sceners with a full-time job (especially programmers), how do you do it?
category: general [glöplog]
But after reading the first post, I see it's not about schedule planning but procrastination. Which makes it more interesting :P
I sleep 2 hours a day, no kidding. This is how I find time for my job, my wife, my kid, skateboarding and coding. I also watch 1 dvd a day. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItMFWpKofSg - familiar to anyone? :)
neils, what is it that you're finding least motivation to do? Is it that you're having to do things you don't want to because you don't, for example, have an artist in your team? That's my main block when it comes to doing things.
smash, ai :)
parapete who needs artists if there's ikea manuals?
Actually, I make music like Smash is coding: on the commute by train. 30 minutes each way - not much time, but it allows me to put out a track once in a while. Oh, and it heavily damages my ears and the mix is rather awful, but those are minor trade-offs. ;)
I guess the keyword is "priorities".
If you value the scene and want to contribute, you set aside enough time in your life to actually get something done that fits your ambitions.
If you don't have enough time, you've still been prioritizing, but it's not the scene that's important to you. You need to be able to create flexible time slots in your life, since creativity can't really be harnessed and set free when you want to - at least, not for me.
So, live your life and tell your spouse, children, family and friends that you're a demo scener and that, once in a blue moon, you drop off the face of the earth to produce digital art. They'll think you're nuts, but at least they'll respect your decision.
If not, you might want to think twice about THAT.....
I guess the keyword is "priorities".
If you value the scene and want to contribute, you set aside enough time in your life to actually get something done that fits your ambitions.
If you don't have enough time, you've still been prioritizing, but it's not the scene that's important to you. You need to be able to create flexible time slots in your life, since creativity can't really be harnessed and set free when you want to - at least, not for me.
So, live your life and tell your spouse, children, family and friends that you're a demo scener and that, once in a blue moon, you drop off the face of the earth to produce digital art. They'll think you're nuts, but at least they'll respect your decision.
If not, you might want to think twice about THAT.....
alternatively, you set aside enough time for the scene and get fired, which leaves you more time for the scene.
Being jobless is indeed rather excellent for demoscene activities. (I made +1-1 after the finnish company I worked at failed)
Working 4 days a week nowadays, one free day for fun work (freelance or demoscene or ...). Works for me.
Sander: same here :)
Wow, 4 day week would be awesome! They were talking about having one afternoon a week to do research work here but im thinking that was just codshit speak as it hasnt happened yet! :|
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If you value the scene and want to contribute, you set aside enough time in your life to actually get something done
Nutman. Word. Well said. In German I would say "Eine Plus-Nuss für Dich" (means: "A plus-nut for you") ;)
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Being jobless is indeed rather excellent for demoscene activities.
Can't confirm that one. The most active guys in our group are the ones that have the most stress in their fulltime job. ;)
i've got a fulltime job, a wife, kid and some sports. i do still put out productions, however i have lowered my ambitions on the them. a good example is the winner entry of solskogen demo compo which was made in like 1-2 days.
after a party i always tend to raise the ambition bar, but when it comes to actually coding the stuff i tend to delay it and wind up eventually doing fast hacks that are fun to make, but not necessarily top notch productions.
after a party i always tend to raise the ambition bar, but when it comes to actually coding the stuff i tend to delay it and wind up eventually doing fast hacks that are fun to make, but not necessarily top notch productions.
oh yeah, and adding to that i do get loads of ideas for effects while doing other stuff. they usually wind up in the "gotta use later"-pile but that's mainly due to my disorganised day-to-day life :-)
while reading the threads i've seen posts on people coding game dev stuff daily and thus not want to code any more visual stuff at night. my professional experience have mainly been with developing desktop, web and mainframe applications so i have plenty of want-to-code-this-or-that tension in my fingers when i get home.
if you have a wife or a girlfriend that takes up your time, simply make a deal that she has one or two days "off" from the relationship a week. my wife has her friends and old hobbies that she tends to a couple of nights a week - this leaves me some spare time doing fun stuff (besides paying bills, keeping budget and watching porn).
while reading the threads i've seen posts on people coding game dev stuff daily and thus not want to code any more visual stuff at night. my professional experience have mainly been with developing desktop, web and mainframe applications so i have plenty of want-to-code-this-or-that tension in my fingers when i get home.
if you have a wife or a girlfriend that takes up your time, simply make a deal that she has one or two days "off" from the relationship a week. my wife has her friends and old hobbies that she tends to a couple of nights a week - this leaves me some spare time doing fun stuff (besides paying bills, keeping budget and watching porn).
macaw:
nice solskogen caipirinha and true words too. That's the spirit and everyone that actually creates something for the scene and doesn't just talk rocks. It doesn't have to be a blockbuster and if it is for supporting small parties it's even more worth it.
nice solskogen caipirinha and true words too. That's the spirit and everyone that actually creates something for the scene and doesn't just talk rocks. It doesn't have to be a blockbuster and if it is for supporting small parties it's even more worth it.
This "one little thing each day" thing works pretty well. Just one tiny little thing.
This thread was actually a nice read with quite a few insight's into how people cope :)
I used to like the "one tiny step each day" work schedule that loaderr0r describes. But it always drifted from "each day" to "each month" and finally to "each quarter".
These days I stick to the golden rule of "does the effect takes more than one afternoon to create/code? If so forget it".
This method will not result in mind boggling visual art. But you will have something to release once in a while.
I used to like the "one tiny step each day" work schedule that loaderr0r describes. But it always drifted from "each day" to "each month" and finally to "each quarter".
These days I stick to the golden rule of "does the effect takes more than one afternoon to create/code? If so forget it".
This method will not result in mind boggling visual art. But you will have something to release once in a while.
i have a mantra for most hobby projects: if you can't finish it today, don't start it. that means don't start creating a werkzeug clone, since it takes forever, etc. it's a very lean mind set, but it helps me :-)
it's not like i'm starting a werkzeug clone either. no way. i have a stronger believe in the oldschool way of authoring demos, allthough that might be a bit stubborn on my part.
point is that i do have almost 180kb exclusively system code (and it doesnt do much datadriven or automatic) now as opposed to the 80-100kb in the past. just because you want things to be more professional than before.
lets see how it works out now, coding a bit every day is a good one. tough i dont have many days left, nor does my buddy stil :)
point is that i do have almost 180kb exclusively system code (and it doesnt do much datadriven or automatic) now as opposed to the 80-100kb in the past. just because you want things to be more professional than before.
lets see how it works out now, coding a bit every day is a good one. tough i dont have many days left, nor does my buddy stil :)
Desides to do a demo, then I do it. Afterwards, a long break. this method gives me about 4-5 weeks of coding a year. Those 4-5 weeks are hell with pain. Don't know why I keep doing it. Working on the side really makes this a living hell. (But working with others really helps out).
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tough i dont have many days left, nor does my buddy stil :)
You're both terminally ill?
yes, same symptoms here: nvscene-deadline-syndrome :)
I've just read all the posts in this thread and noticed several interesting thoughts. First of all that more people than I thought have the same symptoms as me and so I shouldn't start whining again since I am not alone here :)
Also, there is a small percentage of sceners who don't have to ask these questions because they simply sit down and do it without emotional complications. I talk about the different state of mind that smash mentioned.
And there is the vast majority of sceners who really do want to be creative but they are easily distracted by other things, or something blocks them psychologically, or maybe they are fed up with their hobby that becomes an oppresion instead of fun sometimes. I really find interesting jco's mention of creativity as an addiction in this last point as I see it in myself too. To really want to be creative because without out it your life makes less sense (at least this is how I feel it in me :P). But being fed up and burn out by this obsession. That makes me inactive for months till I rush for 2 weeks of extreme scene coding work just to release a demo and then burn out for another three months.
So, I can see two primary ways of working on a demo here. To go from total inactivity to excessive democoding in a short period. And the other way is to work in a schedule shorter times per day for longer periods overall.
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Recently I have noticed some good changes in my demoactivity. I may still not release much but there are two-three rules I followed that currently are making things to be more fun than pressure. Usually when I hear suggestions around me, I always have this negative view that "uhm,. it's not gonna work! Too trivial.." but something starts slowly slowly changing and I am happy about that (it takes time, not very helpful if you want to catch up with the current deadline, maybe a good idea for the next time?)
* First of all, what I wrote above. I try to regulate my emotions, to find some balance, accept things, do what I wrote above about doing a little thing per day and not necessary much at once. It took years to adopt to this and I don't know if it still entirely works, because I think I was seeing things as black and white. I disliked that creativity wasn't 100% fun and also thought that if I relax for a bit I won't finish anything in time. These are the feelings that I am trying to avoid. I let myself play a computer game without having doubts. I also try to remind to myself that if I play that game all the evening, I will end up doing nothing. It's hard but recently it came to me after playing some game and at another time I tried to code something even for a little time. At the end there is satisfaction but it's hard before you start. It's the hardest thing for me. And the primary that kills me. But I think I have a great grasp of it now and things look bright :)
* This one, I like it very much. It's too much fun! Say you have a primary project that you have to finish soon. This one revolves around your head every day. In the meantime, there are numerous other little projects or things that you always wanted to try coding (or even painting, tracking, etc), that are not as important now as the primary goal. Yet, when the thought of "I HAVE to do it" revolves around your head and that makes it more pressing, switch to one of these other less important creative things. At least it's better to switch to these and have portions of codes for future demos ready and also still feeling that you did something today, than switch to games, internet or porn for the rest of the day :)
For example, my primary goal these days is to start coding a CPC demo. This is because I have two really enthusiastic greek sceners begging me to do so together and I think it's rare to have such motivated team for me and I shouldn't loose this opportunity. But the HAVE TO comes here and so the days ago I have rewritten and reorganized parts of my latest version of my 3d engine that I had stopped working for a lot of months. And yesterday I have started a new WAD for Doom (ok, it's doom, but it feels more creative and fulfilling to create a map than playing tons of maps :P). It could be not these, it could be making an new attempt at learning 68000 on AtariST or trying to code a new effect on my just newly purchased GBA flashcard. Anything from the long abandoned or always wanted to do demo/code/anything projects.
It's kinda like Structured Procrastination that recently makes creativity more fun that pressure. At least not when the deadline is near :P
Also, there is a small percentage of sceners who don't have to ask these questions because they simply sit down and do it without emotional complications. I talk about the different state of mind that smash mentioned.
And there is the vast majority of sceners who really do want to be creative but they are easily distracted by other things, or something blocks them psychologically, or maybe they are fed up with their hobby that becomes an oppresion instead of fun sometimes. I really find interesting jco's mention of creativity as an addiction in this last point as I see it in myself too. To really want to be creative because without out it your life makes less sense (at least this is how I feel it in me :P). But being fed up and burn out by this obsession. That makes me inactive for months till I rush for 2 weeks of extreme scene coding work just to release a demo and then burn out for another three months.
So, I can see two primary ways of working on a demo here. To go from total inactivity to excessive democoding in a short period. And the other way is to work in a schedule shorter times per day for longer periods overall.
----------
Recently I have noticed some good changes in my demoactivity. I may still not release much but there are two-three rules I followed that currently are making things to be more fun than pressure. Usually when I hear suggestions around me, I always have this negative view that "uhm,. it's not gonna work! Too trivial.." but something starts slowly slowly changing and I am happy about that (it takes time, not very helpful if you want to catch up with the current deadline, maybe a good idea for the next time?)
* First of all, what I wrote above. I try to regulate my emotions, to find some balance, accept things, do what I wrote above about doing a little thing per day and not necessary much at once. It took years to adopt to this and I don't know if it still entirely works, because I think I was seeing things as black and white. I disliked that creativity wasn't 100% fun and also thought that if I relax for a bit I won't finish anything in time. These are the feelings that I am trying to avoid. I let myself play a computer game without having doubts. I also try to remind to myself that if I play that game all the evening, I will end up doing nothing. It's hard but recently it came to me after playing some game and at another time I tried to code something even for a little time. At the end there is satisfaction but it's hard before you start. It's the hardest thing for me. And the primary that kills me. But I think I have a great grasp of it now and things look bright :)
* This one, I like it very much. It's too much fun! Say you have a primary project that you have to finish soon. This one revolves around your head every day. In the meantime, there are numerous other little projects or things that you always wanted to try coding (or even painting, tracking, etc), that are not as important now as the primary goal. Yet, when the thought of "I HAVE to do it" revolves around your head and that makes it more pressing, switch to one of these other less important creative things. At least it's better to switch to these and have portions of codes for future demos ready and also still feeling that you did something today, than switch to games, internet or porn for the rest of the day :)
For example, my primary goal these days is to start coding a CPC demo. This is because I have two really enthusiastic greek sceners begging me to do so together and I think it's rare to have such motivated team for me and I shouldn't loose this opportunity. But the HAVE TO comes here and so the days ago I have rewritten and reorganized parts of my latest version of my 3d engine that I had stopped working for a lot of months. And yesterday I have started a new WAD for Doom (ok, it's doom, but it feels more creative and fulfilling to create a map than playing tons of maps :P). It could be not these, it could be making an new attempt at learning 68000 on AtariST or trying to code a new effect on my just newly purchased GBA flashcard. Anything from the long abandoned or always wanted to do demo/code/anything projects.
It's kinda like Structured Procrastination that recently makes creativity more fun that pressure. At least not when the deadline is near :P
But I think these two points is my attempt to make creativity funnier than pressure and not so relevant (yet interesting) to the initial point.
So, you have to finish a demo for nvision before the deadline. What would I do if I was in the same place?
Depends on if you want it to be a good demo, a mediocre one or a crappy. I really can't get into you mindset and see what you wish for a demo. I could only think by myself. In my current opinion, I would even release some crap. Except if I have an insight of how to do a demo in a very short time that doesn't look so bad. What elements of the demo would take me less time to code. Which of my ideas would take a long time, and dismiss them. To play strategically so that the demo is released in a haste and still not look as bad as it should. I think that's what I did with voxreen. Ok, maybe voxreen is still too crappy looking for some (and I see now some horrible design choices that I should have corrected easilly :P) but I was really sattisfied to pull such a thing in less than a week.
I don't know what else to say.