Hi all
I know that, you guys at Splash Damage are thinking about student internships for the future, but for now do you allow for students (e.g. university or college) to do some sort of work experience so that they can get the taste of what it is like to work within a award winning games studio like yours?
:stroggtapir::stroggtapir::stroggtapir:
Hey how is this a confusing post. Its a question like any other.
That’s his signature, not a reply to your question 
That ‘confusing post’ signature is under every post sage makes, just like other people’s signature, like Paul’s (with Splash Damage Update)
Ah got you. I thought he was being a smart towards me oh nver mind. But still no1 really answered my question. U see the reasoning behind my question is that I find the games courses all in London, or lack of games courses in London, to be lacking direct input from a games studio. I read a certain weeks ago/months ago on gamesindustry.biz in an article saying that students at universities that are studying to be games programmers or watever that they are not studying wat they are surpose to. And from my current experience it seems to me that the education in the games industry here is going a little downhill. Maybe the only way to fix this would be for universities to partner up with local games studios so that they have guidence on what the students surpose to be studying. Just some food for thought for all you forum readers…
best thing you can do is not go to school to study the game industry imo.
just join a modding community and get started…
I was wondering about that to. To mod do I have to have the game or can I just download the SDK for one of Splash Damage’s game without the game.
On another different note where would you find pythagoras theorem implemented in games. As isn’t it to do with working out an area of one side of a right angle triangle then do another side and then you either add or subtract both figures to work out the distance or area of the final side of the triangle???
lol if it’s the theory i am thinking of then just google it?
but I don’t know what it has to do with games ??
Anyway, if you want to mod a game then it would be best if you actually had the game to taste the fruits of your labor (rofl always wanted to say that)
Anyway i don’t know what your thing is with splashdamage, but if you just want to start somewhere you could try modding W: ET since it’s a free game…
Just start with the basics - make a map - make or edit a model - make some textures - make a little mod with the sdk
(take something you enjoy and want to try)
and see how far you get. You could also try modding a newer game, but I think that could be harder, and I find that modding ET teaches you quite alot about engines and stuff so pretty cool.
once you get some basics under your belt you could try something more advanced (when you get there you’ll know what I mean) and then when BRINK comes out you could even do something for that and maybe get a little internet fame?
There are a lot of routes into the industry. The thing with education is that you always need to be aware that there are no magic courses that will make you a pro in any profesion. If you are really serious out trying to get into games go and look at the open days of colleges and universities. FInd out what exactly you will be doing on the courses. Many games courses focus heavily on flash and web developement. Obviously if your looking at studios like splash damage then thats not what you want to be looking at.
Just beacuse your course isnt specificaly games isnt such a bad idea. My degree is Computer Science (Games tech). So really a core computer science degree with a look at technolgies onvolved in real time graphics etc, its a nice rounded course and always nice to have skills that are useful in other profesions just in case. Look at what the courses offer and what you want to do.
Its not only that universities are not talking to game studios, its just simply that games degrees in pure games is not a great idea. I remeber a presentation from a long time programmer at rare studios to students. The opening line “Most of you will never work in games”, and thats just simply the reality. There are a lot of students so how are you going to set yourself apart from all the others
If your really interested in becoming a games programmer get involved in the online comunities. There are some great sites where a lot of useful tutorial and people are hanging around. Pick up books on games programming. Look at other opatunities for games programming. The XNA framework is a great idea, you might think studios are not so interested in these dummed down aproaches to development, but at an XNA compotion I was lucky enough to meet deano the splash damage programmer who was there as a mentor. You can look at his website about his works with XNA
Technologies like XNA might not be directly aplicable when working for a studio like splash damage, but if you have put your own time in to learn it and make some interesting games its going to do a lot when you come aproaching these studios for internships and jobs. You can show you have interest and dedication beyond what you have been tought
And weather splash damage officialy offer internships or not I bet my last pound that it doesnt stop a hell of a lot of people writing in and applying for them. So if you have no experience but think a few week work placement at splash damage will make you into a pro, you need to re think your stratergy
Pythagoras?
Rather off-topic from work experience, no? Hehe
Think calculations of player aim/direction for a start
It’s not massively complicated maths
But if you know the position and angle a player is facing you can work out what he is aiming at
And hence what will take damage when the trigger is pulled
At least that is one method
Plenty of other uses I’m sure
This just came to mind though
I think the most frequent use would be in calcualting the magnatude of vectors. Questionable if you would actualy be coding this a lot or simple calling a get megnatude function for a vector object. But its still a nice little math trick to have up your sleve
In terms of the proposed use for calcuating players hit by direction another player is facing. This is usualy done by casting a ray from the shooting player in the direction he is facing. Simply looking at the angle a player is facing doesnt acount for any objects between the two players that might block the shot. Although you might find that when calcualting the if the ray intersects with any geometary that pythagoras comes into it at some stage