{"id":7,"date":"2011-02-13T19:28:48","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T03:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/?p=3"},"modified":"2011-02-13T19:28:48","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T03:28:48","slug":"the-urge-to-create","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/?p=7","title":{"rendered":"The Urge to Create"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Beginning<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 I would spend hours creating worlds and using my imagination with them.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There has always been a desire to create something, and I guess this blog and website are part of that.<\/p>\n

Virtual Worlds<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the things that I have always enjoyed about video games has always been the fact that I enjoy creating.\u00a0 While playing video games, you are creating your own experience and stories.\u00a0 While making them you create worlds and places for people to enjoy.\u00a0 As a graphics engineer I created tools and processes that would help bring artists’ visions to realization. \u00a0So while my work was rarely seen directly, I was instrumental in bringing those games to life. \u00a0And 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\u00a0inherent\u00a0in creating elegant tools. \u00a0In 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. \u00a0In fact, I am starting to believe that it is through great tools that great games are really made. \u00a0But it will likely be quite some time before I can really put that theory to test.<\/p>\n

This is probably a slightly verbose and roundabout way of saying that I enjoy creating things. \u00a0In fact, I feel that I have an urge to create that is an essential part of my being.\u00a0 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. \u00a0After 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). \u00a0Even after landing a new position, I don’t think that it is quite fulfilling my need as much as being a games programmer does. \u00a0Possibly because it is more of a research and exploration role than the pure development that I am used to.\u00a0 Which is one of the reasons why I started to give blogging another shot.<\/p>\n

Creating in View<\/strong><\/p>\n

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).\u00a0 This gives me a chance to explore and create things using new technologies. \u00a0I am also pushing myself to be more open and get over fears of criticism so that I don’t hold back so often.\u00a0 I’m not expecting anything ground-breaking, just a place where I can experiment a little and do some side projects.\u00a0 I don’t get a whole lot of\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But it keeps me interested and helps me learn and refine my skills.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0And I want to share the things that I have created with people and hopefully get feedback that will help me improve. \u00a0Because 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personality","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}