Hi everyone

I'm a student and I visit a university of applied since in germany in the field digital media. This time next year I'll write my bachelor thesis and have my internship. Since I'm playing and loving games for 16 years now, I'm sure that I want to make this hobby to my job. Since this field gave me experience in c/++/# ,java and even openGL, it's not very deep knowlegde and so, I'll try to get the necessary expertise by learning them besides my studies.I started to read "Beginning Android Games" by Mario Zechner because I thought the Android Marketplace is a nice place for the whole procedure of creating a game and disribute it and so, see the progress in it's whole.

Since my little projekt is still in work, though I find seldom time for it, I realized, that this don't gives me the expertise I need. The problem is, that I want to do my internship at a etablished firm in the buisniss and for that I looked through the typical offers they have on their websites. Many things are done in C/++, engines, scripts and so on, so I tried to learn about theese things. And here I got the problem: I found my self in searching through google without any acceptable results.

For example, I looked through the the source of Ryzom Core, but it is so big, that it would cost me much time to get into this. But then, I don't know how much it gets me further. I tried unity and several open source game engines and saw, that they all quite specific in their handling and aim and so I got to the same question. So I looked through offers from firms to get directly into buisniss and met again the point, that I don't feel even close to confident to do the things they want, what turns me back to google again and so on.

I seek desperatly for an "entrance" to the buisniss to get a general understanding for the whole procedure. A point form where I can start and where I can be sure, it's not wasted time because it's no buisniss standard or in any other way reliable. Somethig like a small studio, which gives me some insight and the chance to do simlple till relevant jobs, to learn it by dooing as unpaid volunteer, so I can finish my studies and besides that learn the things i need to know, to work later on in this field. But I can't find anything which comes close to that.

So I thought, before I get more frustrated by struggling in this doom loop, I just try to ask the community here I encountered some times for tutorials by now.

Oh, I really typed all this text without saying a word about where I want to specialice I want to join as a programmer.

So if you have any tips for me,or if you think my aproach at all will not bring me any further, I would love if you share them with me.

Sincerly

I see. I try to consider this when I start another thread.

Thanks for the replys, You helped me alot. Don't get me wrong, I don't seek a 5-step tutorial or even a backdoor for getting paid. I just thought, looking at all the things out there and the complexity of modern productions, that there is some kind of "root" knowlegde, which builds the base for all the motors shaped in games. It's probably the way I solve problems, searching for the root, understand and change it if required instead of just handling symptoms. It's not enough for me to be able to handle a framework, I want to know what happens behind the scenes so I can handle any framework if I have to. Therefore I search(ed) the things, I "need to know" before getting deep in any subject. Maybe this sounds naiv or a bit to idealistic to survive a direct impact with the reality, but I try to come as close as I'm able to.

For now, I stick with Your advices and links, though the english part is quite obvious for me, since I wanted from day one to work abroad, but I try harder now to avoid upcomming "projekts"

Thanks for Your time.

Oh, using these terms, I think top-down fits most. Like one learned java and also learned the principles about object orientated programming can switch easily to c#. And after the most things I saw out there, at most the engines of course, were very high level, I want to earn a generall understanding about the mechanics behind all these systems, so yes, top-down describes it well.