Over the last month I studied environment design and foliage placement. I incorporated a new landscape material by Pixel Perfect Polygons and worked on Depth of Field and bloom PP FX. Apparently UE4 still can't properly depict changes in the depth of field settings inside a post process volume, which makes the entire process torturous, because with every change in setting I need to restart the engine. I ended up deactivating DoF since at least for now the drop in performance is a huge problem when DoF is active, especially for VR.
But of course progress is minimal. Every day I open my session and adjust settings. Sometimes I work on Dharmapala FX, sometimes I work on foliage adjustments, sometimes I just open it to close it again, because I can't seem to get a grip on anything.
I'm afraid I am working too slow. I am afraid, that nothing I do is enough. I am afraid, that I will fail, and end up with a broken project I have been working on for years, without results to show for it. But I believe that none of it matters. I think that what matters is the work I put into it every day. Refining the craft, the skill. Getting better at it. Reading about it. Studying it, as if it was all I will ever do. But maybe I am naive. I don't know enough about any of this to be sure.
I spend the rest of my time playing piano. About 10 years ago I was able to play some really difficult stuff and when I recently started practicing again, I noticed that my former skillset was basically gone. Now I sit there every day ... practicing just like I did back then. And it soothes me, because it is a task that has no other purpose than it's own perfection. I don't want to go on stage, I don't want to show off. What I want is to play. To create handwritten pieces, arrangements, orchestrations. To get away from all the studio software, the mockups, the MIDI and just get down and work on the skillset again.
But there is no guide, no compass to go by whether or not I am on the right track. I simply don't know. It may just all be entirely pointless. I spend a lot of time on these things, and it is on the one hand very satisfying, yet it feels very .... absurd.
I came across this excerpt written by Albert Camus on the absurdity of life. He uses the metaphor of Sisyphus to investigate the ultimate dissonance between man's joy in life and it's depressive absurdity through repetitive tasks and endless efforts:
"The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. "
1942, "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus
I can relate to that.
S.M
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