Is Graphics Programming interesting?

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Original post by Challenger17
Could you tell me what's the interesting thing that makes you enjoy graphics programming?

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After finishing your first complete graphics demo, when you see the sparkle of the digital stars in your screen, you'll understand the passion.

Seeing my own work "alive" makes it all worth while for me.

-Nik

EDIT: typo.

[edited by - Nik02 on October 16, 2003 5:31:24 AM]

it''s a way of expressing myself.

it''s like an artist with his painting, or a composer and his music. it''s a very hard feeling to explain, but when it goes right and people go "wow" you feel great =)

Not really, everything has been done for you and if you don''t like finding these things out for yourself there isn''t a whole a lot left.

Unless, you just like to code what other people have discovered or you are good, one of the best.

When I was 17, I wrote my first graphic program: it simply calculated and displayed the Mandelbrot fractal. I cannot describe what I felt... That happened even when I saw my first ray traced triangles, with specular, diffuse and with shadows/reflections.
And many other times.
It''s common that when you spend a lot of time in some activity (in this case, a programming project) you feel happy when you finish it. But Computer graphic has another component, like painting (I paint, too) or like playing music (I play guitar): you have a phisical rappresentation of your work (the picture when you paint, the song when you play music). This is good for those people that fell the need to express themselves.
I never did a complete game, but I cannot imagine how would I feel looking a complete game, with levels, story and so on.

Try to write a simple program... if you feel that thing, then you know you found your way.
Good luck!

Not really, everything has been done for you and if you don''t like finding these things out for yourself there isn''t a whole a lot left.
Well that would be true for almost all things.
For me, graphics programming is a whole load more fun that writing database app''s.

Graphics programming is an art form for people with no artistic tallent. We cant sing,draw or dance, but we can code

"Graphics programming is an art form for people with no artistic tallent"

even for those that have some... drawing, music (I play guitar too (I also used to draw a lot), and totally agree with cignox1 )

[edited by - sBibi on October 17, 2003 4:34:45 AM]

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Graphics programming is an art form for people with no artistic tallent. We cant sing,draw or dance, but we can code

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I agree 1000% I haven''t thought it this way, but its true. Good point!

HellRaiZer

"I never did a complete game, but I cannot imagine how would I feel looking a complete game, with levels, story and so on."

seeing other people playing a game you''ve made and enjoying is even better than that. (but I guess the it pretty much depends on your personality...)

Three aspects of graphics programming interest me

1) Creating pretty, interactive graphics.
2) Finding an *original* solution to a graphics problem.
3) Optimising the solution. Just getting 10% speed increase is sadly quite exciting

one thing, that makes graphics programming fun for me is to see my created thing "work", visually; not only in numbers - the numbers are that what are under the surface.
At a company, where i worked a year before, was a guy who has a really funny, interessting and thought-starting comparison of the topic "graphics-development vs. rest-of-programming":
"the difference from one to the other is that you can see what you have made, in the one case - in the other case you put your machine on, after 4 hours of calculation, you can read 17.3 on the screen - great merit !!"




DJSnow
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this post is manually created and therefore legally valid without a signature


[edited by - DJSnow on October 17, 2003 12:27:14 PM]

Personnaly, I became very exciting when I wrote my first pixel, not far of 0xA000000! lol )

Its like love, when you''re passioned, you know it!






!o)

Thank you very very much!

I only learned graphics programming so I could write a physics engine and maybe some game AI.

After 2 years, I still haven''t gotten around to the physics...ncie graphics tho

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Original post by aboeing
Graphics programming is an art form for people with no artistic tallent. We cant sing,draw or dance, but we can code

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Hehe, that is so true... At least for me

But seriously, graphics programming allows you to see the inherent beauty of mathematics - that''s fascinating. And unlike other domains of programming, you can brag around with it, and even computer illiterate people will be impressed

>>...even computer illiterate people will be impressed...

and, at last, even your girlfriend is able to see, and perhaps understand, what you are doing



DJSnow
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this post is manually created and therefore legally valid without a signature

Imagine your game will be on the shelfs.. and people will buy it and they are having fun with something you''ve made

It''s just cool to see that some strange lines of text can produce beautifull 3d images

And you''ve found something to apply all the math you have learned so you didn''t study it for nothing :D

I just really like math, and I like building 3D environments that you can walk through. I like doing physics and solving complex problems. I don''t even play games anymore though.