JasonM, What is Rendermonkey?

demalion

demalion

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If it wouldn't be releasing privileged information, what is Rendermonkey? Is it another "Cg" (requiring licensing), is it what "Cg" should have been (same scope, but not closed off), or is it a bit of a lesser scope than "Cg" (like a tool to aid in shader compiling, but not intended to be used as a full HLSL)?
 
I hope it's the latter. That's what Cg should have been: a high level shader language that compiles down to either a specified shader version, or the best shader version that the user's video card can support. The former would be done during developement, while the latter would be done during the shader's initialisation. With the latter a shader would be written in the HLSL and compiled to whatever shader version that can be supported by the vid card. The former sounds more likely -- especially considering that standardized HLSLs will be available in DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0.
 
What were you guys smoking when you came up with the name RenderMonkey? ;):)
 
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NitroGL said:
What were you guys smoking when you came up with the name RenderMonkey? ;):)
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We'll be happy to discuss what we were smoking when we came up with the name, after SIGGRAPH.

Sorry, I couldn't help it :) --Chris
 
:lol:

This is an occasion where the jiggly "lol" is sorely missed.

I suspected we'd have to wait, but it didn't hurt to ask.
 
Well, I'm sure most engineers at any computer hardware company have degrees in one or more of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering. Certianly related fields like Mathematics, Physics or other branches of engineering are well represented as well. Generally speaking, the best guys I meet in the game/graphics industry are those who clearly paid attention in all of their classes not just the obvious programming ones (i.e. they didn't cop out and say "this is physics, I don't need to know physics, I'm a programmer"). Well rounded is good. And if you want to do graphics, take a killer Linear Algebra class early in your college career and seriously work hard at it. It'll serve as a good base for many concepts you'll see over and over in graphics later on.

-Jason
 
JasonM [ATI] said:
Well, I'm sure most engineers at any computer hardware company have degrees in one or more of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering. Certianly related fields like Mathematics, Physics or other branches of engineering are well represented as well. Generally speaking, the best guys I meet in the game/graphics industry are those who clearly paid attention in all of their classes not just the obvious programming ones (i.e. they didn't cop out and say "this is physics, I don't need to know physics, I'm a programmer"). Well rounded is good. And if you want to do graphics, take a killer Linear Algebra class early in your college career and seriously work hard at it. It'll serve as a good base for many concepts you'll see over and over in graphics later on.

-Jason
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That's some great advice.. I just have one question. What is your opinion of technical schools, such as ITT Tech? Like, I'm going for an Associate of Applied Science in Computer and Electronics Engineering, but after that, I'll have the option to build off of that and get a Bachelors degree in something with a title so long I can't remember off the top of my head.

Although joining the software team at ATI isn't exactly one of my goals, it is in the ballpark of what I want to do. My uncle seems to think that if it's not a 4-year school, it's not worth even looking at, but the only school around here only offers programming-type classes, where I want to work more with the hardware aspect of computing.

So, from the perspective of somebody in the computing industry, is ITT Tech a good school, or am I making a big mistake by not going to a 4-year school?

- Me
 
Well, I'm not that familiar with ITT (though I did win an AutoCAD contest at one when I was in high school :-), but I would suggest that if you have the means and opportunity to attend a 4-year school that this would be a better overall preparation for the high-tech working world.

-Jason

P.S. This should be clear but I'll state it anyway...this is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of ATI
 
That's some great advice Jason, thx a lot.
Actually I just completed my first college semester, but the funny thing is I got directly promoted from preCalculus to Calculus II :D.
Now my next class would be discrete Math, but based on your suggestions I'll be looking after some serious linear algebra courses.
I also took Java, but I hear it doesn't mix with great 3D. So now the question is: Which language should I learn to master 3D coding?
Hope to be a proud ATi team member one day :) and thx again for the help
 
Discrete math is very important as well. Definitely don't pass that up. Just make sure you throw some Linear Algebra in there when you can. As for choice of language, C++ (or maybe C and then C++) is the way to go.

-Jason
 
I really regret screwing up in University. . . It would have been really nice to go through the entire program. Engish 101 plus despair from doing so badly in that killed me, though. :( Going to NAIT, this fall, after two years out of school. I hope I get most of what I need to learn there to get into some programming job. . . If not, I'll load up on other courses wherever I can in addition to NAIT. . .
 
In the hardware case, you should take a hardcore Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering path with emphasis on computer architecture and actual hardware design (using hardware design tools, a hardware description language etc). Specifically addressing graphics in your hardware education will probably require some graduate-level work (i.e. a masters or PhD) as there are a lot of other "rounding out" classes you'll need to take in an undergraduate curriculum. As an undergraduate, definitely take the graphics software classes (even the graduate-level ones) even though you may consider yourself a "hardware guy/girl." If you can, you might try and pick a specific institution such as UNC, Stanford, Utah, Cornell, UIUC (among others) which has strong graphics research.

Like any career, the path to 3D hardware designer is not necessarily through the curriculum I've mentioned above. This is probably the most common route, however.

-Jason
 
NitroGL said:
What were you guys smoking when you came up with the name RenderMonkey? ;):)
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I don't believe they were smoking anything at all.:)
The Monkey in the word "RenderMonkey" comes from
a saying " You can train a monkey to do this ".:D
 
JasonM [ATI] said:
If you can, you might try and pick a specific institution such as UNC, Stanford, Utah, Cornell, UIUC (among others) which has strong graphics research.
-Jason
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American schools... much too expensive for a poor western canadian boy such as myself :( I hope a CE degree from UBC is okay

Jason, you mentioned graduate-level work. Is it more common for your hardware engineers to persue a masters/PhD prior to a career? Certainly I would take a few graduate level courses, but would a Master/PhD give me a much better chance of nailing a job?
 
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UBC is an excellent choice for graphics, actually, and Vancouver is a hotbed of game development activity. As for the question of whether to pursue a graduate degree, that's really up to you. I would say probably a minority of engineers at most companies in the PC industry have masters or PhD degrees.

-Jason
 
You also have to have a passion for it. I think that's the most important thing. I started doing 3d graphics when I was 15, and I think I was coding 4+ hours a day for 2 years straight. I'm now doing it professionally (many years later!) and still love it! One thing everyone should try to do is writing a software 3d engine. It'll teach you many of the reasons why hardware does things in a certain way.

Looking forward to your course at Siggraph, Jason :)
 
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