Random stuff

Remember how just a ten years back we still were used to get loads of photos from print and then slip them to very uncomfortable slots or glued or slipped the corners in holders? Of course it was nice and memorable that way but I suppose nowadays people start to be content on having most of the pictures as low resolution versions in their hard-drives (with no backups.) From somewhere around the start of this millennium there has been a possibility to do those family albums relatively easily with a bearable price-tag using photo service providers with dedicated pagination applications with a focus on high-level controls. I did my first one in 2005 using services from Ifi, which is currently known as Ifolor, and back then both the paper and printing quality was low enough that I wasn’t keen of ordering more for any purpose. That was of course 5 years a go from now and I do not have knowledge on the current quality yet as the whole system in their print has changed as far as I recall.

Recently I got a bundle from a chocolate package to get photobook for a very small price and that got me involved again. The bundle was from TicTacPhoto and the price was spot on to do something fun. So we compiled a book of cat-photos for kids where we included all our own and some of our friends cats we had taken photos of. The software they provide for pagination is not too good quality. It does not handle other formats than .jpg and it is a bit slow as it can not handle more than maximum of 12.5% from my CPU power. Also the system and templates for layout were OK but not very good. Very slow to use in any case. Although we got it done in couple of hours and when we finally received the book the quality was OK. At least a lot better than the one 5 years back and we all liked it a lot. So later on I loaded my family-trip photos from last summer and did an another book but more about that when I receive the physical book itself.

Also that spawned an zeal to complete another one and I tried to find more about those services in Finland. There seems to be loads of it but my first on the line to test is kuvakirja.fi which is a site from Fotoyks. I created a very similar book from a summer-trip that I ordered from TicTacPhoto: ~60 pages and landscape layout. The software they provide for the layouting is easier to use, faster and has more features than the one TicTacPhoto provides. But still it could be a lot better and faster anyway. (I command you software developers: whatever you do, consider multithreading! =) Of course the material is from a different trip so they’re not straightly comparable.

I will post more about the results and services later with some pictures and as well will try out more of these services. The TicTacPhoto and Fotoyks are very similiar in cost. Next ones in the testing queue are Ifolor and Blurb. Feel free to suggest some.

I started to collect photos from this summer to a specific place: Summer of 2009

And here’s some of them:

Whoa. Time passes by with wings and turbines. We’re moving to Kirkkonummi. Or actually moved already. Have been temporarily living at my parents and at my sister & her family. Today we’re planning to finally move to live full-time in our new apartment(!). \o/

I’ve been photoing a lot, done mainly 3d graphics at job. Had one vacation week to renovate the house and handle all kinds of stuff connected to moving. And today I’m supposed to switch for a 3 week vacation. Hopefully I’m not renovating for most of the time. =) Would reeeeaaaaally like to get my workstation built up at the new house and some freetime-art done too as Assembly 2009 is closing in. I’ve been literally living on trash food and energy drinks for a while now as the moving and such get me stressed and busy so the vacation is very welcome.

Another topic I’d like to point out is that to my knowledge doing creative work mainly alone is not effective. Why? – Simply because doing things alone does not give you the opportunity really to mirror your thoughts and develop them. Designing and developing for example a 3d model or environment is a process where you take paths and choose one to go further, then towards the end the path gets more narrow and you need to find another paths or create new ones to continue. This is an iterative process where you eventually have to dismiss the path you started with when you find better ones and iterate back and forth with some of them. When you have a partner to work with, you get double or even more paths you found yourself in the first place. But in return you probably give more paths for the workmate too. That means loosely that there’s four times more design power instead of one. That of course means that you need to have communication going on non-formally about what you’re doing but I’ve experienced that million times. It could be tight working group or even just a lunchtime discussion that opens up the whole scenario again. As long as the team size is small and works well together – the add to workforce by person is exponential. Small team because the communication starts to lack when it grows bigger.

I’m talking this from my professional experience. I’ve been working now alone for one and a half years. It’s really no good. I start to remember why I really, really liked having a very talkative and creative workmates. At the moment I’m really stressed and tight on inspiration and ideas. When I get stuck on a problem, I really have no people to have a lunchtime-chat about it, or one that would say “have you tested X and Y?” and where I could say: “Yeah I’ve done X but Y might work if I add A and B” – “B? oh.. yeah. it could be done with Z”. And so on… It all comes down to a non-formal discussion of different approaches, iterating and the paths. There’s probably people that are good on iterating paths by themselves but I can’t determine if I’m one of them. All I know is that I really need some real artistic feedback on what I’m doing to keep the flow going. I really need the privacy and peace when I develop the thing I’m working for but for the design side I always need feedback to find paths. But when I get a even a single person to work with that syncs well – I’m on fire. I’ve been talking about the topic with several people from very different work environments and professions intensively for dozens of times and found out that most people I know are like that. People need other people to get the real drive.

In plans:

• Get out of here for a while
• Paint something else than walls
• Develop some photos from the past
• Build up some motivation and inspiration for daytime working
• Get someone to work with

Hi. I haven’t been posting on May much as I concentrated on other activities than sitting behind my comp. Just to update what has happened and might come out next:

• I should finish the post that I started about Silo 2 and some of the bugs.
• I bought Canon 5D Mark II and Canon EF 16-35mm L 2.8 II so you should expect some output out of that and probably some things related.
• Planning a small one day photography trip with my old friend to take place in June. – probably some photos will be posted
• Moving in a month: From Espoo to Kirkkonummi. -> Sad to leave a very nice place behind but excited about the new place too.
• 4-Day working weeks have taken place and seem to work very well for me.
• Currently working on a character design at work – if the project goes well, I’ll probably post something out of that as character design has been somehow a thing that’s not my greatest abilities – so – exciting learning ahead.

I switched to 4-day working week in my primary work. So I suppose I’ll have some more time to update this page with something relevant.

I added a past projects page. Currently it holds mostly about the game projects but I’ll embed all the other stuff too in the near future.

You can find out the link to that page from top of this page, from the Pages section in the right column or just straight from here.

In the future I’ll also add some content also in the parent folder called projects. It probably will contain some relevant info about projects going on and as such works as a public shame-motivator to complete some of them.

Ans as a bonus, a picture of Frans & Fiona: