certain there’s enough actual game engine code in the datasets that with enough token spend, you could have a platform layer, basic renderer, entities moving around.

There would be absolutely no point in creating one over using one that exists and since there’s no learning that’ll come of it, it’s kinda wasting money.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#245

Post by ex-aws-dude »

deliciousturkey wrote: post #205
Animats wrote: post #107

Do you want to make games, or do 3D engine programming? If you want to make games, use an existing engine. Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot, and Bevy are good choices. You'll learn the higher level issues of graphics, not how to push pixels around. The real problem is making it fun. If you want to do 3D engine programming, be aware that there are too many bad game engines. In Rust land, where I am, there are three failed…

Games industry might suck on average, but I'd argue that graphics programming niche does not. There are lots more users of graphics than games, like visualization, simulation, etc. Coupled with the fact that good graphics programmers are extremely rare, it's a surprisingly good career. This is in very stark contrast to game developers, artists and so on, which seem to have much harder time getting good quality jobs.…

Agreed, it’s not really the same as being a gameplay programmer which is what most people think of as “gamedev”

It can pay quite well at large studios or tech companies if you work outside of games and the hours aren’t necessarily bad, it depends on the project

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#246

Post by Zecc »

Animats wrote: post #107

Do you want to make games, or do 3D engine programming? If you want to make games, use an existing engine. Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot, and Bevy are good choices. You'll learn the higher level issues of graphics, not how to push pixels around. The real problem is making it fun. If you want to do 3D engine programming, be aware that there are too many bad game engines. In Rust land, where I am, there are three failed…

> be aware that there are too many bad game engines. In Rust land, where I am, there are three failed renderers, one unfinished one, and the one inside the Bevy engine. Those are the major projects.

Where does Fyrox sit in this?

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#247

Post by flohofwoe »

TheSamFischer wrote: post #244
flohofwoe wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can always generate one using LLM if you don’t care about how it actually works. Lol, right. That might work for some of the runtime parts of a very simple engine, but not the other 90%, especially when you "don't care about how it actually works". A game engine (like UE or Unity) easily exceeds the complexity of an entire desktop operating system (not necessarily in line count, but in number of features, their…

I’m certain there’s enough actual game engine code in the datasets that with enough token spend, you could have a platform layer, basic renderer, entities moving around. There would be absolutely no point in creating one over using one that exists and since there’s no learning that’ll come of it, it’s kinda wasting money.

Sure, but that part is only the "trivial 10%" of what's called a game engine these days. The actually important and much bigger part is the tooling.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#248

Post by TheSamFischer »

flohofwoe wrote: post #247
TheSamFischer wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m certain there’s enough actual game engine code in the datasets that with enough token spend, you could have a platform layer, basic renderer, entities moving around. There would be absolutely no point in creating one over using one that exists and since there’s no learning that’ll come of it, it’s kinda wasting money.

Sure, but that part is only the "trivial 10%" of what's called a game engine these days. The actually important and much bigger part is the tooling.

Absolutely. tooling is very rest of the owl when it comes to building something rather than just working with debug data.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#249

Post by StefanBatory »

sph wrote: post #192
StefanBatory wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rereading that, my comment has been needlessly rude. For that I apologise, even if the point stands a bit still.

I appreciate the apology (wasn’t necessary) but I am a dreamer at heart and I subscribe to Buckminster Fuller’s idealism: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/133403-we-should-do-away-wi... After all, he liked polyhedrons so much he made a living out of it. Following his dreams literally saved his life.

Thank you for sharing that, it is a good quote, I agree.

Re: What to learn to be a graphics programmer

#250

Post by globalnode »

kkukshtel wrote: post #229
torginus wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you assume most people want to compete with Unreal on visuals. That's of course borderline impossible. But getting a basic renderer and game loop going isn't really that hard, and likely won't be the majority of your game's code. Just doing drawObject() in a for loop is good enough, you don't have to think hard about optimizng if your game is simple enough, or all the concerns about resource streaming, bindin…

I work professionally on game engines and also have my own custom engine. Watching the space for 15+ years, I would say that nearly _every_ custom game engine exists as a demonstration of graphics capability, not anything to do with improving the actual experience of game development. This is in part to do with the fact that working on 3D at all is a slippery slope towards continuing to work on graphics stuff.

i guess the hn peanut gallery sometimes just doesnt like the message and downvotes it
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