Interviews - Matt Hildred
- 25 January 2003
Questions are in blue, the
brave new hope for GlBuild answers are in black.
> What inspired you to
make an OpenGL version of BUILD?
I discovered the original GLDuke project by Jean-Philip,
and saw some of the problems that he was having. I figured
that many of them were easily solvable, so I had a go
at getting a map loader going, without any textures.
After that, it just kind of took off.
> Just why did you choose
to make a BUILD editor, rather than a OpenGL port of
Duke3D game?
Getting the Build engine going is half the battle. Once a stable and working
engine is running, it would probably require the same
amount of time to produce a game. The editor itself
is fairly quick and easy to do, which is why I thought
I'd concentrate on that first.
> So far in, has the project gone as smoothly as
you imagined it? Any unexpected problems?
So far it has gone fairly well, most problems I've
found have had a solution in the end. The biggest problems
have been to do with the textures. It is quite a challenge
to convert an engine that renders line-by-line into
one that renders polys, and some of the texture coordinate
calculations involves some heavy maths. Also working
out the different palette lookups was fairly time-consuming.
> What big features are you planning to add to
GLBuild in the future?
Probably the easiest improvement would be raising the
sector and wall limits, although that would of course
prevent the maps from running in the original Duke Nukem
3D. One feature I would like to add is allowing the
ceilings and floors to be different shapes, so that
you could have true sloping walls and much more interesting
levels.
> When your not working on GLBuild, which computer
games fill your spare time?
At the minute I'm playing GTA:Vice City (isn't everyone?).
Apart from that I'm a fan of most RTS games, currently
I'm playing Cossacks: European Wars.
> Compiling GLBuild must take some serious CPU
power! Tell me… what kinda hardware have you got in
your PC?
Less than you think actually! At home I used to have
a Celeron 466 and GeForce 2 GTS. Most maps ran quite
nicely on this machine. But I have just bought a new
P4 2.4 GHz PC, which is a huge improvement on the old
machine.
> When your not busy at work on GLBuild, what else
do you like to do in your spare time?
I have enjoyed mountain biking for many years, which
is my main interest besides programming and gaming.
> How and when did you discover Duke3D?
A friend got it when it first came out, and I loved
it so much it was the first game I bought when I got
my first PC soon after. I still think it is one of the
most fun games I've ever played to this day.
> How you always enjoyed using computers?
I've had many different computers over the years, from the first Sinclair ZX81,
the VIC-20, the Amiga, Apple Macs and PCs. So yes, I've
always enjoyed using computers.
> Any last messages you'd like to say to all the
eager GLBuild fans out there?
Yes, I welcome all the messages of support and comments
I get. Please keep the ideas coming, as I want to produce
something that everone is interested in.
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