What you thing its the right age for beggining game programming and what you SHOULD know until a certain age to have a hope for a successful carrer in game development? I am 17 years old and i know so far: 1)A very good amount of C and C++. 2)A lot of Visual Basic. 3)A lot of Win Api. 4)Everything about 3ds Max modelling and animation. 5)Some Pascal. 6)I am not very very good in math but i have understood well so far the basics of 3d programming and some physics. The biggest gap in my knowledge is the directx and opengl(is time to buy a book

Beef up your math skills a little bit, and dive right in. Because you know C++, VB etc, you are already ahead of a lot of the people here.

**500 error**

**500 error**

**500 error**

Learn humility.

I serious doubt you know "everything" about Max and animation. When you start thinking that way, you stop learning and that is the biggest mistake to make in software development. I''m not in game development, but I am a software engineer. I have no problem doing my job each day, but everyday I learn something new it seems. The field is so vast, that you will never know "everything". Arrogance is fine (to a point), but humility is also necessary so you don''t fall into the trap of not furthering your knowledge. And you must keep learning in the field to stay at the top of your game.

As far as age, I don''t think there is one. So I wouldn''t worry about it. If you have the skills and creativity necessary, that is all that matters regardless of age.

Of course, these are just my opinions.

I agree on the humility point.

Actually I dont think you know a lot of software development :-) Maybe enough for some game development. YOu lack experience - learning a language is niice, but you need to be part of larger proejects (multiple man years) and to gather some years t o have experience. And until then - well - it is theoretical knowledge.

YOur age is fine - I was around 16 when I started programming. SOme start earlier, some later.

But for anything 3d related, and unless you want to have shit looking things this does apply to you, you will need a TON more maths than you think of right now. A ton more :-) But you may be able to pick it up on the go :-)

Thomas

Regards

Thomas Tomiczek
THONA Consulting Ltd.
(Microsoft MVP C#/.NET)

Hm, I started at the begginig of the age of 13 (now I''m 14) and this far, my knowledge covers:
- some Visual Basic
- C++ (pretty good)
- OpenGL (currently learning)

In this time, I''ve developed one "bigger" game (Visual Basic), a lot of small ones (VB, C++), some demos (OpenGL) and I''m (with a few friends) working on 3D puzzle game (C++ & OpenGL - I''m currently writing 3D engine).

Never is too soon and never is too late to start programming.

Ok, back to work.

Hands-on experience is invaluable. Books can only take you so far. Actually, sitting in front of the computer and seeing what works and doesn''t will teach you more than any book.

You have to be good at maths. And as an anonymous poster just said get lots of hand on experience. Reading a book is good to teach you principles like data structures, algorithms etc. But once you have that knowledege use it! Always have some kind of project. Sure you may not complete many of them but you will still learn a lot from them. Oh and for the age thing when you feel ready! I started when I was 7 with qbasic and I'm now 15. If you want to and know how to go for it.

[edited by - Monder on July 31, 2002 9:56:10 AM]

When i said i know everything about max animation and modelling i meant the specific program features on this sections not everything about modeling and animation in general.And as all of you people said hands on experience is the most valuable think in software development.I started working on computers in the age of 9 with my first pc (386 sx/40, 1 mb ram) and since then i realized that the books and theory are good but the practice counts.


"...And beyond the infinite" ''2001 a space odyssey''

its not a matter of knowing a certain programming language, but a matter of knowing how to program. obviosuly it matters if its objectoriented or not, and there are a ton of differencies the languages between - but if you know how to program, you can learn a new language in a day or two.

3d works the other way around - you might know what all the shapes and tools do, but its a matter of possing the skills to crating visual objects, not knowing about some worthless tecnical stuff.
thats why everyone with the interest can learn to program by following simple tuturials, you cant do that when it comes to gfx.

/stone

Why does the age question keep popping up? Seriously, does it really matter? If you can deisgn software well, and you can program well and you work well with others and basically good at all the fields that are required in computer game development and *then* you apply for a job at Blizzard and you have a kick ass demo cd they are not going to look at you are say "Uuuuh, sorry dude, you''re like, 31" (there''s actually laws againt that ).

In short, concentrate on your skills, not your age.

And for the record, I''m 23, and have been programming *since* the C64 era, but only really got into programming about 5 years ago. I don''t think my old C64 basic skills count for too much now...point being, technology moves fast good software development skills are more important than knowing language X.

Errm, okay I''ll stop now sorry for the preaching.