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To quote a little green man, this is how I feel atm. I consider myself a media guy rather then much of a programmer, though I know my way around DBP and coding so I'm not a newb in anyway. Though it feels I can never finish a project basically because I'll get frustrated with a certain bit of code not working or not knowing how to implement a feature I want, so production moves at a slow crawl. This leads to hating to produce media for it...not sure if that makes sense. Why build the character model if I can't use it yet?

Frustrating, I am, I says, 'hmmmmm'.

Creating media is my love and my passion. Though without a project that looks like it'll be finished it's become really hard for me to do much anything but random assortments of media.

I wonder if anyone else has this problem, or if it's the other way around, you can get the code to do your bidding, but are stuck with a white cube and red spheres?

I think what I need is a kind of motivator to get my projects rolling again. Maybe take a break from mine and help someone else finish theirs. Say your nearing completion of your project but you need the media to back the code, maybe I can help and in the process it can help me.

That's my idea, if anyone else has suggestions I'm all ears. Sometimes looking at these forums I feel like the only one who goes through these sort of situations.

Well to anyone who actually reads this whole post and understands me, thank you!

For me it's usually the other way around, although I'm slowly getting better at generating the media. All it takes is practice and lots of patience -- If you find that patience is the thing you're lacking, it may actually be very helpful to step away from the project for a bit, then look back at it later with a fresh eye.

Yes, that's exactly my problem, although lately it's just been I haven't had time to put into a game in any aspect.

gbark:
Actually with my current project, I've been stepping back every so often for a year now.

I honestly need a break from my creative mind powers...need someone else to tell me what to do...like my real life job, though with less ice cream.

I understand how you feel. Projects have failed for numbers of reasons for me. It's perhaps one of the things that's had me searching for other engines to play with...generally stuff that works with an editor, as after all, as a 3D modeler, I feel much more at home manipulating objects in a 3D view. Unity I've found has been helping, you're programming from Scripts, everything else is like Cinema 4D for me...even the way it's laid out.

For me it's always been the other way around as well. I am confident in my ability to do almost anything that is possible in DBP, but my media skills are lacking. I've managed to improve quite a bit through just practicing (just today I finally got my first NPC animation working in DBP), and can make a decent model of most inorganic or structural models. I know what you mean though, it's frustrating to not be able to implement your media properly (or not be able to have media to implement). I'd say just keep learning through experience. I think you have my IM so if you ever want help learning how to code better, I'll be glad to give it .

*cough* team *cough*

I only make really tiny projects, not even full programs.
I am in the middle of making a mario bros remake but it has ground to a halt because I'm getting so frazzled with what to do next and making decisions on how to do things.
Hopefully if I sit down and plan it out it will come together.
I've never done proper planning before so I have to decide how I'm going to do that too

It's kinda strange, besides this past year I've always worked with a programmer doing media for their project(though a lot fell through, sometimes my fault though).

Maybe finishing or helping to finish a NaGaCreMo game would get me motivate.

Gil: I'll take you up on that. Sometimes I'll get to that point where if I'm not working on the project everyday I start to forget what certain parts of my code do, no matter how many comments I add. That's always frustrating. :S

Hehe, yeah, a team in theory is great, but very hard to do online. I'm hoping that when (and if) I ever get to a release of Pirates of Port Royale, I will have enough credibility and experience to form a small team to work my next project, but we'll see. Hopefully Google Wave will be out and actually working by then to help with collaboration .


Haha, yeah, I definitely know that feeling .

I find this quote relevant to me a lot .

http://www.bash.org/?6824

I think everyone can relate Josh, at least on some level. My motivation has often in the passed been whittled away for a similar reason to what you've described.

The best examples of me not losing motivation and canning a project are Carnage, where I was paid, and had someone else doing the artwork, and also Spitfire Maverick, where it was technically and graphically simple.

Technical issues definitely kill my motivation. I need to fly through the code with ease to keep productive. I could never write my own complex physics engine, because all the maths would give me a headache, and I'd lose heart. The same goes for any other challenge. I really enjoy the creative process, but I don't want it to be too difficult, because it's a hobby after all.

There will definitely be people here that could make use of your skills, but be careful with the project you pick to make sure it actually gets finished. I'd ask for help, but my RPG is probably a year from completion!

It's very easy to get overwhelmed I think, but the worst sort of overwhelmed. It's one thing to be busy, or have so much to do that you don't know where to start. With some projects, the challenge is to figure out what you have to do to help you figure out what and where to start. Gusto and bad project planning is the enemy.

Gusto is great at the start of a project, but tearing into a project that is just starting to take proper shape is a bad idea - I think most peoples projects start out as some sort of tech demo that evolves - if the evolution goes too quickly then it becomes unwieldy.

With one of my newer projects, it's an application and is intended to run from script files, and do a lot of tasks - so a fairly complex project. I could get stuck right in and have half the functionality before giving up on it. But what I'm doing is micro-tasking, taking one item that I need and can add without reliance on any other new functions, and I don't work on anything else until it's done. Working like this is not a case of limiting what you are doing in your code, it's more like treating the code as an entire solution to many problems. The one micro-task might be to add a GUI control for scrolling something (scrollbar if you like) - so would need adding to a script file to test it, and I would have to add the handling code of course, and maybe some art media.

It might take an hour to finish, but it'll be a complete and working component to the project, each micro-task like that adds to the functionality. The next task might be to add an image that can be scaled and scrolled, so the previous micro-task feeds the next. It's a bit like coding with a leash on, because you might think ''I'll add in the image and worry about scrolling later''. But, if I did that, I'd probably have a scroll and scale factor on the image - however if I add the scrollbar handling first - I'd set a start and end range, assign it to a GUI control, and have a much more elegant system, that will be used several times over.

I guess that's more like micro-planning - not really following a distinct route to completion, but taking on the massive puzzle, 1 piece at a time - nobody writes a guide on making a specific jigsaw puzzle, nobody expects a sculptor to know how many strikes of the chisel they will take. Coding is organic - forget the idea that it's a strongly technical thing - the coding process is far more organic than people might believe or admit. You guys still make stuff up as you go along right? - not detracting from planning things properly, but when I do that, usually it's more a case of laying it out in my head, through the paper, through writing it down.

Old Chinese proverb coming up (again), and this one I did not get on UK Gold ...

To HEAR is to FORGET.
To READ is to REMEMBER.
To SEE is to UNDERSTAND.

Sometimes it's good just to write things down, and never bother reading them - the thought processes for writing are hardwired into our learning mechanisms, so writing is usually beneficial, even if its never read. It triggers memories and gives the non-impetuous areas of your brain a chance to get a word in.

Anyhoo, hope someone knows where I'm coming from, would be terrible to think I'm the only fruit loaf on the forum.

I know exactly what you are talking about, except the other way around. There are so many games I would like to make, but just don't have the graphics for. For me, game making has become less about what I want to make and more about what can I make with the free, premade graphics available.

I would love to do a co-op project with a talented artist, but I'm dedicated on finishing my current project, and don't want to think about making anything else.

I understand what your saying Van B, and that's sort of how I program, a little at a time, maybe I'm just a poor planner. When it comes to models, I just make a sketch then start modeling...sometimes I don't even create references. I just gogogo!

Well today was the last straw...I was trying to get my rotoscoping function working today when I kept getting the same error, "You can't declare a function mid-program." I was going crazy trying to figure out the problem when I realized I forgot to end my 'Do-Loop'...sigh...

So I'm taking a month break from programing.

Pure graphics for a month. So if anyone needs help with a project, drop me an email, or hit me up on MSN. I could do with the experience too. (josh_mooney(at)live.com)

Dang you Yoda!