We've seen a lot of activity on these forums over the last couple of weeks, with a number of people working on projects using PolyVox and/or Thermite3D. So I thought it would be nice to start a thread where people can write a bit about who they are, what they do, what they are working on, etc. I guess I can start...

Although I use my real name on these forums I'm usually known as 'PolyVox' in other places (GameDev, Ogre, etc) but obviously it would be a bit confusing to use that name here. I'm 29, British, and actually work as a graphics programmer for a company called Eurocom here in the UK. I have been doing that for a couple of years. I did medical imaging work before that (hence the voxels!) but am happy to be in games now

You all know I work on PolyVox/Thermite in my spare time, and I'm also trying to put together a game as a test case for the engine. You'll have to wait a few months for more info on that though So I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, but I also do some photography when I get a chance.

Ok, that will do for me. Look forward to meeting you all

Hi I'm AndiNo and I'm currently 23 years old. I live in Germany and am a student of computer science. I now have some years of programming experience but never managed to really get something polished enough to release it. So now I'm using PolyVox and working again on a different game

@David
Nice photos you have there. Sometimes still images of daily things can be interesting, too

Great, and I know you are not the only user from Germany. The [w]tech author is German and I think a couple of other users are too. And I'm sure your game will be awesome

In RL I go by Leon. Online I have a few handles right now I use Beyzend. I graduated in 2008 (bachelor in CS and Math). I worked a couple of years in my school's ME dept. doing graphics stuff, mostly coding the GUI of a CAD program. I was just helping them out with some simple things, so I wasn't involved in a lot of their fancier projects, that's what grad students are for. I thought about going to grad school but decided against it. After graduation I landed an interview with some game company out in California (I'm from the U.S btw) which I ended up not showing because I got hired by some company near where I live now. Back up a bit, I moved away from where I went to school to where I'm at now, mostly because I wanted to move, and also I have some relatives here. OH yeah, I went to a what they call "state university" here in the U.S. I basically live at home with my folks and commuted to school everyday. Saved me a lot of money in the end.

Right now I'm without a job because I quit. Not the smartest decision in this economy I know, but I was just sick of doing SQE (software quality engineering). I will have to work again but I'm good right now... and I really don't care.

Ah man, California would be cool I did actually talk to some guys there but nothing worked out... basically the visas are a pain. I'd imagine I could go to the US to do medical imaging stuff though as that was my PhD topic, but I'd rather stick in games for now...

This shows again that programming is a somewhat "international" hobby/work

@David
You already know in what direction my game is going, what about yours? I guess it won't be another Minecraft clone Maybe something like Voxelstein? I played that once, it's very interesting.

Voxelstein is very cool technology, I guess you know it is built on Ken Silverman's Voxlap engine. It'a amazing to think what that engine was able to do over five years ago. I would be quite interested in try to import some of those levels at some point to see how they run in Thermite - as I recall they are 3000x3000 voxels (I forget the height). Plus the physics is cool. I think everyone who wants to play with voxels should try that engine

But no, my project is a lot more simple than either that or Minecraft. It's simply a turn based strategy (think Worms3D or Scorched Earth) but obviously set in a world built from cubes. Although simple it should cover all major aspects required from a game engine including scripting, sound, AI, GUI, etc. Networking might get left out for now though, and I'm not sure I'll need physics. Then the features will filter down into Thermite and/or PolyVox as appropriate.

If all goes to plan I'll post some screenshots early next year, and hopefully get it done by the summer.

Hey gents, my name is Josh, I live in Provo, UT where I go to college at BYU. I'm mormon, and went on a mission for two years when I was 19, so I'm a bit behind in school (I'm 23 and graduate in april) I'm majoring in comp sci, and am getting an emphasis in bioinformatics (where I focus most of my scholastic time actually). I'm married, but seperated, trying to make it work, but the future is pretty shaky in that respect right now. I'm going to try and get into a masters program for bioinformatics somewhere, and then probably a phd as well; why try to find a real job in this economy? I've worked for my school doing IT for over two years now, mostly hardware stuff, but some SQL in the early days, and it pays enough to cover my needs for the time being.

Programming is more of a hobby to me than a job, although it will be that one day as well. Pretty much I was inspired by what Notch has done with minecraft and figured that maybe creating a small indie game might be a better hobby then wasting my life away playing them. My educational interests lie mostly in massively multithreaded applications for super computers, I hope that some of those skills translate into being able to help make fast and efficient server side programs for games. My hobby is graphics and game programming. My web programing skills are laughable. (really crappy perl scripting being about the most i've done, and only for school).

Also, I'm in an interesting financial situation right now, and am semi interested in starting my own business. If any of you are interested in going in on a small project let me know... beyzend, being in the states probably puts you in the best position to do something, and if we get anywhere David as a partner or consultant would be a pretty sweet deal. I don't know, just kicking ideas around. We are all a pretty young crowd and if we put our heads together we might be able to do some pretty cool stuff.

Anyways, let me know, maybe we could start a new thread to talk about it, maybe we should all see if we can get on skype or something sometime. I'm pretty open and flexible right now, obviously I'm still trying to get a functioning engine together so I'm far from a concrete idea yet, but I've got several things cooking. And honestly if we get an engine we could probably start throwing down really rough trial games that any of us wanted to try making, and if any of them seemed to be fun enough to go retail we could try everything before narrowing our focus on the $$$ makers. Again, pm me or let me know in this or another thread if your interested.

EDIT: @AndiNo and David a question for you guys (especially if your interested in possibly starting a business) do you guys, or anyone else not in america know anything about international business laws? If we get anything started I have know idea if America is our best option to start a business (although it would probably be the simplest.

I guess it gets really offtopic here
No, so far I have absolutely no experience in creating or managing a business and know nearly nothing about business laws. I will have to study this topic more in-depth when the time comes, I guess...

Interesting stuff, it's great to know what all you guys are up to.

But from a business perspective, the fact that I work for an existing games company means I'm constrained by non-competition agreements. So I can't work for other companies (or start my own company) while I work there.

On the other hand, I'm actively working on PolyVox and Thermite so you kind of get my contribution in that way. Actually I've mostly been working on Thermite recently, but I've got some ideas for things that I'd like to implement in PolyVox. Picking and pathfinding are on my list but I'm not quite sure when...