Suffix: flow or discharge
I’ve now been settled back in Sydney for 6 months. The pains of 2020, and of getting home, and the weird headspace that accompanied it all, are now a speck in the rearview mirror. Work from home is now only a two-day-a-week prospect and life is starting to feel like normal.
May Playlist is below. Hit it.
Very cool real-world photographic relighting. Read more about it here. The normal map generation in particular is impressive. I can’t wait to play with this tech in years to come.
“We Don’t Need Elon Musk to Explore the Solar System” declares Leigh Phillips. He makes some good points, first and foremost being the common false dichotomy of suggesting that we don’t have the resources for a space program, environmental protection and social progress. It’s not a zero-sum game. People are not going hungry or working three jobs as a result of the space program. This kind of argument only distracts from the real culprits.
I have mixed feelings on Musk, but I am a massive fan of this new space race, and can’t wait to see what comes next.
One day this stuff will look quaint. You’ll be able to generate Pulp Fiction in the style of Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse. Or swap out cast members for others. But I’m amazed enough by the strides happening in machine learning today.
There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“This is ridiculous. Why would anybody pay so much for something they can just save to their hard drive?” I asked myself when I first heard that the Nyan Cat gif sold for over half a million dollars. Furthermore, this “ownership” did not entitle the buyer any kind of exclusive rights with which they could use the property. It was ownership in name and nothing else – backed up by the security of cryptocurrency to ensure a means of proof. They’ve been deemed Non-fungible tokens (NFTs or “Nifty’s”). In other words, they are exclusive and can not be replaced by a copy. The purchased item is deemed unique.
So what was the point, I wondered? Is this just rich people flexing? Or trolls having a laugh? It seemed absurd. Seems like a scam.
Then I thought some more.
Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup Cans (themselves a copy of an existing image) hang proudly in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. They are valued in the millions. The original soup can labels are worthless. Furthermore, the artworks are easily reproducible, and MoMA wouldn’t pursue a cease and desist should you decide to try. Your reproduction would likely be considered almost as worthless as the original can of soup. The original works have value because we as a society agree, in our collective imagination, that they should.
Say a photographer sells a limited run of 100 prints for thousands of dollars a piece, and they display a high resolution image of the photo on their website. You could just as easily save it and print it yourself. But it’s not the same, is it? Nobody would deem it as having the same value, even if you managed to attain the same level of print quality, because it’s not “authentic”.
Really, how is digital ownership any different? Hell, a crypto-secured artwork makes more sense to me than cryptocurrencies on their own, which is essentially the same thing – but instead of art it’s imaginary currency – gambling with an enormous carbon footprint (to produce nothing).
And money itself is a fantasy concept. It only works because as a culture we’ve all agreed that it has value.
Even the biggest cynic surely can’t go past this reaction video above of Mike Winkelmann (Beeple) as he watches a grid of thirteen years of digital artworks climb to $69 million. For over 5000 days this Bill Gates doppelganger has pumped out a new artwork, not for financial gain – but out of love, and as a personal challenge. It’s endearing to see it rewarded. His joy inspires me to get back into making my own (unpaid) digital art again.
Obviously, there’s going to be people who get burned as with any new technology. People will exploit it. Celebrities will endorse random trash much as they do as with crypto. Some will get caught up in the excitement and lose out, trolls will escalate the price of complete crap (no different to traditional art), but many artists will gain from this – and largely artists who have, as yet, not had a market.
The cynic in me wonders if the true artists will get buried by the scammers. At some point, society may again deem these to be worthless, thanks to oversaturation – and if it no longer lives in the collective imagination of society, we’re back to square one.
Could we find a better way than carbon-intensive blockchain to secure them though?
As I’ve mentioned previously, when I think back to my childhood, two images come to mind – riding my bike around the endless suburban streets of western Sydney, and playing computer games as much as I was allowed. Name a PC game from 1983 to around 1998 and chances are I’ve played it. From Commander Keen to Command and Conquer; Castle Adventure, Descent, Prince of Persia, Scorched Earth, Eye of the Beholder, Lemmings, Supaplex, JetPack, Earthsiege, Alone in the Dark. The list goes on.
But most of all I loved Sierra games. In the 80s and early 90s, Sierra On-Line dominated the PC gaming market. I loved them so much that I had dreams of one day working there. But in the late 90s, as the company deteriorated and eventually closed down, so too my interest in gaming dwindled.
At this time, every other game seemed to be another shooter with little-to-no story nor characters with whom to interact. Funnily enough, one of the last Sierra-published-games I got into was Half Life (which I loved). But mostly all I saw was a sea of sameness and as such I switched my attention to teaching myself 3D animation, website design and coding – all of which revolved around making fan content for my favourite series Space Quest. My goal switched from playing to creating.
Two books (the first two listed above) have been released in the last few months which have given some insight into the history of Sierra On-Line – how it began, how it thrived, and how it spectacularly fell apart. I devoured both books in only a couple of sessions.
The Sierra Adventure is a work of love, written by a fan with the backing of a number of other fans via Kickstarter. It chronicles the company from its early days to its unfortunate end, highlighting the key games, designers and technologies along the way. Sierra’s success was found in its designer-driven approach and its technological boundary-pushing. No great work of art is designed by committee. As a Sierra fan, you always felt like part of a club or family, and got to know the game designers in the same way you would the author of a book. In the early days you could even call the designer to talk to them directly when you got stuck.
Unfortunately this approach was also expensive. An adventure game requires, story, dialogue, and characters. A successful game would sell around 250,000 copies and require a budget of around a quarter of the expected revenue. By the mid-nineties these numbers just weren’t competitive. Shawn Mills says it best:
A cultural change occurred in the early nineties that saw computers become a staple in most homes. They were no longer just for the tech-savvy, and as more and more people began using them throughout the decade, games and software were simplified to reach a broader audience.
More importantly, the technological advancement to 3D would become one of the major downfalls of the point-and-click adventure. While fast-paced, action-oriented games increased in popularity, the more cerebral adventure genre no longer dominated the market.
Shawn Mills, The Sierra Adventure
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings – written by Sierra’s co-founder and CEO for most of the company’s life, Ken Williams – covers similar ground from the perspective of the ultimate insider. It’s far more business-oriented, which becomes fascinating when considering what led to both the successes and failures of the company.
A few highlights:
Invariably, in a company that grows the way Sierra grew, innovation gives way to emulation. Whereas Sierra’s management once strove to make it solid, profitable, and yet fun, they now strive to dominate other companies, force annual growth in the double digits, and (Like so many other companies) cut jobs mercilessly to improve the bottom line and thrill the stockholders.
Josh Mandel, echoing a sentiment true of any company
Not All Fairy Tales was written thanks to Ken being trapped indoors during the pandemic. In a similar way, my desire to explore again the possibility of creating my own game has risen with all the time I’ve had stuck indoors this year. I’ve been learning Unreal Engine and making my own digital art again and my mind has exploded with ideas of how one might tackle an adventure game in 2020. I’ll save that for another time.
Long days and dreaming nights
Wide eyes take in all the sights
A little wonder goes a long, long way
Learning where to go and what to say
Isolation has been a good time for reflection – some valuable, some not so great. There’s far too much time to think and it’s challenging for everyone. Personally I’ve been frustrated with being trapped in Canada – effectively on my own now – missing and wanting to be with people back home. But I’ve been focused heavily on how fortunate I am to be able to continue working, earning money, in a safe and clean environment and in good health. Many have lost their entire world and the flow-on effects in the months and years to come will be enormous.
Most people facing hardship right now are in that situation through no fault of their own. I am fortunate mostly due to pure luck – I work in an industry willing and able to shift me home. And even the elements I might attribute somewhat to my personal wisdom or success (having skills to remain employable and savings to cover hard times, for example) have their roots in the luck of the past – where and when I was born, and the example set by my parents and their priorities.
My first win was being born in Australia. I grew up the third of four children to two working parents. I shared a bedroom with my two brothers in a fibro home in Guildford, New South Wales – Sydney suburbia. They were paying 18% interest rates on their mortgage of that home. Dad worked a lot, and I was 16 before I even realised mum was working two jobs. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I had an awareness of how challenging this would have been. We weren’t hard done-by by any stretch, but they certainly weren’t made of money, so a lot of the bells and whistles of travel and going out which I’m afforded these days weren’t available to them. But we were loved, so we always felt lucky. I had the best childhood. Santa still spoiled us at Christmas despite mum warning us at the start of every December he might not have much to give. My parents sent us to private school, not because they had money, but because education was their priority and they felt that particular school was the best choice.
But it also meant I went to school with a lot of kids I couldn’t quite relate to, and some I found to be quite awful, so my later teenage years weren’t as much fun. I also developed a healthy distaste for religion. But in those years, I learnt how to entertain myself, inventing projects for myself.
And that time was where my career was born.
I was fortunate that dad worked at The University of Sydney, and that he brought his work home. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I realised just how big an influence he had. He worked long hours on something he loved. He could have found money elsewhere but he loved teaching at University. He also kept a regular exercise routine in the 80s before it was cool. He has passionate opinions, and making someone laugh is always the noblest goal. I’d like to think I subconsciously picked up some of these things.
There is a high chance I would not be enjoying a career in visual effects had it not been for dad’s job. Two key pieces of technology sparked my interest –
The PC in particular blew my mind. Thanks to dad bringing his work home, I was able to discover PC games before most of society even knew what they were. I loved Sierra adventure games. So much so that I had dreams of one day working there. Unfortunately the company fell apart by the time I was 15 so that dream evaporated with it. It’s quite fascinating that something I was so obsessed with (games) became mostly a bore to me beyond the age of about 17.
We got the internet around 1993, age 10. Shortly afterward, I was reaching out to find other fans across the world. I made a fan website to catalogue absolutely everything I loved about Space Quest – learning to code JavaScript and HTML by picking apart other websites and reverse engineering them. Then, when I wanted my website to look better than the rest of them, I learnt PhotoShop and Paint Shop Pro. And once I had catalogued everything there was to know about Space Quest, I set out to make my own content.
By the time I was seventeen most school days were spent looking forward to the end of the day so I could go home and work on and learn 3D – modeling, animation, lighting – the whole thing. That way I could set about remaking the old Space Quest games from the 80s with new 3D graphics. It kept my mind busy more than school. I did very well in school but always saw a lot of it as “a thing I had to do” much like brushing my teeth. Computer graphics, PhotoShop and website design and coding excited me.
I still can’t believe I get paid to do this, even at times when it’s not so glamourous. There are valid complaints to be made in some circumstances but I find that most in my field who complain just come across as precious and entitled – just like some of those kids I went to school with. I have no time for that. They don’t know how lucky they are. This is not a “real” job.
My first job was working at a pharmacy delivering medicine to little old ladies. Then I worked checkout at Coles for about 5 years while building my own website business. It wasn’t until I got my first VFX job at 23 while doing a post-grad animation course with other like-minded friends that I felt at home and those later teenage years found meaning.
A shitty situation one year can lead to incredible things down the road.
I trust that this pandemic solitary time will find meaning.
We just don’t know what that is yet.
We’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow
In December 2018 I had a good chunk of time off work, and little desire to hang around Vancouver for the winter, so as is typically my want – I chased the sun. I locked in a trip home for January, but had all of December clear.
I’d long had the desire to do a road trip through the south of USA (still do) but the scale and cost was mounting the more I planned. I then noticed that there was a SpaceX rocket launch scheduled for the following week (a huge bucket list item) – and so my Florida road trip was born.
I flew into Orlando, stepped into my Hyundai and got out of that city as fast as I could in search of a spot for lunch. I found a spot in Sanford, and had arrived less than a minute before the heavens exploded with torrential rain, thunder and lightning – and I realised how much I had missed real weather.
I moved down the coast from St Augustine (beautiful), to Daytona (trash), and Cocoa beach (magic).
I caught my first glimpse of Cape Canaveral on the horizon from Cocoa Beach. I sat at the Rikki Tiki Tavern having a beer and eavesdropping on the conversations nearby. They all looked like locals or even holidaymakers – shorts, old t-shirts, thongs. But their conversation – discussion about terraforming Mars to my left, and genetic engineering to my right – was very unexpected. The genetics conversation was way over my head.
Florida is the butt of many a joke in pop culture, and driving around I could see why – but the experience in that bar felt very much like home, Australia. Appearances are not important. The concept of “class” is near non-existent, and that is sometimes used for jokes aimed at the place, but I for one love it.
The launch itself was INCREDIBLE. It had been a long time since I’d felt that level of child-like excitement, and the experience was far more mind-blowing than I had anticipated. The flame was intensely bright, the roar made my hairs stand on end. And no matter how many times I see a rocket land back on the pad, it’s still as unbelievable as the first time.
Further down the coast I found myself in Everglades National Park, cycling around gators, turtles and an enormous amount of bird life, and eating all the delicious corn and BBQ food I could manage.
I then drove all the way along the Florida keys. I have to say it’s one of the most stunning drives I’ve ever done. Along the way I managed to snorkel, laze by the pool and stuff my face with Key Lime Pie, Cuban sandwiches and Cuban coffee.
It now falls into the category of places I wish I’d had more time with, but will most likely never see again.
Back in the 90s I was fascinated by IBM’s Deep Blue project – which aimed to create a computer program worthy of defeating the world’s greatest Chess champions – Garry Kasparov’s loss in particular was a huge moment in what was seen then as artificial intelligence, but with today’s perspective just some brute-force programming.
AlphaGo (now acquired by Google) is today’s equivalent, with two key differences. This time the game is Go – a 2500 year old Chinese game with far more complexity than chess. Secondly, AlphaGo was designed with deep learning and improves with repeated plays.
The doco makes for great viewing (especially being stuck inside right now) and it’s free to watch on YouTube! It’s fascinating to watch Lee Sedol battle with the emotions of playing against a machine and everyone LOSE THEIR MINDS with move 37.
We’re not just teaching computers any more – they’re teaching us. And what’s more – it’s coming for my vfx industry with Netflix’s Archer being one such example (no, not that one). I’m not one to proclaim changes like this to be doom and gloom for the artist. In my experience, clever tools only free up artists from mundane activities and leave them to focus on the art. I always say “if something can be automated, it should be”, and advances in tech and tools have only led to a greater volume of work. That said, it will be an interesting shift.
