1. Chris Hecker is the founder of the gaming company Definition Six and best known for his engineering work on Will Wright's 2008 game Spore.
16 Facts About Chris Hecker
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Chris Hecker has written a number of influential articles on programming and has been an editor for Game Developer Magazine and the Journal of Graphics Tools.
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Chris Hecker studied fine arts at Parsons School of Design in New York City, with the goal of becoming an illustrator.
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Chris Hecker switched career tracks and dropped out of school to begin work on graphics and games.
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Chris Hecker obtained a job at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington around 1992.
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Chris Hecker worked there for three years, becoming creator and leader of the WinG API project for the Windows operating system.
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In 1995, Chris Hecker left Microsoft to form his own company in Seattle, Definition Six, a games and computer graphics consulting company that was later moved to Oakland, California.
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Chris Hecker focused on the development of physics technology for games and lobbied for the OpenGL standard for graphics display.
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Chris Hecker spent several years working independently on a game based on rock climbing as a side project, though it was never completed.
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In 2004, Chris Hecker took a job with Maxis where he worked with Will Wright on what became the 2008 game Spore.
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Chris Hecker led the development of many of the key technologies on Spore, including the core creature tessellation, painting, skinning, and animation technologies.
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Chris Hecker was laid off from Maxis in late 2009, and is currently working on the "indie" game SpyParty, which was released as an early access title in 2018.
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Chris Hecker was awarded the Community Contribution award at the 2006 Game Developers Conference.
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The articles were part of a general push by Chris Hecker to incorporate more interactive physics into games, which at the time in 1996 rarely featured any physical simulation.
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Chris Hecker has lobbied heavily for the development of an independent games movement in many interviews and speaking engagements.
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In 2002, with the help of a few friends, Chris Hecker co-founded the successful Indie Game Jam.