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Kevin 'OomJan' Gardthausen Interview

Author: Roger LaMarca Published: 0000-00-00	(Post a Comment)

PlanetQuake3: How did you get the idea to make Seismovision?
OomJan: About 2-1/2 years ago someone gave me a demo player to play Quake 3 Arena demos. It did not support the minimum install version for Quake 3 Arena which I had at that time (tiny Hard-Drive). So I could not use that program. I looked on the Internet but I did not find anything. I decided to write a program that could to the job. There was just one problem, I was not capable of programming at that time. So I had to learn.

PlanetQuake3: How did you learn to program?
OomJan: I started off with some simple online tutorials and I started a small collection of basic source-codes. Just before I started the Seismovision project, I got myself the MSDN Library from which I now obtain most of my information. After two months of Seismovision I applied for the MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer) course. I will write all my examinations at the beginning of next year (2003).

PlanetQuake3: What was the hardest part in developing Seismovision?
OomJan: My goal was to create a dynamic game system in which games could be added without having to change the Seismovision code. In Seismovision v2.10 that was implemented. I learned about ActiveX controls that made it possible for me to do that. It took me some time to understand what an ActiveX control was good for (a chapter I discovered in my MCSD book) and started studying it intensively. Now games can be added relatively easy to Seismovision v2.10. That was the reason for such a long time gap between this release and the previous one.

PlanetQuake3: Has it been a challenge for you to create Seismovision or was it fairly easy for you?
OomJan: It has been a real challenge. From a n00b programmer to an almost qualified professional. I was sometimes surprised how I managed to overcome some difficulties and eventually discovered that one grows with the size of the challenge and the height of the obstacles.

PlanetQuake3: What new features can we expect to see in the next release of Seismovision?
OomJan: An attractive Seismovision screen-saver :P

PlanetQuake3: Does your location Namibia make it even harder for you to work on Seismovision?
OomJan: Yeah, quite a bit. Internet was a problem. At the beginning I had a 28,8 kbit Internet connection now I have ISDN at 64 kbit which is of course much, much better than a connection that got owned every 5 minutes. The price that I pay per hour of Internet here is very expensive (Euro 0.87or N$ 8,70). I spend all my pocket money on the Internet. There is also no one here willing to sponsor a connection. The Swakopmund community is not much into computing. We got 4 real gamers in this town; three of them are in my clan.

PlanetQuake3: Tell us what the average day is like? (How much time you put into Seismovision each time, school, play)
OomJan: I come home from school switch on my PC and watch a random Quake 3 Arena demo (I like to watch proZac demos). Then I open my Visual Basic editor and start programming for a couple of hours, the amount of time I spend on it depends on my mood, if school was great, I programmed extensively, if school sucked, I did not program at all and went right to bed. After I program I play Anarki (nightmare of course) in q3tourney4 and I try to get a score above 70 against him. Then I do all my homework and then I go for a walk with my friend .exe[HwC] and we talk about school, my program and when the next LAN is gonna be :). When I get back home I check e-mail, watch a movie and go to sleep. That is my basic day. Boring, huh?

PlanetQuake3: Can you tell us about the gaming community in Namibia? (clan, LANs etc)
OomJan: There are about 35 gamers in Namibia. Most of them are Counter-Strike players. I'm a Quake 3 player and of course I suck in Counter-Strike. Once my Counter-Strike team made it to the finals at one LAN and we where hopelessly owned. I think I killed 4 people (all accidents). But therefore we played them in a 4vs4 in Quake 3 Arena and we dominated them 248:18. At the beginning of the Quake 3 match all teams where full but the other team started to disconnect after just 8 minutes and they brought in reinforcements which also disconnected after 8 minutes and so on... At the end of the match both teams where full again (a miracle). Once they said on the forums that we should be more considerate and play along in every game (lol).

PlanetQuake3: Ever went to a big LAN?
OomJan: Nope. The biggest one was with 35 Counter-Strike players. In South Africa are all the big LANs. From where I live to Cape Town is 1600km. The traveling cost would be immense for such a trip without having a good sponsor.

PlanetQuake3: What projects are you planning to work on in the future?
OomJan: I have no ideas for other projects at the moment but just to continue Seismovision. That may well change after I have passed all my MCSD examinations.

PlanetQuake3: Many people don�t know where Namibia is situated, could you give them a geography lesson?
OomJan: Sure. Namibia lies on the Southwestern part of Africa. At the change from the 19th to the 20th Century Namibia was known as German-South-West-Africa, later it was just called South West Africa administered by South Africa under an international mandate. In 1990 South West Africa became independent under the Name Namibia (the Namib is a large desert which is supposed to be the oldest in the world). Geographically Namibia is bordered by South Africa in the South, Angola in the North and Botswana among others to the East. Swakopmund (the town I live in) is about halfway along the Atlantic coast of Namibia and is a popular seaside resort.

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