pouët.net

the first step would be buying a laptop other than my ibook g4, but that's a nice idea. anyway, i'm just gonna have to force myself to do at least 1 hour a night the coming days yeah.

by the way, the amount of partycoding ive done in recent years shows my methods are not entirely successful. :)

then there's the other game you can play: the "i know im going to partycode, so lets try and make it as easy as possible" game. e.g. trying to fix all the stuff beforehand that requires careful thought, like system code and difficult fx, that you know you cant do wasted.. :)

Is this your preliminary 'Backing-out-of-NVscene-demo' thread? ;)

hm, and i just wanted to post that i totally adore that you really manage to strictly follow your method of having fixed coding hours ;)

no i'm trying to get my shit together and obtain some useful pointers to try and stop that from happening. as opposed to many others who will probably keep silent about their concerns and/or failure and just pretend nothing happened.

The only way I get stuff done is to do stuff that's really good fun to do.. that way i have the motivation to do it. It helps if it's some small project that can be done in a day too.. with a bit of planning, you can develop a ton of those small bits into a reasonable demo too (at least that's the plan, it seems to be working so far).

About time: I do a bunch of demo stuff while eating breakfast, during lunch, and late at night if i'm not too tired. Although I'm thinking smash has a good idea with the commute thing.. I'll try out some coding in the car tomorrow.

oh wait, I missed your comment from the first page, never mind :)

psonice, if you get one of those car-coder-interfaces, let me know. i'd like to have one too ;)

Now THAT's when a windshield Head-Up Display would be useful. =)

remember kids, uncle smash says "dont code and drive".

Expect tremendous casualties in the Scene the day this kind of hardware "Drive'n Code" is on sale. :(

The simplest idea I have, to avoid the "not feeling like coding after having coded all day at work" is to solve the problem at the root: code your demo as the first task of the day, waking up early enough for that to happen.

Also, being able to prepare a list of tasks before hand, to review them before each session, and to do short enough sessions (45minutes long) with some "airing out" in between.

it's not only about coding, it's also about thinking - something you can luckily do always ;)

I haven't released anything serious the last 4 years where I've been working full time mostly with programming, so yes, it's hard to combine.

My conclusion is that the solution must be to either find some other line of work, which preferably doesn't include sitting in front of a computer all day, or get a part time job as programmer. Both solutions will probably mean earning less money, so it's kind of a hard decision to make. But with the coming economic meltdown ahead, maybe the problem will solve itself.

@ _-_-__: Morning coding is actually a good idea. Works for me the few mornings I'm able to get up early.

I was a professional programmer for about two years and I could hardly do anything... I coded a web site (planetzeus.net) around that time and the only way to get something done was to go to work early and working on something prior to working... plus it looked good to be there first every day ;-)

I quit that job and there are just too many bad things about a programming to concider it right now, but maybe if I have to I will in the future (due to injuries or whatever).

Right now I work as a tile layer, and while the body is tired, you can still find yourself programming at some evenings but there is always that thing stopping you, and some things I found to be true is:

* Often you think "that project is too big, I'll never have time!" May that be a 3d engine or a demo or a 4k synth or whatever. Get that thought out of your head, it just means you need to break it down to smaller parts, and complete one part at the time and it will be both rewarding and fun.

* Hard to get started. Who hasn't been in this position :-) What I usually try to do is to either do some minor effect and then pimp the hell out of it, making it fun to do something on a larger scale, or if I have a really bad day, just dig in to the library code and fix some smal feature or something that's nagging you.

* Teamwork. If you're not yourself coding, you can easily land in some kind of showoff contest and I think that's a good thing between programmers :-) And don't be afraid to alter eachothers code to produce cooler looking stuff.

I'm not saying I'm the bestest democodah out there, but at least I've been doing it for 20 years :-)

go tpb go!

I think at the end of the day, if you are motivated you will always find time to get things done, but there are many ways to reach your goals..

For me, I find that train journeys, lunchtimes at work (if i manage to get one), extended time after work (if we are'nt in crunch for the release of the next title..). Oh and inbetween projects in work when we have downtime is a good time to design a demo (as I did with Route 1066). :)

It helps being in a job where you have to research new methods and keep up to date with current technology (from a programmers point of view). As you can use your work experiences / demo coding experiences and use them in both your job and in demos! hurrah! I'm sure many sceners who are in the games industry appreciate this quite a lot :)

Actually for me it's mostly been the other way around. I started working in the game biz early 2003 and with the knowledge and experience I have now I should be able to put a demo together much easier than before -- but it turns out to be the other way around. It's as if something is 'blocking' me now more than when I knew relatively little of the matter.

I work about 40h/week, +12h sitting in trains, and i have a girlfriend.

for my last bigger project, i had enough motivation to get myself 2 weeks off from work, and tried to press a months work into those 2 weeks with careful planning. it kinda worked out, but it also cost me some nerves ;)

for me, being productive is some kind of an addiction into which i just grew over the years. i can't stop, and sometimes i have to restrain myself from doing more to prevent myself from being completely burned out after one or two more years.
also i found out that if i force myself into being productive and continue to go beyond my limits on a daily basis, it's possible to loose the fun of it. and having fun doing creative stuff is - at least for me - the original motivation. being productive can be a pain in the ass, if all that remains is feeling forced to do so... when all satisfaction vanishes. so it really is important to take a break once in a while, e.g. meet with some people (this can really fill up your energy reserves!), do something stupid like playing a computer game, read a book, or just do nothing...

my long term planning is to more and more combine what i _have_ to do and what i _want_ to do. it's not impossible.

i suggest big hard code for big hard machines, thrusting in to the future, again and again

you see? i'm coding, but i'm shitfaced, so it's progression slowly :)

I am having the same difficulties. It's quite strange actually. I am highly motivated to code some nice intro but at the same time it really takes a huge effort to actually start coding. Once I code it goes ok, but the next day it takes again a huge effort to start.

Part of the problem obviously is the day time coding at work. Another part of the problem is that I don't really get a kick out of it anymore, somehow it feels everything has been done already, and probably better. Quite a depressing thought :)

Anyway, back to coding!

I code during the nights. I've noticed that it's easier to concentrate in ASM hacking when the house is silent and dark :)