Renegade W3D Hub is looking for hobby programmers

[FRAYDO 0]

Alright, so jonwil of the Tiberian Technologies team wanted me to spread this around.

So!

Hi everyone! We're currently actively looking for talented hobby programmers to join our code team!

Who are we?

Just in case you didn't know already, since 2015, W3D Hub has been the authority on developing game projects for Command & Conquer Renegade's W3D Engine! Building off the back of the now-defunct Bluehell Productions, W3D Hub has served to unite the majority of the fractured W3D Engine modding scene into a single community from where we can continue to assist each other and grow. Over the years we have cultivated a strong infrastructure and knowledge-base that continues to expand and evolve every year. We have built our team with developers who have a large amount of experience creating mods in the W3D game engine; some of whom have been actively developing content ever since Renegade was released back in 2002. 

The W3D Hub community is welcoming and is home to a plethora of developers and fans from all walks of life. We are a satellite team, so many of us are scattered across the world; despite this though, we do our best to maintain a high level of communication using tools such as Slack, Invision Power Board, Trello, TeamSpeak and Discord. We are a strictly non-profit organisation due to the IP we work with, so we run the community as a hobby.

Our mission statement is to preserve the knowledge of how to develop games using the W3D Engine, as well as to create projects that push the envelope in what the engine is capable of. Recently we have been working on a replacement for the game's primary editor, Commando Level Edit. The new editor, "Mammoth", has been written from scratch which allows us a high degree of flexibility when developing new content.

What games do we make?

Now a lot of you guys already know this, but it's useful to reiterate!   We currently house and develop several projects that use Renegade's W3D Engine. These include Red Alert: A Path Beyond, Expansive Civilian Warfare, and Tiberian Sun: Reborn.

Red Alert: A Path Beyond (which is based on the original Red Alert) is currently released and receives healthy player counts on our organised game nights. Through our server-side plugins we have been able to tie statistics and achievements into the game which allows players to see how they stack up against each other.

Here's a trailer for Red Alert: A Path Beyond

Why Renegade?

C&C Renegade's W3D Engine is an enigma of sorts. Around the time when the Unreal and Quake engines were popular, Westwood Studios released C&C Renegade, a game with mixed reviews that didn't do too well financially. The singleplayer left a lot to be desired; the multiplayer however, was a completely different story. Two teams attempt to destroy each others bases with infantry and vehicles that are purchased using credits from an RTS-style resource system featuring harvesters and refineries. To this day there has not been a game that has come close to emulating the unique experiences found in C&C Renegade.

It's worth pointing out that Renegade X remade and expanded on the core Renegade experience, but our aim takes Renegade in a different direction by experimenting with new gameplay features that require a step away from the Renegade formula a little bit in order to achieve.

For the time, Renegade's W3D engine was actually very advanced; featuring very robust vehicle physics, tessellation, flood-fill pathfinding, as well as a robust AI conversation/dialog and action system that allowed for fairly complex AI interactions (for the time).

When the game was released, a modding SDK was released that allowed modders an incredible amount of creative freedom. Artists could model, rig and export their own assets into the game and programmers could script custom logic for gameplay objects. Over the years, knowledge of the engine has developed to a point where we have managed to reverse-engineer a significant portion of the code base. This means that the engine itself is more flexible than ever and has allowed us to really push the boundaries in terms of what features we can put into our various games.

 We still develop on this engine today because it's fun and we have a good amount of flexibility with what we want to accomplish for each game. The engine is also fairly easy to develop for which allows for rapid iteration on a large scale.

What are we looking for?

We are currently looking for seasoned hobby programmers who are looking for a new challenge, as well as newer programmers that are looking for some experience working on games and mod projects. We are strictly a non-profit organisation, so we don't offer any kind of salary however, our community is a constant base where no work will ever go to waste. Too often, mod and game projects are created that don't see the light of day. By providing a community platform to support the W3D engine and its associated projects, we protect ourselves from ever being in the position where we are forced to abandon our projects, as the theory is that there will always be caretakers around to maintain and curate them.

Here's what we are looking for skills-wise:

Essential Qualities - All of the following are preferred:

• Intermediate to High level of C++ programming knowledge.
• Working knowledge of Visual Studio 2017 for Windows Development.
• Working knowledge of Git repositories.
• Good communications skills, being as we are a satellite team.
• A passion for video games and programming.

Desirable Qualities - Any of the following are preferred:

• An interest in Command & Conquer or Frank Herbert's Dune would be nice, but is not necessary.
• A friendly attitude and the ability to work well with others.
• Experience reading existing code (particularly code related to graphics engines) and understanding what it does and looking at what it does, as well as being able to write technical documentation about it.
• Knowledge of how to profile code to find out where slowdowns are (and identifying how to make code faster or better on memory use, especially math heavy code).
• Experience with reverse engineering with IDA (x86 assembler and HexRays output).
• Experience with Direct3D 11 (including HLSL and programmable shaders) as well as other graphics-related features such as anti-aliasing and screen filtering.
• Good 3D Math skills including boxes, lines, frustums, vectors, matrices, quaternions, collision detection math, curves and splines.
• Knowledge of physics types and how to create/edit them (e.g. Fixed Wing Aircraft, Walkers/Mecha etc.).
• Knowledge of the FMOD sound engine.
• Knowledge of font rendering.

Why should you join us?

Joining W3D Hub presents a unique opportunity as our mission to unite C&C Renegade mod developers under one banner continues onward, so here's a few reasons why you should consider joining us.

• If you're a fan of the Command & Conquer series who is looking for some fun projects to work on.
• if you're looking for a new programming challenge.
• If you want to have a hobby you can enjoy and put on your résumé/CV at the same time!
• If you're looking for the unique opportunity to work with Renegade's W3D engine and build upon it's code base.
• If you're looking for a reliable team that won't fall apart as well as projects where your work won't go to waste. 
• If you're looking for new friends (inside and outside of the games industry) who enjoy developing and playing games together.

How to apply!

If you wish to join our team, please send an email to jonwil, our lead programmer, at [email protected] and let him know why you're interested in joining us as well as what skills you can offer!  

Hopefully, with your help, we can further development of C&C Renegade's W3D Engine!

Here are a few quick links:

• W3D Hub Official Website: http://www.w3dhub.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/w3dhub/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/w3dhub?lang=en
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPVori4l3Rq_AkWHEjTKdEQ
• Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/w3dhub
• ModDB: https://www.moddb.com/company/w3d-hub

If you have made it all the way down here, thank you for your time and thank you for reading!

[Nyerguds 93]

*looks at the title*

Is that supposed to be "programmers" or "pro gamers"?

[FRAYDO 0]

Fixed :v

Though we also accept pro gamers too 😛