Poo-Poo Platter

I generally love going to work. I spend all day animating characters. I work with really talented and fun individuals. I don’t have to keep a timesheet. I don’t have someone breathing over my shoulder. And there’s free munchies and a pool table in the lunch room.

Sometimes, though, things happen that just really get to me. I get used to things like people talking loudly, the sound of typing, occasional technical glitches, but it can be a bit too much when they all happen at the same time. The obvious solution would be to put on headphones to drown out the noise, but I can’t animate to music. It completely throws off the timing of whatever I’m working on at the moment.

This week all the annoying things seemed to happen one after the other or all at the same time. Here are the top 5 things that bugged the hell out of me this week (so far):

1. Maya starts lagging and dropping frames after an hour of working on one animation. I know this has more to do with how complex a character is, but it’s absolutely annoying. I’m trying to get the timing right on a move, but, as Maya starts dropping frames, it’s difficult to see how things are moving between keyframes. The only solution is to restart Maya. Easy solution, but the really annoying thing is the drop in framerate is so gradual that I don’t notice it until my eyes and head start hurting from the low framerate. By that point, I’m already annoyed that I’m having such a hard time getting the timing correct.
2. I’m told how certain animations need to be created. It will offer a great amount of flexibility in terms of what I can animate and how the animations can be used in game. I complete all the necessary work, check things in, and hear nothing of it. I continue on my task list. A couple of weeks later, I’m told that the original method won’t work at all and am asked to convert all of the animations to a different setup that is easier on the programmers and that will perform better. I redo all of the animation work, check things in, and move on. A week later, I’m told once again that the animations as they are won’t work at all. The method that will supposed work involves something I have no idea how to do and isn’t part of my normal job. My lead just says to check in the master files and let someone else handle it. I’m not even going to pretend to understand why this had to be so convoluted.
3. People insist on talking more loudly than they need to. And it’s not just loud. It’s shrill and high-pitched and just freakin’ annoying. Do the guys in the next hall over really need to hear your conversation about what to eat for lunch? It always seems that the people with most annoying voices and the least important things to say talk the loudest.
4. Typing loudly is one thing – those Dell keyboards aren’t always the quietest things on the planet – but there is absolutely no need to pound on the keyboard so hard that I can hear the desk and cube wall shaking. And this isn’t even in an adjacent cube. It’s in the next row over. I thought I was loud when I typed (pianist fingers), but I’m virtually silent compared to some people.
5. I accept the fact that cell phones will ring during the day. It’s just part of the noise. Sometimes people leave their phones at their desks and the phones ring until voicemail picks up. That’s fine. However, there are some ringtones that are so annoying that they make me want to find the phone, take it into the men’s room, and drop it in a full urinal. Things just get worse when the caller insists on calling back every 10 minutes, forcing me to suffer through the shrieking noise over and over again. Those people need to either switch to a softer, more pleasant ringtone in the office or set the phone to vibrate mode.

I know that these are just normal things that happen in a busy game development environment, but I still get annoyed by them sometimes. It’s just worse when they all happen at the same time. I’m glad that I’m free to go shoot some pool or take a walk outside to get away from the noise. Now, if I had free beer, maybe I wouldn’t complain about this as much…

The entire Pirates team is crunching towards beta, and we’re having the typical pre-beta symptoms. Builds don’t work. Bugs are popping up left and right no matter how many get squashed. Applications seem to crash more (probably not, but we’re just noticing and complaining more). People are either incredibly on edge and grumpy or wacky beyond all imagination. And lots of last minute additions/changes/fixes are rolling onto our task lists.

As bad as that sounds, things are actually moving along pretty well. Any problems we have are not un-fixable. Everyone on the team is doing their thing and getting things done on time. Sure, most of us are working long hours to do it, but that’s only because we all want this project to succeed. Ultimately we know that our hard work will result in a great product.

My own list of beta tasks has been fluctuating quite a bit for the past couple of weeks. Originally, I was only supposed to do the final cleanup pass on all of the enemy animations and add some simple facial animations for them. That was always in the schedule, so I was prepared to deal with that. However, a few items were added at the proverbial 11th hour. These past few days have been pretty busy as I’ve hammered out animations for some ambient birds, adjusted animations for a set of characters that had to be modeled and textured again from scratch (gotta love how clients change their minds), and finishing off some short cutscene animations that were blocked out by another animator. Sounds like a lot of work, but it’s nothing that a few 10+ hour work days can’t handle.

Despite the last-minute rush of work, I’m still having a blast working on Pirates. I mean, I get to spend all day working on character animations! It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and I’ve been doing this non-stop for the past year. I would not trade this for anything. Well, I might trade it for $20,000,000 untaxed, but that’s not likely to happen… :)