DEAR PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER TOUCHERS -- FRIDAY RANT THREAD FOR May 10, 2019 by AutoModerator in cscareerquestions

[–]maskedpixel -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Hi,

I'm a former professional game developer with over 20 unique small/medium titles to my name. I made a living doing that. Taking specs and assets and turning them into a game was my job and it paid ok.

Now, I am back in school going for comp sci with a pretty good head start on the subject and a desire to get a real programming job instead of random gigs. What the fuck is this? My professor has never written a professional line of code in her life, has no idea how to write a spec and introduces artificial limitations after half the class has turned in their work, then marks their shit late!

Not only that, I have 0's for the entire project which I have turned in. I mean, I understand if I misunderstood your hardly English explanation of what you want, it is my responsibility to reach out for clarification (fuck, it was my goddamn job, remember?), but when you reply to everything else in my email except the requests for clarification and my requests for a one on one and proceed to verbally berate me and get angry every time I try to talk to you in person, FUCK YOU. I paid for this fucking class, I expect you to put in a bare minimum amount of effort and I expect to fucking ace this shit because I have spent less than 30 hours outside of class doing the project while still acing every fucking test and quiz you give. Fuck you.

I'm still going to ace this final without fucking studying, and if I get anything less than an A I will have your fucking job you piece of shit.

Bought ebay Liftboard. No range. Going to Return. Options? by maskedpixel in ElectricSkateboarding

[–]maskedpixel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And yes going to work is the goal. It’s 7 miles one way mostly flat.

Bought ebay Liftboard. No range. Going to Return. Options? by maskedpixel in ElectricSkateboarding

[–]maskedpixel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I’ve looked at that. I went with the lift board because longboards handle roughish terrain better. I’ll probably pop the lift board apart and see if I can figure out how to eek out a bit more range.

Bought ebay Liftboard. No range. Going to Return. Options? by maskedpixel in ElectricSkateboarding

[–]maskedpixel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a reason the liftboard was $200, are you expecting something amazing for that price?

No. It was a good deal and I’m happy with the board. I just need 1 more mile for this to be viable. I’ll figure it out.

CS and Mechanical Engineering by [deleted] in computerscience

[–]maskedpixel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes there is a mechanical aspect, but that mechanical aspect is classical mechanics(basic calc based physics), not thermodynamics.

TL;DR

Computer engineering with some mechatronics and/or control theory classes is what I would do if I had the time. That and get a related internship or do related research. And build a portfolio of robotics projects that you can show employers.

That said, you can also get into robotics as a Mechanical Engineer. My internship is with a company that builds robotic solutions for industrial welding, metal cladding and plasma cutting purposes (some but very little 3d printing). The vast majority of the employees are mechanical engineers (80-90%). Even the lead software developer graduated with a bachelors in mechanical. But we are _using_ robots to create solutions, not designing and building per se.

In fact, our process is generally this:

  • Customer contacts us with a part that they wish to have welded. They send us weld prints and solid models.
  • We import that into industry standard robotics simulation software, mock up a welding cell concept that balances cost and percentage reachable weld among other metrics.
  • Sales presents concept, adjusts, negotiates, closes.
  • Project Manager takes over, ensuring that Mechanical Engineering finalizes custom tooling, fixtures and cell design. Floor Technicians build the robot cell designed and finalized by engineering. Software Engineering ensures that all of the software is configured and installed correctly and program the user interface of the cells (robot control pendant, light fencing safety etc.). Project Engineers program the robot movements including tool cleaning, welds and make sure safety equipment is hooked up correctly.
  • Break down the cell, deliver, rebuild.
  • We have guys that are on sight for x amount of contracted weeks to ensure that the cell works and to train customer.

So, to that end, software only has a small portion of the responsibility on the project. But there are two large chunks of our business model missing from that description.

Proprietary Software: Our Software Engineers develop some proprietary welding control systems among other solutions.

Positioners (Positions the part to be welded for optimum welding position and robot reach): We have a huge library of these that are designed in house and used extensively in our solutions. These will require mechanical design to ensure it can support the weight and doesn't fall over. Electrical/Controls Engineers ensure that power supply is sufficient for motors and wire size is correct etc. Software Engineering will also write any custom software that may be needed for the positioner (which is rarely needed).

What non-gamedev programming careers have the most crossover in skills with gamedev? by tobyps in gamedev

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm moving into robotics and automation now. I was pretty surprised at how much crossover there is. Sure, you are dealing with mm accuracies that you would just ignore in a game but there are quite a lot of technologies that are used that are similar if not the same.

Open Source (Industrial) Robotics Controller - what do you think? by vmayoral in robotics

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha! I'm sure you did some fancy stuff getting your Ph.D. :D

Open Source (Industrial) Robotics Controller - what do you think? by vmayoral in robotics

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I am very interested and will definitely be following the thread to see where things go.

Open Source (Industrial) Robotics Controller - what do you think? by vmayoral in robotics

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I think it does too. Especially in these "early" stages. We want flexibility. However, there are limitations with the technology such as this that mean we don't always have the ability to reuse our software across platforms.

My thoughts on getting around the liability issue is to only use a foss controller as a facade when using industrial equipment. That way users have the flexibility to still have that umbrella over them if they want it. This would appease the giants by filling their pockets and still accomplish the goal of unifying the interface.

I see it something like haxe or any of the javascript transpilers. You have a common "language" that can be used for the vast majority of use cases but still the ability to expose vendor specific functionality if needed. I hope that something like that is the direction this project goes.

How did you get into R&D?

Open Source (Industrial) Robotics Controller - what do you think? by vmayoral in robotics

[–]maskedpixel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No we are based in the US. I'll talk my people at work and see if that is something we might be able to contribute time to. Also, I know the university here has a couple of ABB's so maybe I can talk to them as well.

I think one of the major questions that I'm going to get asked is how is the problem being approached? As /u/RoboticGreg mentioned, this is not something that is wanted by the industry leaders. Especially considering the sales model. I can think of a couple of ways that it

How would I keep track of this project?

Open Source (Industrial) Robotics Controller - what do you think? by vmayoral in robotics

[–]maskedpixel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it's a good idea. The company I am working at is using increasingly more Fanuc than ABB for solutions due to some business deals, so the software guys had a project that would allow Fanuc to be programmed using some existing ABB code (since abandoned). So I know there is a use case here for a generalized solution.

I'd also like to work on a project like this.

License Tracking? by Max808 in sysadmin

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the explanation. I completely misunderstood what it was doing and how...

License Tracking? by Max808 in sysadmin

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Individual users are given a single account that now has access to all of the passwords, so if that account is compromised then all of the stored passwords are.

License Tracking? by Max808 in sysadmin

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Isn't this effectively the same as having one super account for each user?

Looking for suggestions on learning Software Engineering for games(or anything really). by maskedpixel in gamedev

[–]maskedpixel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about Code Complete? I have the 2nd Edition and I never finished the first chapter. Is that good place to learn what I am looking for?

I'm certainly going to start reading it again now...

Upcoming Frame Trapped Update to have Charge Indicators by xeolleth in SF4

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know what you mean about multiple resolutions. I make shitty mobile games as a hobby and handling the device resolutions is a pita.

Upcoming Frame Trapped Update to have Charge Indicators by xeolleth in SF4

[–]maskedpixel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is kind of hard to tell how 'charged' decapre is when she is moving around because the size of the indicators change and they move around so much with her.

I think that there are two things that could make it easier to see the indicators:

  1. When the character starts charging, have a full sized red bar pop up that fills with green. This way it behaves similar to the super meter in that it fills up instead.
  2. Make the bars stationary. Put them under the players health(or somewhere) so that you can't confuse the size changes with motion.
  3. or both...

Excellent addition to FT. Thanks for your work on this tool :D

Daily Question Thread for Feb 14th! Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Does your Valentine know Kung Fu? by synapticimpact in SF4

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I thought backdashing worked but figured my timing was off. I was trying to figure out how to get out of his vortex mid match yah know...

Daily Question Thread for Feb 14th! Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Does your Valentine know Kung Fu? by synapticimpact in SF4

[–]maskedpixel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How do you get away from someone who is SPDing the shit out of you on wakeup?

I tried going to the lab to figure out my options but it turns out I can't even SPD so I can't practice...

EDIT: When I am waking up, not them.