Who are you???

carlo · Post by **carlo** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:04 am

Hi.
I've been playing around with Ogre for about 4 weeks now and love it! And of course, I have been enthusiastically showing guys at work what it can do (samples, and some of my first attempts at writing code). Being engineers (mining, mechanical) they, of course, dont have much of a clue about this stuff, though have some cool ideas of how we can use it in some of the technical stuff we do.

Anyway, I am just curious about what sort of people comprise this community - software engineers? Burger flippers? What sort of backgrounds do people have?

Speaking for myself, I am a civil/mining engineer/phd student who wants to use Ogre for engineering applications, simulation, and for a user interface for some mining equipment.

What about others? I guess I'm interested in finding out how many non-gamers (i.e. people who are more interested in real world/engineering/scientific apps) are out there.

cya

Robomaniac · Post by **Robomaniac** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:27 am

Name -- Robomaniac aka. sreComp9981 aka. Robo9981 or steye in bf1942 and America's Army

Age -- 15

Languages -- Visual Basic, C, C++, some Java, Javascript, and 3d Game Studio (i know, it sucks)

Experience -- none really, made a few small games in VB, and wrote half a game in Irrlicht, before porting it to Ogre (doing right now)

Antiarc · Post by **Antiarc** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:43 am

I'm a self-taught programmer, 20 (21 in a month) years old, I live in Phoenix, Arizona after being raised in central Texas for most of my life. I work as a professional programmer/web developer/scripter/general purpose coder and software designer for an international company based here in Phoenix. I'm currently on pause with school, primarily becuase of my disgust at the horrific lack of an education I was getting, but I'm working back into it to try to finish up my degree. I'm fluent in something like 13 programming languages, love this stuff, and am teaching myself 3D programming as I plug on through my project. I've been coding since I was about 11, been hacking on Ogre for about a year now (with little but knowledge to show for it!). Love this stuff to death - if I had the chance, I'd do this kind of stuff for a living.

I'm personally working on a game, but less for use as a game, and more for use as a socioeconomic simulator. I really consider myself to be a coder first and a gamer second.

staringmonkey · Post by **staringmonkey** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 2:00 am

Ah ha! A chance for personal glorification, hurrah!

Anyway, I'm nigh unto twenty years old. I've been developing for somewhere nearing six years. I completed an independant title on the GBA a few years ago, then went onto a semi-professional GBA RPG project will fell apart in a miasma of poor communication. That sparked a nine month stint where I didn't write a single line of code.

Then, I stumbled across OGRE one day, and I've pretty much been working with that ever since. I had spent most of my last fews years dedicated to becoming a pro game designer, but the I've become increasing depressed and disillusioned with the status of the industry as a whole and have instead decided to pursue my more natural talent, that is teaching (Philosophy specifically). I'm currently dabbling in various areas, most notably physics (maintaining OgreTok).

I'm investigating a few potential game projects, but the frustration of repeated failures is making me cautious. Thus I'm trying to decide on something within my grasp. It might be time to see about recruiting some help, but that's an invitation for another web-based disaster.

Anyway, I've ranted, I'm done, bye bye now.

staringmonkey

Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 2:21 am

Name is Chris, aged 19; studying Life-Sciences (ultimately aiming for a PHd in Neuro Sciences).

I'm also a self taught programmer/hardware "enthusiast" (love to read electronics engineering books and design circuits that interact real-time with computers and appliances. [Currently Am designing (along with a friend) a system to convert an average SUV's steering and throttle to a simple joystick.]

Anyhow, I also make games for fun

(that's why I love Ogre

)

Xorekis · Post by **Xorekis** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:40 am

I'm a Level 51 ShadowKnight that likes to progam.

carlo wrote: I guess I'm interested in finding out how many non-gamers (i.e. people who are more interested in real world/engineering/scientific apps) are out there.

Humm I guess programming games for a living gets me off this hook.

Xorekis

toastie · Post by **toastie** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:00 am

/me is a 21 year old web programmer/graphic designer that does IT support for a steady job by day and codes overambitious unfinished projects by night.

fifty1 · Post by **fifty1** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:49 am

I'm a mechanical engineer by training and a programmer by choice. My current project is a curling (yes, curling) game/simulation which is a sequel to my first project. It seems I'm an old man around these parts -- 31 years old, married, and a father of one.

I pay the bills doing consulting work with oil & gas companies. Mostly control rooms for large sites, which means lots of database, scripting, and networking. It's basically BLOCKED with the added responsibility that people could die if you screw it up.

There was a time that I did research for the Canadian Space Association -- simulations and experiments for the CanadArm and CanadArm II for my masters degree plus some consulting work. That was cool but that kind of work is not available in my chosen part of the world.

Thanks for the opportunity to procrastinate.

Mawen · Post by **Mawen** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 7:54 am

I'm 22, a graduate of Software Engineering (where I oddly seemed to be one of the few who didn't dislike programming, which I've been doing since I was 12), and I'm currently taking some time off to pursue a couple of personal projects that I hope may someday be a source of income for me.

The first one is related to a new model of personality and cognition, and involves writing literature, which keeps me busy these days, and it also involves research that may someday involve Ogre to create a neural-network modelling / virtual world simulation tool.

The second project is an undisclosed computer game. I am currently working on the framework, which would also be the basis of the neural simulator. I am also somewhat pessimistic about the game industry, and the majority of new game hopefuls. I am currently planning on doing a start-small, build slow and steady, online subscription based commercial game, although unlike a bazillion other projects, this one's not a MMORPG

(or a puzzle game), yet it is still highly social.

As a clue to my gaming background, my favorite games are Total Annihilation and Netrek.

On an unrelated note, I am a nephew of one of the original Canadian Astronauts, and not Hadfield.

Post by **jacmoe** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:20 am

I am 35 and counting ...

(Damn, I'm Old)
From Denmark, but living in Oslo, Norway since the summer of 1992.
I am a teacher (1st to 10th grade) by profession.
Haven't been programming for more than four years - before that I played guitar, was into writing ( short stories and poems ) - and outdoor activities - like climbing and trekking.
Norway is excellent - nature's all around - if not a little harsh climate-wise.

After a brief period of visual basic (yuck) - I quickly delved into c and graphics programming. Parallel to that I got hold of Delphi and fought my way into the windows programming world.
Soon it was all about C++, objects and DirectX, then some OpenGL ...
And enough 3D math to stupify a rhino !

But never ever one finished project!

I guess you can say that I've been using - like monster said in a post somewheres on this forum - a Bizarre Random Method (tm) in my excursions into the great land of (3D) programming.

Well, and then I stumbled into OGRE - and decided to keep an eye out - that was a year or so ago - and when I stumbled upon it again in january this year ...

Well, I guess I've seen the opportunity to come out of the bushes - where I have been lurking some time - and actually do something!
And OGRE's matured and developed so much that it cannot be ignored any longer - so OGRE here I come !

One of the things - besides an excellent and well thought out structure, good performance and flexibility - is the community around OGRE!

'nuff said

dhaley · Post by **dhaley** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:23 am

I'm 19, an undergraduate student at Stanford going for a double degree, BS in Computer Science and BA in Science, Technology and Society. Born in the US, raised in both the US and France.

Been coding since age 7 or so. Messed around with editing the Star Wars games and Quake2 a fair amount; learned C mostly by writing mods for Quake2 around age 13-14 or so. Moved to C++ shortly thereafter and have been loving it since.

I've programmed in other languages as well (such as Java, of course) but my language of choice is C++.

At the moment I'm too busy working my rear off in school to get much done outside of homework. My main "job" is being a section leader (basically, a TA) for the intro programming classes.

My main focus up till now has been writing MUDs, notably porting SMAUG from C to C++ and redesigning it to incorporate objects and stuff. My current OGRE projects are basically on hold, however, in my "spare time" (concept which has less and less meaning for me) I am working on translating the manual to French.

Oh yeah, and I'm taking a graphics course in which I'm designing an extreme simple rendering library that's built on top of OpenGL. Take OGRE, multiply by about 0.00001, and that's about what I've got done so far.

psyclonist · Post by **psyclonist** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:29 am

Hehe. I love that.

I'm 24, and spent half of that age teaching myself coding in a few different languages. Most projects were orientated towards graphics. I earn my income by developing front end applications, like editors, for a high end statics software (for simulating, you know, bridges, tunnels, scyscrapers...).

MMind · Post by **MMind** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 11:07 am

I'm 22 going to 23 in April and currently study Maths in Dresden/Germany.
I try to make a game like Traffic Giant (Verkehrsgigant) but a bit more complex. First tried to do it in 2D with Kyra (kyra.sourceforge.net) but drawing all the 2D Tiles is quite much work.
Looking for a 3D Engine first brought me to Irrlicht, but I didn't like it's packaging Style (all in one package, yuck) [I'm using Debian, and anything that is on my computer has to go through Debians dpkg (Package Manager), don't want to search it for left over files when removing something]
After a bit of additional search I found Ogre and am quite impressed with its quality. Stuff like CrystalSpace is way over my head for my first 3D attempts.
So I try to teach me some 3D Stuff and get going.

kiraya · Post by **kiraya** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 11:29 am

eheh great thread

i'm from Rome, Italy, 31 years old, IT consulent, java and c programmer, analyst and a lot of other things. I work in a big company that do distribuited programming for banks and for other corporative business.
Whis to marry soon, and i got a son of 6 years old that want to be a game maker (so he will be able to do simpler game because i die always playng with sonic on dreamcast)..

I'm making a big project with my friends using Torque for prototype and probably i will change into OSG soon.
I'm tryng to know Ogre because is a great engine, and for this i'm doing a little puzzle game studing the examples, the forums and the games made by bad camel's guys.

KayNine · Post by **KayNine** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 11:30 am

By day I'm the Sales Manager for a multi-national IT services firm. By night a born-again C++ coder using Ogre. At 38, I might be the oldest one here!

I'm in it for the games. In the past I was horribly addicted to Asheron's Call, Age of Empires, and more recently Call of Duty. But playing games is even less addictive than writing them. For the past 12 months I've been working on a rockclimbing game, that I hope never gets finished (the fun is in the journey).

simhau · Post by **simhau** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 12:44 pm

I'm 22 years old. Live in Norway. Have been programming in basic, vb, c and c++ for around 5-6 years.

I have been interested in game programming for several years, and made an ascii game. Now I'm trying to understand 3d so I can use OGRE for future projects.

At daytime I work at a market analysis company running the projects and looking after all the computers. I also do some lua scripting at work.

Post by **nfz** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:59 pm

I'm a retired Canadian Navy sailor, living on a pension, and took up 3D CG programming as a full time hobby to keep me busy. Did some programming while in the navy but nothing as fun as what I am doing now.

zander76 · Post by **zander76** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 2:10 pm

Since everybody elses doing it, I may as well jump too..

I am a 27 year old canadian. I am a unix/linux administrator (mostly security). I wrote my first game starting at 13 when I developed a multiplayer bbs game. Its amazing what a 386 will do. Alway since then I have been a part of game development but by some fluck I ended up being a security specialized and was offered a good job ( don't ask why they were looking for me

).

After that I quit my job and went to school for game dev until I ran out of money and I am hoping to get back to it soon. Other then that I study martial arts and I have travelled around to work with different masters all over.

Ben

iovsal · Post by **iovsal** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:26 pm

Ok, my turn. I'm a 22 y/o CS student, and i live in Pompei, Italy, just where the volcano exploded. My greatest problem is that i pass from an attitude to another, and I know something about everthing, but I'm not at the top of anything. I started coding in Basic in the far 1990, at age of 9, then switched to Pascal. They introduced C to me at Uni, and then C++ and Java.

Actually I think that my Uni sucks, since it seems that they removed any C++ classes... pretty odd. They love Java.

At first i disliked Java, I hated the lack of multiple inheritance and pointers... but I ended loving Java anyways, and after a long period of JSP/Servlet coding, now I'm back to C++, and this makes me remember what the REAL coding is

I'm usually surprised about the fact that none of my University's buddies likes coding... it seems that i'm the only code-monkey around

I first met OGRE last March, when I found an announcment on some newsgroup about ppl seeking coders for an open source game, and since I had some spare time at the moment, I joined the team. We never ended it, but now, after months, I'm back to Ogre, and I wish to stay here for long.

Bye, _jones

Krystal · Post by **Krystal** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:27 pm

I'm 27 years old, born in Europe and raised in US since age 12. I've started messing with Basic & Assembly on an ancient Timex/Sinclair ZX81 at 8 < age < 10 (not quite sure).

From the beginning computers interested me because they allow people to bring their imagination to life in an interactive medium. My only interest in computers, graphics, and programming for that matter is as the means to express ideas.

My latest game attempt started about 2 years ago and lasted about 4 months. At the time Crystal Space seemed best for our needs. Stopped game development because a partner found a faster-paying opportunity that did not work out. Thinking of restarting work on the game, so I'm evaluating the new engines developed in the last 2 years.

BS & MS in computer science, although in school I thought classes were a necessary evil so I did as little as possible to do OK.

While finishing school, I worked almost 4 years at a startup company building Web systems. I'm currently self-employed on various software projects.

mmelo · Post by **mmelo** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:41 pm

Hi, I'm a 31-old chap from Lisbon, Portugal (Europe), married and father of one.

I took my degree in Software Engineer in the Faculty of Science and Tech in Lisbon, did my final essay in Nothern Ireland (in early 95). Worked in the UK games industry from 1995 to 2000 for companies like Electronic Arts, Psygnosis and Take 2 Interactive and as D3D drivers coder for 3Dlabs.

I then decided to shoot myself in the foot and come back to Portugal: I have been unable to work professionally in games ever since (because of the inexistance of dev companies over here). Instead I do "normal coding" as a day job and play around with gamedev in my (little spare) time. I have started porting a ongoing little game to Ogre in the last couple of weeks as my first dabble in this fine engine.

So there...

Patrick_Kooman · Post by **Patrick_Kooman** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:48 pm

Hi, I'm 26 and have a degree in information technologies. Worked as web application developer, and currently integrate applications with webMethods' software - cool!!

Did a lot of 2D coding (see website in my profile) and I started with Ogre to learn everything about 3D.

And I'm going to work for a game developer in march!

Post by **sinbad** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 7:22 pm

fifty1 wrote:IIt seems I'm an old man around these parts -- 31 years old, married, and a father of one.

Old man!

I'm the same age - this July that is

Post by **temas** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:05 pm

Some of my info is on our site, but here's my exacts.

23, married with a great 15 month old.

I'm a "professional" coder, I guess. My job is kind of vague, but it involves code, community management, website management, council leadership and whatever else I feel like doing when I wake up. Visit jabber.com, jabber.org, and JabberStudio to get a glimpse into that side of me.

I intend to make some of my game ideas come to life, once I feel I've put enough of my soul into the OGRE core. We'll see how long that takes

Jeff Leigh · Post by **Jeff Leigh** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 12:12 am

temas wrote:I intend to make some of my game ideas come to life, once I feel I've put enough of my soul into the OGRE core. We'll see how long that takes

Ah... that's why my console window keeps giving me creepy responses to questions it shouldn't be able to answer.

Oh, I guess I'll stay on topic. A little.

I'm 24 (I think) and happily married. Professionally, I do BLOCKED and programming. I aim to get into professional game development one way or another pretty soon.

I don't actually play a lot of video games beyond evaluation - I'm far too jealous of my time. Well, actually after playing Descent II 10 hours a day for uh... years, I think I kinda got it out of my system for life.

My game programming hobby started at the fine age of 8, with a wonderful pac-man clone for the TI 99/4A. Eventually moved on to about 20 billion other little games in the early 386 days (Of which, I only have the executables of about 5 of them.

Here's a screenshot of one.)

I eventually got around to playing with windows when DirectX 7 came out. Created my own 3D engine, Phoenix Eye, for my budding Antilia project. It beautifully merged an object-oriented hierarchial database, a powerful scripting language, and a dynamic plugin architecture in 'c'. It was awesome - and hopelessly misguided all at the same time.

Now I work on Antilia through Ogre in my spare time, I've started to try to learn how to draw about 3 months ago (just never got around to trying before), I created my own inking application recently to ink some of my drawings digitally, and I've started a php-based web role playing game engine named Zatara (Use the 'Log on as guest' link to get an idea of what the engine does. There are only a couple of 'rooms', and battle isn't ready to unveil yet. What you can't see, but has taken up 90% of the dev time, is a complete author control panel.)

Doesn't it suck having to waste 8 hours a day on sleep? What a pain.

[EDIT] Oh yeah, and I'm hopelessly verbose!!!