When did you hear about CCN?
I think I found out about CCN around the 2005 CGDC.

What encouraged you to join?
At the time I joined, I was teaching myself C++ and game programming and I was
excited to find an online community of Christian programmers. None of my
friends were programmers, so it was nice to find people with similar
interests.

What's your job?
I am a Junior Game Programmer at Pipeworks Software.

Do you enjoy it?
Absolutely. Getting this job is the culmination of 3 years of pursuing a
career in game development. I've learned more in a few months there than I
did in three years trying to teach myself to program games. The people I
work with are fun, the job is challenging, and the things I get to work on
are very exciting.

Can you tell us the titles of the games you have worked on (either on your own or for Pipeworks Software)?
One of the first games I made was an Asteroids clone called Asteroid Fun Game
which was written first in C++ using SDL and OpenGL. I wrote Ninja Robot
Attack for the purpose of teaching a workshop on 3D game programming at CGDC
last year. I made RevX for the game in two weeks competition here. Since
I've been hired at Pipeworks in November, I've worked on the upcoming
Godzilla: Unleashed for the Wii.

What languages do you program in?
At work, I use C++ most of time. We also have our own C-like scripting
language that I work with occasionally. At home I mostly use C++, but I've
also used C# and dabbled in Python.

Are you learning any new ones?
I've been recently interested in Python. I joined the Bible Dave team some
months ago and added joystick support to the game. That was my first foray
into Python.

What operating system(s) do you normally use? Why do you use them?
At work I use Windows XP, which is the only OS that supports all the tools for
console game development. At home, I use openSUSE, a great Linux distro for
developers. Novell, the company that maintains SUSE, is a great supporter of
open source tools for developers, and they have a large paid staff that is
spearheading the Mono project. Code::Blocks is the IDE that I use in Linux.

What other operating systems do you semi-frequently use? Why do you use them?
I also use Windows very occasionally at home. I've mostly kept it so I can
make and test Windows builds of any software or games I make in my free time.

What other things do you enjoy doing on a computer?
At the church I go to, we have a digital projector, so I hook up my laptop
every Sunday and show the song lyrics for worship. I also record the sermon
and burn CD's for the people who worked in the Nursery or Sunday School and
missed the sermon.

What are the specs of your home and/or work computers?
At home I generally use my laptop which is a Dell Inspiron 9300. It's got 1
GB of Ram, a 1.7 GHz Pentium M processor, 80GB HD, ATI x300 video card, and a
nice big 17 inch screen. At work, I use a Core 2 Duo based desktop computer
running at over 2 GHz, with one GB of ram and a large hard drive. It's got a
decent ATI video card pushing two 19 inch flat screen monitors: one LCD and
one CRT. It's a very nice system for development.

Do you have a game console? If so what is it and why did you buy it?
I've got a NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, and XBOX. The
ones I play the most are the XBOX, PS2 and NES. I used to be really into the
older consoles, until I played Halo at a friends house, that drove me to buy
the XBOX. I found the PS2 at a thrift shop about a year ago for $10 because
it was broken. I bought it and fixed it. The Dreamcast I also found at a
thrift shop a couple years ago for cheap. Halo and Halo 2 are the console
games I've played the most in the past few years. I'm also a fan of racing
games like Rallisport Challenge, Gran Turismo 3, Project Gotham 2, and Forza
Motorsport. My wife plays Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution and
Singstar. In the coming months I'll probably buy a Nintendo Wii, because
it's cheap, innovative, and I'm actually working on a game for that system.

Could you tell us what it's called and (if possible) what it's about?
Pipeworks has already done two Godzilla games: Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters
and Godzilla: Save The Earth. Godzilla: Unleashed is the third Godzilla game
by Pipeworks. In the game, you play as either Godzilla or one of the other
monsters from the Godzilla movies. This game, like the others, will involve
plenty of monster on monster combat in fully destructible urban locations.
If you search for it on Google, you will find screen shots and plenty of
information, even some videos. I'm not allowed to say more than what's
already been told to the press. As a Wii-only game, the control style is very
much tailored specifically for the wii-mote and nunchuck. Instead of canned
animations like other fighting games, you will be able to do different things
simultaneously. The building destruction is much more realistic--parts of
the buildings can be crushed or broken off. Visually, the game is quite
impressive with things like bloom, blended animations, IK, etc.

I'm working with a lot of really amazing people. One of the game designers is
Mark Crowe, who is one of the two guys who made Space Quest. He also worked
on King's Quest, Police Quest and numerous other games. He's just one of a
number of industry veterans at Pipeworks.

If you have a game console, what was your first?
My first console was an NES that I purchased with money I saved from
delivering newspapers when I was a kid. That was a long time ago. I played
a lot of Super Mario Bros, Tetris, and the Dragon Warrior series of RPG's.

Do you touch the graphics field of computing very often (such as modeling, or 2D art, etc)?
Only a little bit. I made and animated my own 3D models for Ninja Robot
Attack with Milkshape 3D, but it wasn't a pretty sight. At work, I use 3DS
Max a little bit, only to tweak certain things with the models that I need
changed to work with the code that I'm writing. Max is a really nice piece
of software. It's nearly as powerful as Blender while being significantly
easier to use. If you are really into 3D modeling and animating, its worth
the price, in my opinion. I have a book on drawing that I've worked with a
little bit, but I'm far from being any kind of visual artist.

Do you have any opinions on net neutrality?
I fully support net neutrality. I think only certain large corporations and
the politicians whose pockets they line with money don't.

Do you believe in freedom (primarily in software) the was the FSF believes in it?
For the most part, I support the FSF and I believe that the open source
software movement has been invaluable for improving the quality and
availability of software. I think Linux and other free operating systems
have kept the computing world vibrant by offering an alternative to the large
closed source OS's. Open source game development tools are really starting
to come into their own, as well. I'm not so radical that I think that all
software should be free. Software tools like internet browsers, operating
systems, word processors, email clients, etc, work great as open source
projects, but entertainment software, like games, work better as commercial
projects. However, even commercial games benefit from open source software.
I'm a bigger fan of "open" open source licenses that allow for more
commercial use and not the GPL, which is actually quite limiting
(ironically).

Do you have a favorite movie or TV show?
I've got a couple. I've been hooked on Prison Break since its inception.
Recently, I discovered Arrested Development even though it's no longer in
production. It's the smartest, funniest show I've seen in a long time. The
Office is probably my 3rd favorite show.

What other non-computer hobbies do you have?
I made computers my only hobby 3 years ago, so I could get the job I have now.
Now that I have the job, I've eased up a bit and started pursuing some other
hobbies including reading books, playing Scrabble, drawing, brewing beer, and
watching TV . I still spend more free time on my computer working on
little projects than I do with any other hobby. I don't play console games
as much as I used to.

This interview is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License

Previous Interviews:

1.SSquared
2. Lava
3. Steveth45
3.9 (Should be 4, but my interview numbers got off somewhere earlier this year) Crazyishone
4. Jestermax
5. InsanePoet
6. HanClinto
7. ArchAngel
8. Mene-Mene
9. Ereon
10. Zookey
11. Mack
12. Jari

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

"Oh, bother," said the Borg. "We've assimilated Pooh."

"Socialism works great... if there are no people involved." -- Pastor David Ginter, Union Church of Guatemala.

My Programming and Hacker/Geek related Blog

[This message has been edited by CPUFreak91 (edited May 31, 2007).]

[This message has been edited by CPUFreak91 (edited September 25, 2007).]

It was a real honor to get to hang out with Steve and spend several days with him and his wife last month. He's a top-notch guy, and to hear how God has worked in his life with him getting into game development is really an amazingly cool story.

Thanks for the interview!

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"The generation of random numbers is too important to leave to chance."
Soterion Studios

And another good interview, CPU.

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~~~boogie woogie woogie~~~
Jesus didn't come to save the saints.

Cool to learn more about Steveth45

(Prison Break is awesome.)

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"The CIA must operate within the law.." - Former President Jimmy Carter, trying to solve an old problem. ;)

quote:

---

Could you tell us what it's called and (if possible) what it's about?
Pipeworks has already done two Godzilla games: Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla: Save The Earth. Godzilla: Unleashed is the third Godzilla game by Pipeworks. In the game, you play as either Godzilla or one of the other monsters from the Godzilla movies. This game, like the others, will involve plenty of monster on monster combat in fully destructible urban locations.

---

*pine*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_Unleashed

I'm going to get a Wii just for this and have Steveth45 sign it!

Great interview btw, looking forward to seeing more!

[This message has been edited by Mack (edited March 21, 2007).]

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Matthew Langley
Lead Documentation Engineer
GarageGames

quote:

---

from Steveth45:
I've learned more in a few months there than I
did in three years trying to teach myself to program games.

---

We're supposed to use our time wisely (Eph 5:15, Matt 25:14), yet there are thousands of Christian developers with similar learning curves.

I'm curious what factors you found most helpful in accelerating your learning.

For each factor, can you think of any way to reproduce it in the context of a virtual community?

Heh. Starting a sentence with 'for each' means I need to go home. Ciao!

[This message has been edited by ls_adam (edited October 11, 2007).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ls_adam:
I'm curious what factors you found most helpful in accelerating your learning.

For each factor, can you think of any way to reproduce it in the context of a virtual community?

---

Here are the reasons I learned so much faster:
1. I am doing it 40 hours a week, for my job, so I don't have an opportunity to slack. There are fewer distractions than at home.
2. I am surrounded by people with tons of knowledge and experience. I asked a lot of questions for the first few months, and they never got tired of answering them. Eventually, I had fewer questions to ask, or I knew how to find the answers myself.
3. It's sink or swim. I either figure things out and be productive, or find a new line of work. That's motivation I never had as a hobbyist.
4. I was given tasks of increasing difficulty and complexity right off the bat. I would just smile and pray, and start figuring it out.

By virtual community, I assume you mean a team that collaborates over the net. If you want people to learn fast, treat it like a job.
1. Even if it's 5 hours or 10 hours a week that you have to work on the project, set aside specific times to do it, and be diligent.
2. In the absence of experts sitting a few feet away, there are generally forums available for whatever game engine, or technology you may be working with. I think Garage Games has a pretty good forum for Torque. Also, search engines will often find the answers to your questions faster than posting in a forum.
3. I don't know how to replicate the pressure of having it be your job if it's not your job. I guess having a passion for what you are doing, will make you motivated. Sometimes people only get involved with projects half-heartedly, and I rarely see much come out of that. If you are running a project, let other team members have some "ownership" so they feel personally invested. Nothing comes for free, even volunteer work. People don't contribute to a project significantly, unless they are significantly and personally tied to the resulting project.
4. Even though I hadn't done anything as complex as the tasks I was given, my employers knew that I would probably be able to rise to the task and figure things out. Being entrusted with responsibilities above my current experience gives me confidence and encouragement by those entrusting me with the task. My view is that anyone can learn any task, if they put themselves into it--if you can replicate that in a virtual community, you could see a lot of growth and untapped potential coming out.

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+---------+
|steveth45|
+---------+

So true. When I'm passionate about something, I don't put it off or wait until later. That is some great advice and important, in light of all the volunteer opportunities we see here and elsewhere on the net.

> I would just smile and pray, and start figuring it out.

Yep. Don't let that attitude die. Part of what I so enjoy about my job are the constant challenges and learning. I often find myself at a complete loss on my own and need God to fill me with His Wisdom and the answer suddenly pops open before my eyes. I can't help but know God is there and I am able to give Him the Glory at work.

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CCN's Resident Color Commentator!

quote:

---

Originally posted by super angel steve:
interview me next.

---

You're on my list for 2008

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

"Oh, bother," said the Borg. "We've assimilated Pooh."

Any fool can know, the point is to understand. -- Albert Einstein

My Programming and Hacker/Geek related Blog

I appreciate your thoughtful responses. I've been pondering your words for the last couple days. You helped to clarify a few ideas I've been batting around for a while.

It seems so ineffective to spend years learning on our own when there are many other developers who can share experience. It's like we're not effectively working together as a body. I've been trying to figure out how to change that.

To give you a bit of background: My undergrad was in psychology and I am most of the way through a masters in computer information systems. My focus areas are UI design, information visualization, usability, and knowledge management.

I also appreciate your thoughts on passion. They echo my own. I never used to be passionate about much until God allowed all my worst fears in life to happen. Now I have nothing left to lose, and I am passionate about people. There is a great deal of suffering in this world. As a software developer, my goal is to fully use my talents to amplify the abilities of ministries actually doing something about it. As far as motivation goes, the fact that 30,000 people will die today from hunger today before I go to bed tends to make me work insane hours. But man I love my job.

I walked away from standard employment back in June, and I now work full-time developing software for ministries.

Unfortunately, building great software takes a lot of different skills, and there is only one of me. Tragedies like AIDS, poverty, corruption, and starvation are huge problems to deal with. What do you think about the idea of building a community that brings together experienced developers, new developers, and ministries to create software that globally spreads the gospel and has a real impact on the lives of millions of people? That would help ministries a great deal, look great on resumes, and provide structured environments for learning and distributed development.

[This message has been edited by ls_adam (edited October 12, 2007).]

I'm working late at work, so I'm not going to take a ton of time to write a response, but I've got a little bit of experience in writing software for ministries so I thought I'd throw in $0.02.

For the past 4 years I worked as a software developer for HCJB Global (formerly HCJB World Radio) at their technology center in Indiana. There are about 40 missionary engineers there, including maybe half a dozen software engineers of varying degrees (both firmware and gui).

As of this past summer, I'm not working there anymore (though my wife is) -- they do some pretty good work, and I bring it up as it's a great place where a bunch of engineers have gotten together to work on projects together, similar to what you're talking about.

As far as other groups, if you haven't already, I would *highly* recommend checking out ICCM -- the International Conference for Computing and Mission. It's a fantastic gathering of people with hearts and minds similar to your own, and it's a great place to build contacts.

Okay, I could write tons more, but hopefully this is a good start. I've gotta' get stuff done so I can go home some time tonight.

Take care, and very glad to see you here at CCN!

In Christ,
clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited October 12, 2007).]

Clint, thanks for that ICCM link. I had never heard of that or known anything like it existed. It sort of led me along an ineresting rabbit trail.

I am trying to learn TGB with a possible game in mind to help promote my friends who are currently preparing for a career in remote village missions. I don't have the game planned out yet, but I just want it to have something to do with missions. In addition, it will be something even kids can play so they can learn about what this family is doing and will introduce people to the challenges they will face as they enter into this new culture.

Is_adam -- Being passionate also helps the volunteers on the team treat it "like a job." Also, treating yourself "like an owner" helps too. A great example of this is the Visions project. Sparkling (the proprietor) has been through a lot of ups and downs over the last 4+ years, but keeps on developing, recruiting, training, etc. She doesn't code and she can do some artwork, but through her persistance and just plain not giving up, she's attracted a lot of talent, including an entire development team. She's got a very strong team now, and she's a great leader--balanced in having fun and being disciplined.

On working with others: a few years back, I was sitting in a room with 5 Christians, who had come together to pray over their needs. The first one said, "I'm an actor, and I need some devine intervention." The second one said "I'm a director and I really want to direct something." The third said "I'm a screenwriter, and I really want someone to make one of my movies." The fourth: "I'm a producer, and I really need some experience." I was the fifth and said, "This is amazing! God has answered our prayers even before we started praying." We had in the room enough talent and resources to create a full-length independent film. Sadly, no one had the humility to work with the others. There's lots of good christians working together, but we do need more.

Thanks for the encouragement and welcome

HanClinto: I was at ICCM this June and met some awesome folks from HCJB.
That would be awesome to work in a group like you're describing!

ssquared: Interesting Idea. Kind of like an "America's Army" for missions, with a bit more of an RPG slant to it?

JeTSpice: No kidding on the value of persistence. Your reference to humility will likely be one of the challenges. The nice thing is that we've got something like... 300 missions organizations and 2000+ churches between Denver and CO Springs alone. Lots of people that can say no, but a virtually endless supply that can say yes.

I've spent the last day writing an informal proposal with a lot more detail. To be considerate, I'm going to start a new post for it (here)

[This message has been edited by ls_adam (edited October 13, 2007).]

Or...I may just decide to make some type of block pushing game, put the missionaries on the main characters and be happy.

My main goal is to get something in the hands of the congregation which will remind them about this family. Though I would like the content to be related to mission's work, in the end, that is not my main goal.