Contributor presti...what?

[prestidigitator]

• Name: prestidigitator
• Social: https://github.com/prestidigitator
• From: California
• Skills / Tools: Java, C++, Go, Lua, Javascript (and others); OpenGL; Blender; SVG; noise generation and procedural textures
• Found via: Referral from Minetest forums.
• Interests: Games programming, graphics and visualization, creative and constructive gaming. Lots of potential interests as far as contributions go. Happy to help enhance and fix the engine or develop modules/content.
• Extra: See below.

Greetings, folks! I've been developing in various languages (mostly Java) for a long time, both professionally and recreationally. I focused on graphics and visualization in school, and also have a background in math and physics. I've got kids in the family who love these block games. When they picked up Minecraft, I naturally looked for free/open alternatives that I could tinker with and eventually contribute to. I started with Minetest and have published a few mods for it as well as having a stack full of them I haven't gone so far as to post publicly. Now I'm really excited to see a free engine in Java with what looks like some great design and imagination pushing it. Looks beautiful, and once I get to know the insides a bit I hope I can help out!

 

[manu3d]

Welcome aboard prestidigitator! The Rendering Department (ahem... that would be me, myself and I at this point) could always use some help from people that have opengl knowledge. Stay tuned for some PRs heading toward github as the rendering code is going through a round of refactoring. These PRs will also give you the opportunity to take a look at rendering engine if you are interested. If not, let us know what you fancy doing and we'll see what we can do to assist you!

Ciao!

Manu

 

[prestidigitator]

Cool. Thanks, Manu. Gotta say, the rendering looks absolutely brilliant so far!

 

[manu3d]

The renderer has plenty of excellent features and I cannot take any credit for them as they have been authored mostly (completely?) by project founder Begla.

The rendering code is however prototype-level: it achieves its visual objectives but is not particularly well documented nor is, imho, as nicely structured as it could be nor it can be easily extended. Begla has since moved to other projects and that part of the codebase had been left orphan. I have eventually adopted it and I'm refactoring it so that it can become more accessible to other developers and eventually see further improvements.

Feel free to ask if you'd like some orienteering tips in that area. It can be tricky to know where to start in Terasology's codebase!

 

[Cervator]

Welcome! And yes we desperately need more 3D wizards

Example thread over this way with a write-up on GitHub by @manu3d right here

 

[Marcin Sciesinski]

BTW, I'm also based in California (downtown San Jose). If you are anywhere around, we could meet-up some time for a hackaton.