A New Chapter

Last September, I started graduate school at Bilkent University for my MSc. degree in Computer Engineering. Unlike what I’ve studied for the most part in my undergraduate studies (which was artificial intelligence), I decided to focus on computer graphics for my graduate studies. The reason for this, as people who know me would guess, is simple: video games. Now, of course you don’t really need a Master’s degree to make anything related to video games. Hell, you don’t even need an undergraduate degree to work in a programming related job nowadays. However, what I wish to accomplish is not just remain on the consuming (Well, relatively. This is a slippery slope since one can also argue that in order for game engines to be developed, you need operating systems, and for that you need chips and processors, and for that you need conductive materials and so on. I hope you get what I mean. Science is a cumulative phenomenon, so you need to decide on which level you want to work.) side of the industry, meaning making games using the existing game engines. I would like to be able to understand and contribute to the underlying technologies of these game engines, and work on one at a company some time in my life. To do so, I believe one needs to be able to follow a road that’s in the intersection of academia and the industry.

Most people ask me why would you go to Bilkent when you could have stayed in Istanbul. I believe Bilkent has one of the best (if not the best) graduate programs in computer graphics in Turkey, with the courses being offered and faculty members working in the area. After graduating from Bilkent (hopefully) I am planning on working at a game development company which (again, hopefully) develops their own in-house game engine for their games.

I’m planning on writing my posts in English from now on, to reach a wider audience and for the sake of internationalism. There are some posts in this page that are in Turkish and have outdated content, mainly the games I’ve built using Unity3D before almost all browsers withdrew their support from plugins using NPAPI, which Unity Web Player used. I probably won’t translate those posts to English, however I will build the games for WebGL, hopefully when I can find some time between all the deadlines and projects.