crap, on a stick

wow. i've worked with quite a lot of people in my time in this field. in these times when i am working on reviewing my portfolio, i tend to look some of my past coworkers up and see how they've ended up presenting themselves as well.

I know my website ain't exactly the bee's knee's, but.. wow.. most of the folks i have known who have websites up, they are... ugh.. not pretty to look at. mind you these folks are all self-proclaimed "artists," but their design skills leave something to be desired, to say the least. also, mind you, when people are working, they tend not to go out of their way to finely craft a website - also, a lot of these folks are older and from more "traditional" artistic backgrounds, and while their web-development skills may be lacking compared to mine, they certainly can run circles around me with their prowess in terms of more traditional media (when's the last time I, ahem, DREW something? Or painted?) I will go far enough to expect that most of them don't care about dabbling in Dreamweaver or fudging with HTML. Still, it's a little amazing. Anyway, for what it's worth, the younger folks generally seem more tech-savvy.

It's interesting to see what has happened to a few of these older fogies, in that more than a couple of them got into the field, like i said, after they were established doing "other kinds of art," again the more traditional media - and their skills in the 3D realm are not quite as pronounced. Also, what may have passed several years ago doesn't quite cut the mustard these days. I got my hands on a n older videogame system from a friend recently, and played with what was considered to be one of the biggest games in the filed of ten years ago (Tomb Raider) - 3D was a brand new thing, as were fully 3D cutscenes. And man, MAN.. the cutscenes were horrible, just horribly animated. Lazy, sloppy.. but still, only so many people could manipulate the software, so if you got a gig doing it, you didn't have to sweat it as much back then I suppose. Likewise with much of what passed for 3D modeling and texturing, just having it in there and moving around was enough, just the fact that it wasn't a flat 2D image shifting thru space anymore. As the years passed, people started to get a little spoiled and whine about things when they noticed that things didn't look quite so nice.

We're at a strange time now, as the art has to look better and better - technology is sort of tripping over itself a bit, as you can have either really NICE looking games in smaller levels, or kind-of nice looking ones that take place in enormous worlds. It's a trade off, and it's something i think that will possibly branch a little further, and the audience only sort-of notices. It is interesting how much more technically minded the audience has become, I'll say that.

I have found some high-res work that I did a while ago (a couple of years!) and it's funny to see, as really -- ALL the stuff i have done since has been quite the opposite. Color-stripped and supershrunk and budgeted and squeezed in. I have a hard time considering what I would be making now had I continued on the path I was going down. Not to say that it's bad what I have done instead, but it's certainly pushed me into a particular direction, and one that is only semi-useful for what I am looking towards for the future. At least my eye is intact and I can repurpose my skill set.. I believe so, anyway. Time, as always, will tell. On that note, rather than pushing it further and strapping down to work, I think I will take mind of the hour and head to my bed.