*Night Before* – “OK, gonna get up at 5:45 AM, coffee and dive right in and get some work DONE!”
6:30 AM – The Next Day.
“Crap – slept in again!” Quick, coffee, take my old man pills (BP & cholesterol) quick check emails, headlines, VR Dev Slack group… “WHAT!?! VR Juggler Sim is getting released NEXT WEEK??” *Sigh* – “That guy started dev’ing like 2 months ago… how the flying @#$% did he get a release out that fast?”
THUD. “Get off of me!” – Oh, yeah, he probably doesn’t have kids. Or a old house that needs more repairs than the Millenium Falcon. Or bills. Probably has his mom bringing him hotpockets and uber caffeinated beverages 6 times a day. Ok, before the AM rush – what did I get done…
Oh about 3 brush dabs on a texture map I’m trying to tweak and 5 minutes watching a YouTube video explaining how to do animation layer masks so my character can ACTUALLY pick something up rather than have objects attach to the BACK of his hand – because, you know: immersion. I had to rewind the same section half a dozen times because the narrators accent is so thick, I can’t tell if he’s from Germany, Bangladesh or Pittsburgh.
Alright – get the kiddos up, fed, dressed, check the Slack channel again; oh look VRGamerChick and JediDev were up all night playing “Virtual Beer Pong” and laughing their asses off over how the physics got screwed up and was launching the ball into the ionosphere… bookmark the screencap to watch later as lactose intolerant child is busy pouring his expensive milk substitute on his brothers head.
Eldest child is off to school – leaving me with the needy 3 year old who wants to go to the library; which is fine – I can ruminate over how to get my grasping animation to work and finally get over this hump that has slowed me down for the past couple of weeks. Contact the dev of the IK plugin and ask for guidance – who promptly tells me that the components I’m combining together to make my game work, shouldn’t be used together.
Library done and time for lunch – I try watching the tutorial video again, getting nowhere because my 3 year old want to discuss each and every family member and which of them has a penis and who doesn’t. Just grateful we’re having this discussion in our kitchen, rather than the Toddler Story Room.
#1 Son is due home from school any minute as I try to accomplish something akin to housework and cleaning, assembling something vaguely called ‘dinner’ – which my kids won’t eat because it contains things like ‘nutrients’ and I have a flash of inspiration to check the order of my components and / or check if my animator has ‘root motion’ enabled – it always seems to go back to that stupid checkbox, which I still don’t understand. Quick sneak upstairs while the kids are playing splitscreen Portal 2 and test my hypothesis. I’m starting to hear yelling as I’m waiting for my base stations and HMD to warm up… Jeez guys, just 2 more minutes…
Crap – that doesn’t work either, quick run downstairs to see one child bludgeoning the other with my Steam Controller. Time Outs issued. Threats over removing games. Promises they will be shipped off to the grandparents if they don’t straighten out.
MAN, am I tired. Stumble thru dinner and showers for the kids, snacks and bedtime routines. Guzzle a beer or 4 as I catch up with the wife and her day, hoping to snag just a few more minutes of dev work before my eyes permanently weld shut until I hear the kids screaming again… Nothing more I can glean from the tutorial video, look at my character and start seeing if there are other options I can tweak so I can either have my character grab things or have him float in the air 2 feet below me. OK, things look good on the main camera / rig / mesh/ let me drill down to see if… wait. Go back.
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I HAD TWO ANIMATOR CONTROLLERS ON THE SAME OBJECT?!?!
#$%
#$%^
$%^##@*(
Crap. Bedtime. Oh well – I suppose it is progress… one less thing to figure out. Let’s see: gonna get up at 5:45 AM, coffee and dive right in and get some work DONE!