Hi(gh)!

On 01.03.2016 09:38, Thomas de Groot wrote:

> I know it is difficult, but I have learned not to compare my own work to
> those of others, especially if they seem more 'talented'/
> 'knowledgeable' / 'faster', whatever, to me.

To me, life is still a marathon run... and I'm lagging far behind the 
main runners' field, not to mention the top runners!

> I try to do my own thing
> (you mentioned Gancaloon) at my own pace and with my own means, which
> may not be smart and often rather clumsy in the eyes of others.

Clumsy? Not smart? I'm truly awed by your creations!

> That said, you may look at the real effective time you spend on
> building. It may be that you spent far less time in this than you
> realise but spread over weeks. It may depend on the tools you use beside
> POV-Ray, Wings3D for example or another modeller.

I tried Wings3D some years ago, but now I'd prefer Blender!

> Sometimes that speeds
> up work, in some cases it slows it down.

Especially if you first have to learn the whole program... and Blender 
has a VERY steep learning curve! I tried several times to work through 
various tutorials but pretty soon gave up - such things do only sink in 
one's mind if learning is done as a DAILY routine! Unfortunately I'm 
really not good in organizing myself, so I mostly fail to cut off an 
hour or so for learning...

> The amphitheatre I built with
> Silo2Pro for Gancaloon probably took me about six to nine months
> effectively, spread over almost two years or maybe more, including the
> time I spent tearing down the whole bloody thing and starting all over
> again.

I wish I could focus that much on a single task... currently, my daily 
routine looks like this - in theory:
- Getting up (mostly around 12 o'clock)
- Brewing coffee, starting the computer(s, with a laptop running XP to 
update my calories consumption table)
- doing pixeling work on my Kabul heightfield, usually two music albums 
long, which equals to 70 to 100 minutes
- archiving recent e-mails and newsgroup postings, answering e-mails and 
postings
- browsing through the recent eBay ads, looking for computer parts (or 
even whole vintage computers!) offered for free in and around Cologne, 
hoping to make a few euros by re-selling them (I plan to visit friends 
in Berlin this summer, by bike from Cologne, and getting around in 
Germany is expensive!)
- cooking a meal (thank my brother for the dishwasher, otherwise I 
mostly would turn to sandwiches)
- in case of interesting offers for eBay: fetching them, which also 
gives me some physical exercise, as I do this by bicycle
- otherwise: doing stupid household chores (much too seldom - my wohnklo 
(a German slang word for "tiny little apartment") is a sheer mess!)
- talking an hour or so to my loved one on the telephone (also an avid 
"raytracerer", but he prefers Blender)
- scanning magazines and books and dumping them to gradually make space 
for more computer parts to be sold
- finally: POV-Ray! Currently, as I mentioned in the original post, I 
try to model Kabul International Airport (as it was in the early 1970s - 
there once will be two versions of POVghanistan: the 1973 mode and the 
Afghatopia mode - the latter as a vision of what Afghanistan could have 
turned out if history took a more beneficial turn in the late 1970s)
- reading a portion of a book to be scanned away in the near future
- learning Blender
- go to sleep - mostly at 4 o'clock in the morning

This is the IDEAL version, when a day really runs well - in reality, it 
is mostly disrupted by unexpected events or, very often, my tendency to 
overeat - and then taking naps many hours long.

> The Apollo temple was even worse... and I have forgotten how I
> did some of the details so that I may need to reinvent the wheel if I
> ever need to start something similar again. Very frustrating, which
> makes me repeat to myself again and again: "document your work, you
> nitwit!". Not that it helps much, though.

Documenting is really, really time-consuming, especially when done 
publicly, in the form of web pages (like I did with a - still 
unfinished, of course! - C++ project of a conversion tool from SVG to 
POV-Ray textures)...

> To begin with the end, no, I would not consider it a waste of life if
> you get enjoyment from what you are doing,

If it only WOULD BE enjoyment... mostly, it is so frustratingly difficult!

> Khyberspace is inside your head, Yadgar, and that is where it really and
> only can be great and wonderful.

Mostly I'm too exhausted from the daily toil to form any grand visions 
of Khyberspace in my mind...

> Gancaloon is in my head and every
> render I make of it is just a pale approximation of the real, thriving,
> populous, raw, thing. I shall never visit Gancaloon as you never will
> visit Khyberspace, except in your head and in your dreams.

O.k., Gancaloon is a fictitious place... but Afghanistan is not! But 
still, I probably (very probably!) never will see real Afghanistan in my 
life...

> That is life indeed. And yet, your mind is larger still.

Hardly ever!

> In Khyberspace. Why not?

It's a long, long, long, long way...

See you there!

Yadgar

Post a reply to this message