Where to?
September has been very dry. I normally try to release at least one tutorial a month. Ideally two, with an asset and maybe a community showcase thrown in. So far, September has had one video, lots of plans, and no time to sit down and record. I have big plans for CGFigures but it’s hard at times to reconcile what I want the channel to be with what it is. I’ve tried to keep everything professional, positive, and largely separated from my opinions on working in research and scientific visualization. In my notes for future work I have around 20 tutorials planned, 50 new assets, a push towards fully animated features (CGFigures Presents), and even a host of editorial pieces about research, but the challenge has been getting it down and putting it, and myself, out there in a new way.
It wasn’t until today when I was watching Gerald Undone’s new video (https://youtu.be/5uu0vKkChow) about where he wants to take his channel that I was struck by what I’ve felt for the past month. I’ve very intentionally modelled a lot of my presentation style on Gerald’s. His videos are professional, informative, and information dense but easy to listen to and incredibly well produced. I’ve tried to emulate a lot of that with my tutorials. Part of his discussion reflects on how those videos are frankly hard to make and how he would rather just sit down with a product or subject and discuss it. It’s a format I’ve been trying to move towards myself because it’s time consuming to record and re-record and then edit everything until it’s just right. I want most of my tutorials to be less than 15 minutes tops, ideally less than 10. Getting there means figuring out the approach, writing a script, re-writing the script. Recording. Recording again. Editing. Watching the edit. Watching it again, then uploading it and re-watching it one last time. I’m fortunate that this isn’t my career and growth isn’t hugely important. I don’t stress over titles or thumbnails, and I rely heavily on the community to point people towards my work in the hope that it helps people out. I’d like to sit down and do more casual walkthroughs where I can rely on the viewer having some experience in 3D and then getting into a more technical breakdown. I’d like to do more informal tutorials and explore new features but lately Blender has been changing so fast that it’s forced me to freeze production in case something changes between updates and is no longer functioning. All of my molecule tutorials are due for a refresh and learning all the new routes has been near impossible this month because I lost a few weekends to social events (something I haven’t experienced since March of last year).
Even with all of that aside and with my plans for new videos (which I am really excited about) I am trying to figure out how I can discuss research related topics, particularly around academic publishing and experience. And in some way I feel intimidated by that. I’ve grappled for some time with making my opinions known on some subjects and for a variety of reasons. I don’t want to sling mud and I’m not interested in providing ammunition to bad actors who might seize on some of the things I have to say. Navigating that space has been a challenge and it’s one of the main reasons I started the devblog, in the hopes that I could still express some of those opinions here without getting the attention of the full audience on YouTube or Twitter. That said, I think maybe it’s time to start having more of a voice, my own voice, in that regard and being more open about problems, challenges, and the ways forward for these communities. Mixed in with a good amount of 3D design and animation of course.
For years I’ve been juggling this idea of writing an editorial called “What’s a device” where I breakdown how statistical reporting of “devices” in solar cell research needs some clarification. I’ve written the script a few dozen times. And for a long time I thought I would just let it go and maybe not discuss it. But recently I’ve had the feeling that it’s a conversation worth having and that maybe there’s room in the CGFigures schedule to include that type of science commentary. I started the channel to help build the Blender scientific community and for me part of that means talking about the science as well as the art. As Gerald puts it in his video “Why am I so afraid to experiment these days? It’s like a fear of losing what you have by trying something different”. CGFigures was always about making my contribution to the community. It’s still my voice, I just want to use it to speak my mind.
