We sat down again with Stephane Denis, of Realtech VR, for part III of our ongoing interview.

This is the final segment of this interview.

** Please note that english is not Stephane's native language, so bear with him as he tries his best to provide answers in english.

Welcome back again, Stephane. This will be the third and final part of the interview, agreed?

Yes, the final showdown :)

We left off last time talking about the gaming companies you worked for, and how important it was for gaming companies to use your DXGL Wrapper. Care to comment on how much experience you gained while working for a gaming company? What was it like?

Well, I've started to work in video since 1995 already, so it's already quite a while. In fact, the most interesting in game developement is to work inside a team, accessing to professional material, like good PC configurations, but also developement kit (like Playstation 2 for example).

For the 'programming' experience, well before, they were PC or Playstation only and porting accross platform was hard and painful, but today's console are more and less equivalent and game developer now try to write cleaner code and aim for portability.

Just look recent games, they are released for PC, PS2, XBox, Gamecube at the same time. So I thing it's a good thing.

But it's not a easy job, it's even a hard job, you have to comply the deadlines, but it's very rewarding.

How much experience did you gain though, on both a professional and personal level?

Well it's hard to define.

In fact, writing cross platform code for BeOS and Windows or other operating level forces you to write a clean code, to have some standard of programming.

And working in a team, When you are working on an hobby or pet project, like DirectX Port, where you are working in smaller team, see working alone, the experience to work with many people is quite important.

But most of the time, I try to not mix my personal activities and my professional activities, else, they will be no more pleasure :)

What do you like to do in your spare time for pleasure?

Well you know, in most of the games i've work, my purpose was quite different of 3D programming for example. In fact, I was just here as advisor but didn't try to use my personal works. In that way, in most games, I was taking charge for the AI, or combat system for example.

So in fact, when I came back home, I can work on 3d for example, or working on subject different from my work. If I'm doing 3d all the days, there won't be no fun. So for pleasure, there is code, yes, actually on MacOS X or in BeOS.

But also I'm a quite movie fan, having a quite good movie collection and an excellent sound system (DTS with videoprojector :)

And I like travelling too, getting away from my computer and going back and enjoy it again.

Picture this. You're headed for a remote desert isle, and you're only allowed three movies. Which would they be, and why? (Imagine there is an absolutely awesome video setup on the island, k. ;-)

Ah yes, good question, maybe Koyaanisqatsi, one of my favorite film, The Matrix of course, seen and reseen a million of times, and Point Break also, an other Keanu Reeves film, also a favorite.

And why?

Well i don't know, i know they are sure values for me. And I've got theses film too (i have probably 100-200 DVD here at home).

Are you married? Single? Divorced? You mentioned the word 'home', earlier... Where do you live, what is a typical day for you these days?

Hum, it's getting more and more personal ! Well, not married or whatever, i'm true geek, even the term nerd could appropriated, i've got silicon in the blood :) Well i'm living in England actually, for 2 years already. I used to live in Paris before.

Ah yes, weather is fine, partly clouded, a typical english june day.

I mean, work wise.. time wise.. activities during the day that you do.

Well actually, it has been a lot of busy days in fact, so very few 'personal' activities, but better days are coming with a lot of spare time again, and projects to finish like DirectX Port and BeOS :)

Has YellowTab been in touch with you regarding your work?

Not yet, but with incoming spare time, I will probably ask them for being beta tester of their OpenGL kit, it's seems now that they've got hardware acceleration.

But again, I prefers waiting that Zeta is officially released.

How many other people do you currently work with at this time?

Well we are two, working on V3X, I have also one person working with me with the next generation of the engine, and one other guy working on DirectX Wrapper for MacOS X.

It's a small team in fact.

Besides the openGL issues, what is the one area of BeOS that you would really like to see improved upon?

Well networking in fact, I remember that BeOS Pro 5 only supported 1 or 2 network card. I hope next versions will improves that. In fact if it could support my Linksys 54G wireless I would be in heavens !

Else the rest is fine, also the support of GCC 3.x is a very nice features. GCC 2.9 is quite old already, I hope the BeIDE will be still here, because It's wonderful piece of work.

Do the other team members you work with use BeOS these days?

Well no, in fact, but back in 1998, i used to be a true 'BeOS Evangelist', you know the guy wearing BeOS T=Shirt, (i've got a dozen different of those, some are now collectors I guess) and also explaining the benefits of BeOS. I have converted few of them. But since 1999, nothing happened to BeOS, so I've stopped such activities.

There has been recent progress made with the media kit for openBeOS. Have you thought about trying your hand at helping openBeOS, after you finish your DXGL work?

Well in fact, yes, after DXGL done, I think I would ask for helping the OpenGL integration for example. Yes, there were a lot of improvement, I think we are now approaching of the end of the BeOS 'stasis' which had started 3,4 years ago already?

I think perhaps you're right... The past few years have seen a quiet regression of events, but I really feel this year to be a major turning point in terms of motivation, efforts, etc. Just my own opinion, which does not reflect The BeOSJournal, or the BeOS Community. ;=)

I think it's now the end of the tunnel for the BeOS users, also the attitude of the competitors, the rise of Linux on the desktop, a lot of users will start or have started to look for alternatives.

Is there anything else you would care to discuss before we leave you to your work?

No, I think we've made an extensive interview, already.

Well, then I'll thank you again for your time, and it's been a real pleasure discussing your work. On behalf of the BeOS Community, thank you.?

For the conclusion, I think the dark days of BeOS are behind us now, so for all BeOS users : keep the faith, BeOS will returns better than ever, I can promise it.

If people are interested in contacting you, what email address can they use?

Yes, they can use contact@realtech-vr.com. There is also a forum at http://v3x.net/forums.

Thanks.. take care Stephane!

Thanks a lot, it was nice to talk about BeOS and about realtech and its activities!

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Stephane Denis is the creator of V3X, a gaming engine designed wtih portability in mind from the start, as well as lead developer of DXGL Wrapper, a directX wrapper for BeOS. Information on both projects can be found at the official home of Realtech VR.