This website was set up to fulfill my projects problem. I have a seemingly short attention span and it often causes me to... oh, look: A butterfly.
Anyway, this website is supposed to be a means of expressing myself. But most of my expressions in real life revolve around my projects. So far I haven't said much about what I consider those projects to be. So I thought I would jot down the various projects I'm thinking of undertaking and, hopefully, keep this list maintained.
It's no big hoo ha, really. But it might let me keep my life a little more focussed (that's right: I pay that little attention).
Projects are something I've just come to take for granted in my life. I'm not sure when it was that I started giving myself random tasks to achieve, but I seem to have found a taste for it. When I'm not working I feel like I'm somehow wasting my time. I'm a little man really and I sometimes wonder about how much impact I will really have on the world. I feel that I want recognition for what I'm good at. And yet, I'm not sure I've actually found something I'm good enough at to demand world recognition. I think it's unreasonable to think there is such a thing. One of the reasons I have so many projects (and in such wide ranging areas) is probably because I am still trying to find that one thing that I can do. Maybe it could be some new amalgamation of existing things that no one has ever used before.
In any case, my problem has always been a somewhat sweeping interest in too many things. More things than I can remember at any rate. It gets to the point that I can only remember the last few things that I came up with because I've found interest in something else. By writing them down here, I hope to be able to arrange my projects and possibly manage to finish a few instead of getting distracted by my latest craze.
But I guess that is enough about the why, let's get to the projects.
I had to learn the open source program, "Blender", to a small extent in order to to do my fourth year project at University. Blender is a 3D modelling and animation package used to produce computer generated imagery. Basically, it is the sort of thing that Pixar used to make Toy Story, only it is open source.
While I was doing the project, I only had time to learn the absolute basics of how to operate Blender and found it a tricky program to use. However, having recently spent more time learning what the program was actually capable of and getting the hang of it a bit more (partly from buying an actual book on how to use it), I now find myself full of a renewed enthusiasm for the program. In particular what it potentially allows me to do. I've also seen short films in which people have managed to use Blender to include very accurate looking CGI effects in real life video. And all of it done using packages which I can get hold of.
This means that I am, in theory, capable of making a fairly pro level short film as long as I have the patience to follow it through. In addition to this, TokenEngineer was showing me the rather cool video camcorders you can get now for relatively cheap. These are DVD quality digital camcorders. Very snazzy. Something I now most definitely want to purchase.
So, now we have the likelihood of buying a nice camera and the ability to add cool special effects to our shots. So, TokenEngineer (who I have also recently managed to get interested in Blender) and I decided that we should try and make a little film. Our original idea was to do a parody of the Myst games. But we decided against it. We have since bought the camera and been spending much time learning Blender. We're sort of starting to get the hang of it.
So that's the project. If it works out, we could even make a series of them, making a name for ourselves as animators. The real point of the project is as a learning experience for making a music video for engeo that is truly professional looking. I don't want to be learning while I'm doing that. I learned from my first experiences with music production that you should do the experiments before you make the actual product. Otherwise you end up with something you'll never be happy with.
So, assuming I learn enough from making animated movies, I want to make a music video for engeo as well. At the moment I'm thinking something along the lines of the Bliss video by Muse. At least to the level of us being in a virtual world that looks cool. However, if I think of a better concept then I'll go with that instead. But the basic order of the day is use my camera and Blender and some other tools to make a super cool video.
My music video gurus have always been Radiohead. They've done some really cool stuff that was also smart, appealing and long lasting. At the same point, we have to be realistic. I used to think that all the Gorillaz music videos were done by one guy (Jamie Hewlett, the creator of Tank Girl, in fact). But I later found out that he had to create a whole animation studio just to deal with the heavy workload that a virtual band entailed for creating a presence. This, of course, included music videos.
Then again, with the impending doom of myself and Jamie most likely moving away, it might not be a bad idea to shift engeo more into a virtual band type scenario. I am kind of hoping that Jamie and myself will be able to work together via the internet. But if we live far apart, doing gigs together could become a little problematic. Which, to me, just screams "Virtual band!".
Mind you, creating the presence of a virtual band seems a huge task in itself. But it does sound a lot of fun. At any rate, I guess the decision should be made before I start making music videos.
Engeo plans have a habit of never getting done. Like... NEVER getting done. But that has always largely been due to my life being taking over by my degree. Well, that mixed with having too many interests. But the problem has remained. The idea of doing a 9 to 5 day seems so liberating. And, as such, I think I may actually manage to get some engeo stuff completed some day.
The magnitude of that statement might not have a big enough impact on the uninitiated. I have never really finished anything with engeo. The first `album' was all shoved together. EPs have been on the go for years and I'm still not happy with them. The websites have always been a bit hotch potch. Album covers are half completed. Basically it's just a big old mess.
So, let's address each of those problems in turn. Firstly, I need to finish the EPs. Everything else is built around that first task I guess. That'll involve doing five more songs: A rock song by Jamie, and a collage of other songs by me. At that point we will have three EPs and we can release a proper album made up of the EP recordings. Well, that's easy enough. Just requires time.
With EPs done I can make a new engeo website. The grand plans for those things require an entry all of their own.
As for EP and album covers, we do have the covers for two. And Gail Lingard did make a very kind offer a while ago to do one of them for us. If she's still up for it that is what will probably happen (I think Gav has a bit too much on his plate these days to be doing free EP covers for us - so does Gail mind you, but she did offer). Otherwise, I suppose I will just make up the artwork myself. Certainly, I will be doing the artwork for the album. And, by and large, that is already done.
And that takes us on to the decision of virtualising the band. This should ideally be done as soon as the recordings are complete. But whatever the choice, a music video is then next on the cards.
And after that, well there were two ideas. A fourth EP called The Definite Article. Each song having a name like, "The Rock Song" or "The Love Song". And the other idea is the long postponed `second' album, The Conformist Rebellion. However, as I have said, that is just a compilation of the EPs.
Also, and I'm sure Jaime would shoot me for saying this, I wouldn't mind doing a proper production of the first album. Something to tow it in line with the second one. As it stands, I would just never let anyone hear the first album it is that bad. But, to be honest, I think that is as much to do with the songs as it is the production value.
And I guess that's the extent of my current engeo plans. These are summarised of course and the actual plans are more complicated, but the general flow is there. I kind of fancy doing T Break as well, but that is more of a dream. We're hoping to get signed to magnatune and perhaps play King Tuts one day. But those all just dreams really.
Another idle fantasy I've had for a long time is to make a computer game. This is not about the coolness factor like you might think. I just like the idea of creating a world from my head and then being able to walk around in it. I guess it's sort of similar to a writer creating a work of fiction. You create something that is real enough for others to experience. As such there are fairly specific types of game that I'm interested in.
I like the old classic games where playability was more important than looks. But I'm not really from that school of thought. I still agree that it is more important, but I also think that there is no reason you can't create games that look great too. However, the types of game I am interested in are simply ones where the player feels immersed in another world. Which leads me in two directions.
The first is text adventures. Admittedly these games don't look great in the physical sense, but these are interactive pieces of fiction. And, as with any piece of fiction, I have a tapestry available to me which is richer than anything I could physically create. I have the imagination of the human mind. Not mine, but that of the player. I really think that this is becoming a lost art form. There were never that many commercial text adventures and although there are many amateur ones, they are not recognised much by the gaming community. Its a little like the way that television killed reading. Except that interactive fiction was never as popular as reading was. I liked Douglas Adams take on it. He made a text adventure during their peak and it was very successful. But when that time had passed, he tried to reinvent the idea with Starship Titanic. A game that was essentially a text adventure, but with a lot of nice visuals chucked in. Almost like it was a text adventure in disguise. You actually had to talk to people, by typing questions and instructions for them, in order to solve many of the puzzles. The first few Myst games also had a distinctly text adventure feel to them. I did actually design a basic Myst style game years ago, but realised that I really wasn't up to building it. I'd say I am probably capable of making a Myst-like game now though. So I guess the first two games I might try to make would be a text adventure, then a Myst clone.
Although the artistic credibility of concept and design are there in these first two games, the technical impressiveness is fairly low. So, I'd also like to make an interactive 3D game as well, but with the same ideology as the first two. I think I would probably end up using an existing 3D engine. But maybe with a future project I could design my own engine from scratch. Because, you know... why not?
I had also thought about knocking up some quick applet style games for the engeo websites, but that's really a different thing and is part of those projects.
The web is fast becoming the most accessed resource for information of all kinds. I don't have the stats to hand, but it is probably already the main one. Anyway, I think when the net first started getting popular there were as many people contributing as there were using. Nowadays it seems disproportionate. People take more from the internet than they give back I think. Well, I guess that's a given considering how much information is on the internet now. But it seems there are a lot of users who give nothing back. My line of thought is that if you have ever taught yourself something from the internet, then you should find something you know how to do that no one has written about yet and then write a tutorial about that.
Anyway, I do my best I suppose. I have written one or two when I've had a moment, but I intend on writing a lot more. Hopefully someone will get some use out of them. I will try and summarise here what tutorials I intend on writing. As a side point, I am generally more interested in writing tutorials than articles. It's not that I have anything against articles, I just don't think anyone will be interested on my thoughts on particular topics. I think I will just end up writing rants. So, I should probably keep that sort of thing to my personal website. In any case, it's not a project to rant about stuff.
I wrote a little tutorial a while back about how to update the classic first person shooter, Doom, to take better advantage of modern computers. It has proven to be relatively popular and I thought I might write a sister article about another classic first person shooter, Quake. In actual fact, I think it is worth writing a general article about getting old games working on new computers. It breaks my heart that I can't be nostalgic and play a lot of my old games.
I also wrote a somewhat overly complicated article on how to get some GNU/Linux tools working in Windows. I think people are overly down on Windows as an operating system. I mean, there is a reason it is as popular as it is. I like GNU/Linux as well, especially for programming, but Windows is a very easy to use system most of the time. Anyway, I think I would do well to write a lot of smaller tutorials under one banner. A particular addition, and I suppose only vaguely related, would be a tutorial on cryptography and secure communications in the Windows operating system.
Other tutorials would probably be about how to use various programs. At least to a basic level.
I have always been fascinated by the concept of Open Source and Free Software. I know there is a difference between the two but the parts that interest me seem to be the same. The basic ability to empower people to achieve the same as corporations and challenge their own self worth. I think it is a wonderful idea. I'm not totally convinced that Open Source is here to stay, but it certainly won't be unless those that can help, do help.
Despite my enthusiasm, I have never contributed much to the movement. For a long time I felt that the best thing I could offer was to spread the word and simply use the tools. At least that way the corporations didn't have a monopoly and then everyone has to work that little bit harder, making better products for everyone. But I recently started to feel that I could do more. I now have the skill to be able to properly put something back into the community that I have taken so much from.
My first dip in the Open Source waters was last year when I converted an on-line email client to use a flat file database instead of mySQL. Sorry if that sounds technical, but it's really not. It was a pretty basic thing to do, but a lot of people downloaded the program (2029 at last count). It made me realise that I could do something useful. That project was never fully completed actually, and is probably the first thing I should address. The original program it was based on also died before it was finished. But I shouldn't let that happen to my version as well.
However, that project doesn't really interest me that much. It was more of an experiment. I came up with three other ideas for Open Source projects and it is these ones that I would really like to achieve.
The first idea is to make an open source game. TokenEngineer and myself actually came up with the concept for a spoof game that the geek crowd would appreciate, but we unfortunately lost a lot of the notes for it. There was another project that John Nicholson and myself came up with loosely based on Tron, but aimed at educating people about technology. I think both of those would be good candidates.
The other two ideas I had were much more geeky. The first was an elaborate content management system. A webpage based means of easily publishing content. My idea was to create one that dealt exclusively with publishing source code. A concept which I couldn't find an example of already. My basic premise is that source code is more than just the means of creating programs. It is an art form when done properly. Much like a book is not just a means of telling a story. In any case, that was my idea and I called it "Source". I registered the name at sourceforge almost two years ago but have not yet had time to properly work on it.
My second idea was related to the first. I wanted to create a web based editor for the Source project. There are quite a few of these kicking about, but I needed to build one that would deal better with source code than the existing ones seem to. I thought this project was interesting enough to be seperated from Source and so I registered the name "SourcEd" at sourceforge as well. That's the "Source Editor" if you hadn't worked that out. But again, I have done no work on this either. I think the best plan would be to get a basic version of both applications working and then continue developing them in unison. I think it will be easier to get an impressive version of SourcEd working than it will for Source. So I was hoping that by releasing SourcEd separately, it might gain some word of mouth about Source too: Being the mother project as it were. Sounds like a plan. But again, talk about a big project...
The only art I definitely want to have a go at for sure is 3D formation art. The kind that you put on threeD glasses for. Based on photography I would imagine.
I'd also like to know how to make holograms...
But, in saying that, I would love to do more in Blender as well. And I worry that I don't draw as much as I used to and I will eventually lose my talent for it.
Nothing really. It just means I'm more interested in making things than I am in relaxing. Why that should be I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's a good thing. I can always show people things and be proud. I'd rather have done something badly than have done nothing at all.
© 2006 Nexami Engeo, sympodius