Al Hastings on being an Engine Programmer at Insomniac
8/2/07 - 12:00 PST - Posted by Mike Acton, Engine Director
I asked Al Hastings, CTO and Engine Programmer, what he thought it meant to be an engine programmer here at Insomniac Games. I thought his response was great.
Al said:
Hmm, I'm having some trouble boiling this down to concrete statements. But some thoughts...
One important thing is that an engine programmer should understand more than just the code they've written, they should understand everything that surrounds it too. That certainly includes understanding the hardware. It also includes understanding any 3rd party software that's relevant, and understanding the higher level code that interfaces with the engine. So to me this means that someone on the engine team has to be curious to learn and good at it.
Another thing is that the engine programmers are ultimately responsible for how the code they write gets used, whether it's by artists, gameplay programmers or anyone else. And, as such, they are ultimately responsible for how well the game performs. So to me this means that someone on the team needs to be the kind of person that actively wants to take responsibility for things as opposed to someone who looks to draw a line around their responsibilities.
Also, I think there's an aspect of engine programming that's probably more important than the quality/efficiency of the code, and that's understanding how to make good tradeoffs. In essence, choosing what you don't want the engine to do. But I don't know exactly how to describe this trait in people other than to use a vague phrase like "good judgment". It probably requires someone to have had enough experience with games to build up a library of examples of the kinds of things that do and don't work well.”
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