The Urge to Create

In the Beginning

I have always been a creator of sorts. Earliest memories of doing so would have to be when I was a little kid playing with Legos. Since I was an only child, I actually had an entire room devoted to just my toys, primarily of which were those little plastic building blocks.  I would spend hours creating worlds and using my imagination with them.  I later moved on to K’Nex (partially due to kittens using the box of Legos as a litter box), but the intent was the same. Other things I did were drawing, designing video game ideas, poetry, and teaching myself to program.  There has always been a desire to create something, and I guess this blog and website are part of that.

Virtual Worlds

One of the things that I have always enjoyed about video games has always been the fact that I enjoy creating.  While playing video games, you are creating your own experience and stories.  While making them you create worlds and places for people to enjoy.  As a graphics engineer I created tools and processes that would help bring artists’ visions to realization.  So while my work was rarely seen directly, I was instrumental in bringing those games to life.  And while I would love to be able to actually be the one who is creating the stuff that people will see (though I did have several programmatic effects like shadows and post effects that were mine, in a sense), I enjoy the challenge that is inherent in creating elegant tools.  In fact, in my own projects, I think I will likely be approaching them with the idea of putting lots of time and effort into creating easy-to-use tools and playing around with those to create the game as opposed to just diving in and trying to pump out a game as quickly as possible.  In fact, I am starting to believe that it is through great tools that great games are really made.  But it will likely be quite some time before I can really put that theory to test.

This is probably a slightly verbose and roundabout way of saying that I enjoy creating things.  In fact, I feel that I have an urge to create that is an essential part of my being.  When I go a long time without creating stuff (even if it is my own head or just the experiences I get from playing in video games) I start to get into a funk and head towards depression.  After being laid off from Robomodo, I put most of my time into finding a new job and didn’t put a lot of effort into working on things outside of that (other than studying up on techniques for interviews and the like).  Even after landing a new position, I don’t think that it is quite fulfilling my need as much as being a games programmer does.  Possibly because it is more of a research and exploration role than the pure development that I am used to.  Which is one of the reasons why I started to give blogging another shot.

Creating in View

Because I am noticing that more and more web stuff is really starting to take off and it seems like most of the new technologies are web-centric, I decided to revive my old website (well, buy the domain again anyway).  This gives me a chance to explore and create things using new technologies.  I am also pushing myself to be more open and get over fears of criticism so that I don’t hold back so often.  I’m not expecting anything ground-breaking, just a place where I can experiment a little and do some side projects.  I don’t get a whole lot of  time to work on anything and I tend to bounce around a lot between projects, so things will likely be updated in a semi-random manner.  But it keeps me interested and helps me learn and refine my skills.

So I have come to realize that I am happiest when I am able to spend time creating things and this has always been a part of me.  And I want to share the things that I have created with people and hopefully get feedback that will help me improve.  Because maybe at some point I will figure out something that I really want to put the effort into or I’ll stumble upon an idea that I want to develop more.  I have an urge to create that I feel I don’t want to neglect, and it would be my dream to make something that will make the world a slightly better place.