I realise that the need to rest between projects gets considerably larger. Maybe it's just lack of pressure or a lack of concepts
(or both). It seems that once you reach a certain amount of versatility, so many different things come jumping at you and fight for your attention. I sometimes find it hard to make my way through all the different things that come next. It's the decisions that make it so hard, not so much the implementation.
Take Moviesandbox for example. There are already tons of different tools out that allow you to create your own films - easy and complex, cheap or expensive. In the beginning, Moviesandbox was designed to be a tool mainly for me, and i thought i could alos put in the little bit of extra effort to make it useable for other people as well. It turned out that it's not just a little bit of extra effort, but quite a lot of thought, planning and time that goes into building a system like this. And as usual when you work with cimputer graphics, you have to find a way to circumvent your technology from aging so rapidly. In the end, all you can do is try and find a niche spot where you can stay long enough so that after all the work you put into your toolchain, you can actually start using it to show why you made it in the first place.
But you always fear to loose the race when some other product - corporately developed - jumps in the market and does everything you do, only better. Thinking about where to position yourself (so that all the time implementing code and re-learning maths makes sense in a longer term) soon takes up more time than the actual implementation (one could argue that it's not so much the 'how', but the 'what' that's hard to determine).
It wouldn't be too exaggerated to say that i had hit a wall more than one time with the constant switching between working on tools, travelling around and talking about my findings and actually creating content to show why i'm doing what i'm doing. And for quite some time i could hardly show all of what i thought i'd see, because i just wasn't there yet.
It's not like i feel like i'm there now. But after a very very long time of development, i finally feel like it's within reach. But still, the questions remain - what to do next, where to focus, which path to take, so that the work you do isn't obsolete in a couple of months. And always remember - all i want is to make movies!
And where to move after November? Where to work, how to generate income? I guess it's time to break out of the 6 month i-don't-know-where-i'll-be-next cycle. The way things work right now is awesome in so many ways, but i don't know if it's stable enough to continue indefinetly.
On the more non-comtemplative side of things, i just had a wonderful couple of days in Leipzig at this year's Games Convention - an industry trade show with a dedicated art and family area and a machinima booth organised by Karin, Dirk and Ingo from the Animationsprojekt.
Not only did i get the chance to present Moviesandbox there to all the kids, teens and their parents (and realise what works and what doesn't) that crossed my way, but i also hung out with friends - new and old and sometimes unexpected. Remember Matt from Fountainhead entertainment? Right. Exactly!
And a couple of weeks before, i had the pleasure of hosting a bunch of new media performance artists for the (insert marketing adverbs here) perflab get together in Dresden. Kindly and wonderfully sponsored by the TMA Hellerau and the Medienkulturzentrum Dresden and amazingly organised by Anja Dietel (hundreds of hugs and kisses to you).
It went surprisingly well, albeit in a different direction than originally planned. Always keep in mind that you need at least two full days if you actually want to get stuff done. While Jonas made some progress incorporating the GameTrak in Blender (you get a plus for that!) during the evening, the rest of us were actually happy for the feedback and discussions we had during the day, the issues that were raised and that made us realise how important an event like this actually is. Looking forward to the next perflab then!
Dresden itself is an interesting city. It seems that there's everything here - a vivid music scene, clubs, punks, nature, art... but still some things are missing for me to really indulge. It seems like a city so rich in heritage doesn't do so well with blending all the new media stuff in. While the TMA and the CyNet art try to do their best to change that (with an emphasize on performative dance and sound), it seems like there isn't so much to take in here. From the (quite basic) impressions i have, Dresden is splintered into many small groups and scenes, each of them carefully trying to distinct themselves from the others. Be it Neustadt vs. Altstadt, Waldschlösschenbrücke vs. Kulturerbe or Theaterintendant vs. the rest of the world, everyone is busy trying to set himself apart. Or so it seems. You can see it in the architecture too...
Before, i've been travelling quite a bit - to cologne, to Ramsau and to Linz (ever so often) - you can see more of that on flickr, but i feel it should be mentioned...
Friday, August 31, 2007
(or both). It seems that once you reach a certain amount of versatility, so many different things come jumping at you and fight for your attention. I sometimes find it hard to make my way through all the different things that come next. It's the decisions that make it so hard, not so much the implementation.
Take Moviesandbox for example. There are already tons of different tools out that allow you to create your own films - easy and complex, cheap or expensive. In the beginning, Moviesandbox was designed to be a tool mainly for me, and i thought i could alos put in the little bit of extra effort to make it useable for other people as well. It turned out that it's not just a little bit of extra effort, but quite a lot of thought, planning and time that goes into building a system like this. And as usual when you work with cimputer graphics, you have to find a way to circumvent your technology from aging so rapidly. In the end, all you can do is try and find a niche spot where you can stay long enough so that after all the work you put into your toolchain, you can actually start using it to show why you made it in the first place.
But you always fear to loose the race when some other product - corporately developed - jumps in the market and does everything you do, only better. Thinking about where to position yourself (so that all the time implementing code and re-learning maths makes sense in a longer term) soon takes up more time than the actual implementation (one could argue that it's not so much the 'how', but the 'what' that's hard to determine).
It wouldn't be too exaggerated to say that i had hit a wall more than one time with the constant switching between working on tools, travelling around and talking about my findings and actually creating content to show why i'm doing what i'm doing. And for quite some time i could hardly show all of what i thought i'd see, because i just wasn't there yet.
It's not like i feel like i'm there now. But after a very very long time of development, i finally feel like it's within reach. But still, the questions remain - what to do next, where to focus, which path to take, so that the work you do isn't obsolete in a couple of months. And always remember - all i want is to make movies!
And where to move after November? Where to work, how to generate income? I guess it's time to break out of the 6 month i-don't-know-where-i'll-be-next cycle. The way things work right now is awesome in so many ways, but i don't know if it's stable enough to continue indefinetly.
On the more non-comtemplative side of things, i just had a wonderful couple of days in Leipzig at this year's Games Convention - an industry trade show with a dedicated art and family area and a machinima booth organised by Karin, Dirk and Ingo from the Animationsprojekt.
Not only did i get the chance to present Moviesandbox there to all the kids, teens and their parents (and realise what works and what doesn't) that crossed my way, but i also hung out with friends - new and old and sometimes unexpected. Remember Matt from Fountainhead entertainment? Right. Exactly!
And a couple of weeks before, i had the pleasure of hosting a bunch of new media performance artists for the (insert marketing adverbs here) perflab get together in Dresden. Kindly and wonderfully sponsored by the TMA Hellerau and the Medienkulturzentrum Dresden and amazingly organised by Anja Dietel (hundreds of hugs and kisses to you).
It went surprisingly well, albeit in a different direction than originally planned. Always keep in mind that you need at least two full days if you actually want to get stuff done. While Jonas made some progress incorporating the GameTrak in Blender (you get a plus for that!) during the evening, the rest of us were actually happy for the feedback and discussions we had during the day, the issues that were raised and that made us realise how important an event like this actually is. Looking forward to the next perflab then!
Dresden itself is an interesting city. It seems that there's everything here - a vivid music scene, clubs, punks, nature, art... but still some things are missing for me to really indulge. It seems like a city so rich in heritage doesn't do so well with blending all the new media stuff in. While the TMA and the CyNet art try to do their best to change that (with an emphasize on performative dance and sound), it seems like there isn't so much to take in here. From the (quite basic) impressions i have, Dresden is splintered into many small groups and scenes, each of them carefully trying to distinct themselves from the others. Be it Neustadt vs. Altstadt, Waldschlösschenbrücke vs. Kulturerbe or Theaterintendant vs. the rest of the world, everyone is busy trying to set himself apart. Or so it seems. You can see it in the architecture too...
Before, i've been travelling quite a bit - to cologne, to Ramsau and to Linz (ever so often) - you can see more of that on flickr, but i feel it should be mentioned...
Friday, August 31, 2007
