For the dedicated readers and friends of this blog who have gone through this first semester of graduate school with me, thank you. I know I can get a bit wordy at times and I play fast-and-loose with punctuation and I use a lot of and’s (apologies to every English teach I have ever had), but I do appreciate that you take the time out of your days to read what I have to say.
I started writing this blog as a way for me to sift through my thoughts, consolidate them in a coherent way and present them to anyone who is willing to listen. To be honest, though, I started this blog for me, not you guys. Sorry.
To be more honest, though, the impetus behind each blog post has gotten less and less personal with each time I press “Save & Publish”. After each post, I have had someone shoot me a text, send me a Twitter DM, or stop me in the hallway to talk about www.conotriplett.com/writing. It caught me by surprise at first and I was somewhat uncomfortable rehashing my thoughts in real-time with another person. As it happened with each post, though, I became more and more confident in my words and talking about them because I started to realize that nothing you do is ever solely for yourself.
Physics problems are done in a vacuum, but life is not.
The most perfect example of that was the “Festival” finale of our “Building Virtual Worlds” class. As I mentioned in Thanks, Randy, “Festival” is a night where we completely redecorate the Entertainment Technology Center and showcase some of the work we have done throughout the semester. Each world that is chosen to represent “BVW” is given a room in the building to theme to create a complete guest experience to accompany the game or experience.
I had the privilege of being a part of a team, Round 2 for the friends of the blog who can remember back in September, that was chosen to take a room and transform for this final presentation. Our world, Weather or Not, was an augmented reality experience where guests take on the powers of a “Rain God” of a tropical island… so naturally… we turned our room into an island complete with palm trees, islanders, and an island museum where guests could come in and learn about the history of the island through our game.
As to not bore you with the nitty-gritty of the whole process (you’re welcome), throughout both the original round and the week leading up to the “Festival”, we spent around four weeks on this experience. These four weeks included many sleepless nights, four presentations, hours of story-board development, countless AR calibration errors, enough cardboard to fill a semi-truck and more island music than I ever care to hear again.
These four weeks were just like physics problems, though, they existed within the ETC vacuum.
We spent that whole time focusing on what we (and the ETC community) thought of the world and basically doing our best to make it something we could get a good grade on and be proud of. And, to be fair, we accomplished both of those goals with what we had; however, those objectives pale in comparison to what happened at the “Festival”.
I will never forget the feeling I had when I heard our first “Festival” guest belly-laughing at our world from inside our cardboard hut. I got chills thinking that something I had helped create evoked that sense of joy in someone. Those chills never left my body as more and more guests (especially my mom and brothers, AR novices) arrived at “Cumulo Island” and laughed and smiled at the silly antics of the islanders and their rather unlikely paradise home.
The sleepless nights, four presentations, hours of story-board development, countless AR calibration errors, enough cardboard to fill a semi-truck and more island music than I ever care to hear again do not begin to outweigh the feeling of seeing someone smile at your work. When those moments of joy, the giggles, that ah! that’s clever’s and so many more things you hope would happen actually do, it is an indescribable feeling as a creator. It validates your process, your skills and your passion for what you do.
As much fun as it is to create and build cool experiences, they do not reach their full potential until they are shared.
So as long as people keep reading, listening, watching, playing or whatever else is asked of them, I’ll keep creating because that is what it is all about.
