Kenneth Llewellyn Demarest III is a

computer game programmer A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall ...

, artist, and business person.

Early life and education

Career

Demarest worked on ''

Wing Commander Wing commander (Wg Cdr in the RAF, the IAF, and the PAF, WGCDR in the RNZAF and RAAF, formerly sometimes W/C in all services) is a senior commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and air forces of many countries which have historical ...

'' and developed 3D,

texture-mapped Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color. History The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974. Texture mappi ...

characters in '' BioForge''. As a Director of Technology at

Origin Systems Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert Garriott, Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres ...

, Demarest developed the technical prototype for ''

Ultima Online ''Ultima Online'' (''UO'') is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released on September 24, 1997 by Origin Systems. Set in the '' Ultima'' universe, it is known for its extensive player versus player combat system. ...

'' using ''

Ultima VI ''Ultima VI: The False Prophet'', released by Origin Systems in 1990, is the sixth part in the role-playing video game series of '' Ultima''. It is the third and final game in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy. ''Ultima VI'' sees the player retu ...

'' as a

code base In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

. His later work resulted in the persistent-world

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...

game '' NetStorm: Islands At War'', which as of March 2016 is being re-made in 3D as Disciples of the Storm, funded through KickStarter. In social gaming, Demarest was part of the early work blending 3D multiplayer online games and social game play both stand-alone and on networks such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

and MySpace. Demarest was a founder of Appsoma, a

platform as a service Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computing ...

for scientific analysis. As an artist for Shadow Garden he wrote 'Sand', the most popular and frequently sold work on the platform developed by Zack Simpson. Sand is in the permanent collections of numerous museums worldwide including the

Discovery Science Center The Discovery Cube Orange County, formerly known as the Discovery Science Center and the Taco Bell Discovery Science Center, is a science museum in Santa Ana, California, with more than 100 hands-on science exhibits designed to spark children's ...

and Sony Wonder Technology Lab. Demarest's later work supported technology that benefits humanity including MorSand, a 2006 Tech Award Laureate, and CellBazaar, a 2007

Laureate In English, the word laureate has come to signify eminence or association with literary awards or military glory. It is also used for recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Gandhi Peace Award, the Student Peace Prize, and for former music direc ...

References

External links

Mine-Control Home Page''Ken Demarest''
profile on MobyGames
Sand Exhibit
at the Discovery Science Center in

Santa Ana, CA Santa Ana () is the second most populous city and the county seat of Orange County, California. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census, making Santa Ana the 13th-m ...

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Origin Systems people Video game artists Video game programmers {{videogame-bio-stub