What are you working on? v67 - March 2017 - Developers

Show is going well so far, no significant crashes, and people are happy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUPw9s_oAIM

The editor is taking shape! http://powback.com/u/deddc8b659dc51a7a43b318e2f598b5a.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ82-0d_w7g

Finally solved a bug that's been plaguing me for weeks; I can finally become productive again. I've been implementing GPU occlusion culling using rasterization + indirect rendering, but had an issue where some objects would sometimes flicker in and out between frames. My geometry rendering pipeline isn't that complicated to understand, but it involves several factors which are relatively new to me, so it took me a couple of weeks to narrow down a solution. Doesn't help that I've been busy with final exams, work, plus slowly boxing everything up and moving. I hope that in no more than a couple of weeks I've finished up this section of my project - I'd like to write some more about it then.

Decided to write a Ruby gem for communicating with Matrix, seeing as nobody seems to have done one before. Stole the entire design from their official Python API, but I don't think they mind overly much. I've now realized that I don't particularly like RDoc very much, offers far too much freedom with just being a markup renderer hooked to the ruby code. Much bigger fan of YARD as that at least offers some javadoc-like programmatic parsing possibility.

I have an idea for a webapp I can sell into a vertical market that has essentially no digital presence and I'm very excited. I need to make an electron version of it though which I've never done before.

Been starting to try and unit-test a Half-Life plugin. After a bit of a false start I think I've worked out a tidy way of doing it, but stubbing out the engine will be a pain.

I wanted a low-spec project I could do work on during train journeys using my laptop with intermittent internet, so this is all plain JS and HTML5. No canvas even. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/133252/8fa6af1d-86b8-4c49-b5a7-4cbe8507bbfc/mech.png

It's basically just a level editor at this point, but client sync and such is coming sooner or later. It's also open source. Please ignore the placeholder UI. http://powback.com/u/91b7368376d2f4ffa631f9944d88ffc6.mp4

Didn't get around to post this earlier, but here's an impression of the last day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4w63Cyx1QU I'm using those videos to apply to the Fusion Festival!

Alright so it's been awhile since I gave an update about my resume and job hunting progress. I got appendicitis and had to get surgery for that, so that threw a wrench in my plans and delayed things by a month or so because of recovery. Anyways, here's the conversation from this thread if anyone needs a refresher: What are you working on? v67 Here's how my resume looks now, I've tried to incorporate as many of the suggestions made as possible (feedback is still welcome ofc): https://i.gyazo.com/cfed82559340a4cd6b0d512719a32ee7.png I removed my Objective section to save space, removed the footer (not useful), condensed the Technologies section to not include languages I barely know, moved the Education/Honours & Awards section to save space, condensed my position at Shady Lane Farms to save space, removed the Interests section (not useful), added some colour to Technologies/Skills so it's not as bland, and finally I added the Professional Profile section to include my previous projects with links. So yeah, if anyone has anymore feedback then please feel free to let me know. Specifically I'm looking for good ways to make my name stand out more and any better ways of formatting any of the sections. I've still got to add more details to my Experience section (e.g. # of support techs/developers I managed), if anyone has any suggestions on other details I could add then please let me know. Oh and if anyone knows of a better name for the Technologies section then that would be useful. I want to name it in such a way so that it conveys my personal understanding of the language compared to the other ones listed. It's meant to kind of rank the technologies I know from best to worst.

Is it a good standard to have everything crammed in one page? A UX myth is that people don't scroll. I have my cv in two pages.

Pretty sure it's fine for a CV.

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132317/95ad3662-68ee-44f7-902d-03d8416b31ee/image.png I'm not a designer but it really bothers me if there are no margins, the text is hard to read and that there are distracting elements like that big grey bar in the top.

Cross-posting from the Unity thread: Been tinkering with my clouds pretty much every week since I last posted here. Finally I am at the point where I feel they fill all the requirements for my game (volumetric, infinite cloud layer, VR performant, etc.) Have a video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Aeyafaz7Jo

that's super cool! how does it work?

A common dislike for HR / hiring managers is the "rated skills list"; what do you mean by "5 dots" or "Excellent" next to Java? How do I know what the range is? How does 5 dots compare to 3? In some respects, it's better to make sure that you highlight specific technologies within the context of previous jobs and projects. The "Professional Profile" section is really crammed, in part because of the bullet point links (it may be better to move those out to a suitable portfolio site?) but also because, as someone has mentioned previously you do not have much white space going on. Spreading the content out over 2 pages wouldn't hurt and would give all the content some space to breath. What sort of job are you looking at with this CV? You need to customise what you're showing for each different "type" of role. Are tech related companies going to care too much about the labouring you did on a farm? A quick look at the url you have at the top of the CV and the first thing I see after your name is "This page was updated 1 years ago." - which is not exactly inspiring as a potential recruiter, I suspect they are unlikely to add you on steam at that either.

Thanks! The gist of the cloud rendering itself is I create a mesh which has a set of zero-sized quads (all 4 vertices have the same position) arranged in a grid. The size of the grid determines the range of the cloud bed. The mesh is then snapped to a new position (via script) whenever the camera moves far enough (about half a grid size). This essentially makes it so you have an infinite grid of vertices to work with (and you can just sort them once when creating the mesh, which massively improves CPU speed compared to my old methods), with the caveat that all the particle data needs to be generated in the vertex shader, and you cannot scroll the individual particles. Instead what I do is I generate some random values based on the world position of each particle (which is okay since they only move in snaps), and these values then drive: Particle UVs (I have 8 different particle textures which are stored in a 1x8 atlas) Particle rotation (by rotating the particles randomly you get a lot more variance) A random offset to the particle position, to hide the fact that they are all placed in a grid. On top of this I have a density function which samples some noise textures. This functions is used to determine the density of the cloud layer at a given point. For the particles, this is used to drive the particle size and opacity, and I also do some per-vertex ray marching to get some cloud self-shadowing. By projecting up into the cloud layer plane based on the sun direction, any 3D point in any shader can sample this density function to check how "shadowed" it is by the clouds. This is used for cloud shadows and also for the ray-marched scattering mask (god rays). By modifying the density function (mutliple noise layers & scrolling with time) you get clouds that appear to move across the world, even though the vertices are completely static at all times. This can break down if the cloud particles are too small, but the clouds also lose their realistic appearance if you do that so I don't know why you would want to. I use pretty much the same grid technique for my foliage, which also extends infinitely. Only there I also render out terrain data (color, normals and height) which the foliage vertex shader uses to correctly place foliage on the terrain, blend foliage albedo with terrain albedo, and calculate how much lighting the foliage should receive based on the terrain normal (so you don't get very bright foliage in places where the terrain is dark). Ultimately this all makes it possible to have clouds and foliage which extend infinitely, without resorting to super-expensive screen-space ray marching!

this looks like something you'd use to apply for a garry's mod scripter job so what kind of job are you applying for? unless you're applying for a scripter position in a game development studio, your lua experience is hardly relevant in any industry other than making garry's mod scripts if you're applying to be a web developer, i'd say that your website needs a serious do-over. you just threw up a bootstrap website without putting any effort or thought into it. it's literally just the default style with four buttons to forum threads and your steam profile (wtf?) and a text saying that it hasn't been touched for over a year your tech support and hosting experience could be useful in landing a tech support job or something similar at a vps provider i guess? listing the farm laborer job there is not going to help you

Pretty sure that grey bar is to block his personal info

Ah right okay. It just sort of fits right in. I guess my red bars could fit into my black and white CV, if I were going for a nazi theme.

I've heard from professors at my college that most employers don't read anything beyond one page, they could be wrong and I may be better off to space things out between two pages for better spacing (as mentioned by ging). By big gray bar do you mean the blacked out text or the horizontal rule between my name/info and the resume? If it's the ladder then I agree completely and have actually removed that just now. If it's the former then I just blacked out my personal info. I'll also check out what you sent, thanks! I'm lacking experience at this point and have to rely heavily on my personal projects/education, so there's not much opportunity to show off my skills in a particular language in the experience section. The technologies section is meant to show my own personal understanding of the language compared to the other ones listed, but I can understand how an employer could find that section confusing. I'll probably do away with that section once I've got enough experience to support my knowledge of those languages. I did do a bit of tinkering with my resume just now to help separate the content (image below), but I do agree that that kind of info (from the professional profile) would best be displayed on a portfolio website. I'm looking for a web developer position in the backend, maybe fullstack, but those tend to require more experience/knowledge from what I've seen. Right now I think all of the experience listed is relevant since I'm just getting started in the field so there's not much history to show for in the first place. Also I'm sure an employer would be interested in the kind of work I was doing previously before applying. In the future I'll probably be removing that position as I gain new experiences because the farm labouring/bookkeeping would be even less applicable. Aaaand yeah I've been meaning to replace my website with a portfolio. Right now it's really bare bones with random links to things I've worked on and I haven't bothered to update it in awhile because I'm planning on changing it to a portfolio website. --- Alright I made some more edits based on the feedback provided. I really liked the wording in the Programming & Technologies section from the picture war_man333 sent so I changed up the ranking/wording in my own Technologies section so that it appears more subjective. The other couple of things I changed was removing the horizontal rule between my name/info and the resume, and I made the separation between items under the Professional Profile more distinct. It looks better than before imo. Updated resume: https://i.gyazo.com/4a558060a412adbc7e10e71de6bf6308.png

@_RJ_ your resume is too broad. What type job are you looking to get with it? A farm hand? A Lua scripter? A Java developer? Look at it from the employers perspective: if you submit this resume in response to an opening for a Java developer, 80% of what's in your resume has absolutely nothing to do with Java. They absolutely DO NOT care if you're good with Lua, milking cows or handling bank statements. They want to see what experience you have related to the job. If you're applying for a front-end web dev position, create a resume tailored to that job. Full stack? Make a full stack resume. Make a folder full of resumes for each job you're looking for. Take what experience you have a tweak it to fit the position; use all the related buzzwords you can. The age of walking into a brick and mortar building and handing them your resume is over. A lot employers use automated systems that rank resumes based off their content and look at what's on top. I applied for a position 3 times and never heard anything... the 4th time I submitted I copied all the required skills listed on the posting into my resume and boom, I got an interview (and the job). These people get hundreds or thousands of applicants... they don't want to see a grocery list of what you've done; they wanna fill a specific position. If you have to, tweak your previous experience to better fit the position requirements. If you can't, ditch it. If you lack substantial professional experience, fill it with completed hobby projects. Something you can show off with videos or demonstrations. I've been programming games since I was 12, it took me 20+ years to get a job as a games developer (I'm 36, I'm old, get off my lawn) and a few employers being kind enough to tell me why I wasn't the chosen candidate (I'm looking at you @garry ಠ_ಠ). I was submitting resumes for IT positions with previous experience about being a life guard when I was 16 and a CAD drafter at 22 but I didn't even having a simple CompTIA A+ cert. Was I gonna use CPR the computers? If they're looking for an oatmeal raisin cookie, show them you're an oatmeal raisin cookie, not the baking aisle

Oh ok, those are very good points. I suppose I'll keep my current resume as a sort of "master resume" and then curtail a new resume for specific positions. Thanks for the pointers!

ehm, I don't want to be that guy, but Lua is used a LOT more than just in gmod. Namely, openresty (very relevant with regards to web stuff) and tensorflow/scientific uses and for creating tools for game designers to use.

absolutely, there are uses for lua out there, but to me it seems like a language that is unlikely to land you a job outside of some very specific niches do people use openresty? i've stumbled onto it before but it doesn't seem all that popular. most people seem to be using node.js or php or rails or whatever

unless you consider the following companies that use lua niche: blizzard, riot games, cloudflare, any company that uses torch, roblox, apple, Paradox game studios, FICO, valve, firaxis, google, and comcast, to name a few big name ones.

I do mine in one page so when I hand them out at job fairs I don't have to staple them

7/15 of them are game companies, and I don't know if I'd consider the sheer amount of money those companies bringing in as niche. Here, to make it half and half, let me add the Wikimedia Foundation

I fucking hate the C++ preprocessor with such a passion, is there any decent way of doing Enumerators with pretty/to_string without having to do this garbage? https://gist.github.com/JohnnyonFlame/cbb26a631f8963782d67ec659da7afd2