Quote:Original post by CRACK123 No one laughs except the ones who think they are the best and could have done blah blah blah better while they won't even have coded one complete demo. - most appreciate the hard work even if it turned out to be as you like to put it "total rubbish."
I agree. Its quite an acomplishment to actually finish a demo. Everyone that has entered any of NeHe's contests will definitely appreciate a "noob" (which I still consider myself even after a couple of years) entry. We're all here to learn :)
One may say noob work is rubbish. And while it may be true in a pure technical point of view, it's in fact absolutely false in an general point of view. IMHO no one in the world (not even John C) can be a 3D expert of any kind without starting with tiny "rubbish" demos at some time. The simple fact that you've done better now than the last time means you're good, even if the result doesn't "look" amazing ... for now. Because if you get better every time, then the next time it will look at bit less rubbish, and the next time it will start looking good, then next time it's quite nice, and next time it's very good, etc ... until the time you reach a professional quality. The equation is so simple I'm even surprised so much fellow programmers still doubt about it.
It seems, from my experience, that the aim of programming is fulfilled by the practice of programming. The end result is not significant. It is simply a side effect.
Quote: Thus spake the master programmer: After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.
I was just watching the discovery channel presentation on SpaceShipOne and thought that a contest theme dealing with space exploration/flight/etc would be pretty fun... Just a thought.
I still haven't decided if I'm going to enter but after reading the posts encouraging other first timers to enter I think I just might give it a shot this time. The contest just needs to be longer than a week or two (preferably 1-3 months) though if I'm going to have time to come up with something.
It seems that during a contest people tend to withdraw from asking technical and design questions because of the competition.
I propose that for the next sub-discussion we have on this thread we discuss the problems ( ie design problems ) and issues we have had when entering a competition. Particularly, I suggust any first timers thinking of entering to pose questions.
For example, one of the biggest issues on everyone's mind is the time issue. A well designed demo engine can significantly reduce the hours spent writing code; its a matter of setting up an engine that lets you add scenes in modules (more on this by request).
Quote:Original post by fartocci I was just watching the discovery channel presentation on SpaceShipOne and thought that a contest theme dealing with space exploration/flight/etc would be pretty fun... Just a thought.
I like the idea of discussing technical issues before the contest begins. OK. I'll start first.
If I enter, I will be writting using OpenGL and C#. I do this because of the challenge.
You see there isn't an OpenGL library for C#. So you have to dllimport or pinvoke all the methods you want to use. Basically, it requires the additional work of writing a library with all the interfaces to access opengl32.dll.
The second challenge is getting your window to popup. C# has this new concept of System.Windows.Forms. Everything is treated like a control, similar to VB. So instead of having a mainloop, you have to organize your code differently. The Nehe project has an example of this. I'll use that as my starting point.
And then there's the usually mayham. Like getting your textures to load using System.Drawing.Bitmaps. It's pretty straightforward, once you have the answer. And the typical transparency issues.
What I like about C# is that it gives you web services and web references, so will little effort you can make your demo network interactive. (Like a real world hi-scores page). Or any in game networking aspects are easy to code in.
Anyway, I don't know what the theme will be, but I'm taking this road to add to the challenge.
