Alex Herz

Alex was introduced to programming by his father using QBasic at the age of 10. Soon hitting the limits of this language, Alex moved on to Pascal 7.0 to create more impressive games on his Intel 386. After getting his hands on a Voodoo 1 3D accelerator, Alex moved on to C/C++ to explore the world of 3D using Glide under win32. Having created his first large-scale 3D engine, Alex started to explore the world of scripting to create a complete game. Within the next two years, Alex created a fully featured C/C++ and VertexShader compatible compiler, along with a Virtual Machine and an IDE to debug scripts and execute them fast enough to incorporate them into real-time rendering similar to Cg/Render Monkey tools, which were unavailable at this time. Sadly, the Glide API disappeared along with 3DFX, so Alex started his odyssey through Direct3D and OpenGL, while working part-time for Carl Zeiss Vision GMBH to aid in the development of microscopy and digi-cam software and SDKs. Finally, having finished gymnasium (German high schools at age 19) Alex attempted to start his position as a 3D programmer at Vulpine GMBH developing cutting-edge 3D middleware, but he was drafted by the German army right from school. During his nine months of army service, he worked part-time for MaxX GMBH to develop a DBase database interface application that manages bicycle component and construction databases. Shortly after Alex finished his duty, he joined Lionhead Studios Ltd. to work on the core 3D technology for Black & White II, where he still enjoys making improvements to the original Black & White. Source: AI Game Programming Wisdom II