Happy New Year! Ohhhh… a resolution post.
Real Quick Recap
I suppose I could feel embarrassed about not doing more of my 2014 resolutions. I did a few things well: took the ferry once a week, kept creating virtual photography, learned a lot of programming stuff, kept refining what I want to do in WebGL (and how my idea for ThereThen addresses fits into it) and kept up with my guitar. There were some big things (move to a bigger space I can use as a studio, and travel) I didn’t do. Moment of shame.
Work @ Stitcher.com was fun, rewarding, etc… up to the point where they were bought by Deezer.com. The contractors were left out, and it looks like 1/3rd of the staff quit. I now have a contract where I am helping someone bring their web site to life, and I work at home. so I am happy.
2014 was better than 2013.
I Resolve …
Heh, I resolve to do what I said last year. Am I done now?
Nah, doesn’t work that way. I’ll skim over highlights here, and may do more in-depth posts on stuff such as the web, creative digital, and some social/everyday. One thing I want to tackle is how to post about a wide range of things that interest me, but not do it in 5 different blogs. Am pondering some sort of subdomain -> category thing.
Web Stuff / Work
I want to keep learning client side stuff (such as Angular.js, Three.js, GLAM, WebGL) and new tech (the MEAN stack, for one). I have my personal projects (ThereThen addresses, and a 3D slide space) that I will say more about later this month.
Work is fine. I get a bunch of inquiries and am thankful for that. Am going to keep learning, always. I do want to evolve into more of a Creative Technologist (I mentioned that a few days back – I want to more than just code.)
Digitally Creative
In general, I want to be more conversant than the iMovie, GarageBand level of things, but I am not saying I want to be some all-knowing Maya/Abelton/FCP expert.
Photography – I can say I’m happy with how I have progressed with virtual photography. As my alter ego, Bucky Barkley, I post my experiments and sesssions on Flickr. I still have not done much post-production, and get some good natured chiding about that. On the other hand, I can snap my way out of a paper bag, and don’t have to use PhotoShop as a crutch!
I am starting to learn some PhotoShop though.
raw snap, Dec 2014
Video – I do want to know my way around Adobe Premiere. I would say Final Cut Pro, but I already have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
3D Environments – I have Blender and Maya, and am looking to learn much of the modeling part. I want to know the pipeline that feeds into WebGL. It is not a big stretch for me. After all, I was on the projects for AutoCAD R12 and R13 @ Autodesk 🙂
Music – I’ve already started learning Ableton Live, and love it. Some of the interest stems from listening to all sorts of electronica. I would love to know what went into a piece such as “Enveloped”, by Max Cooper. I heard of Max Cooper via a live DeadMau5 set. I’d say that I find inspiration in Joel’s wide-ranging techical geekery.
I do have Touchable 3 for my iPad, which turns it into a great controller for Ableton.
Theme
If I had to tie together a theme for the year, it would be “start evolving technically and creatively, put out some tangible code and creative digital stuff, and meet a lot of new people in the process”.