Art vs Corporate Works The final showdown….dun dun dunnnnnnn! Not actually, but this is a topic that plagues the mind of many individuals in our industry. Should I focus on creating individual pieces of fulfilling art work or should I do those corporate gigs with lots of resources and cash? While there has never been…
Why are soft-skills important for project managers? I’d argue that soft-skills are what separate good PM’s (project manager) and the people that everyone hates: “middlemen” or “middle management”. All too often, people take on PM positions because it is the only step upwards in their career path. Technical people often can only get decent pay…
Why is outputting content from TouchDesigner hard? TouchDesigner is an interesting software. There aren’t many other tools like it. The amount of capabilities and flexibility make advanced users feel all-powerful while new/intermediate users might feel paralyzed or lost. When it comes to outputting your finished content from TouchDesigner to your displays, many of the issues…
Why TouchDesigner videos? After years of working on some of the largest TouchDesigner installations in the world, I wanted to make a new platform for high quality video tutorials and workshops. I’ve seen a lot of success and excitement around the few online live workshops I’ve hosted, but even with those there were a ton…
Is it hard to be a good collaborator? Interactive projects have a lot of teams working on them. There’s often a gaggle of artists, technicians, suppliers, vendors, designers, clients, and more working on the same project. I’m often surprised by who I want to continue working with and who I don’t want to work with…
Mega-projects This week I got to talk to one of the best in the business for TouchDesigner work and interactive installations, the talented and humble Matthew Ragan. You’d be hard pressed to find someone as talented as him, with as much experience as him, who is such a nice individual to chat with and be…
The Fabled Studio This week I chatted with one of my favourite colleagues, Noah Norman. He runs Hard Work Party, a studio that makes artwork and experiences with complex inner lives. We always have had good times digging into the ups and downs of the projects, the life of studio owners, traveling to China together,…
What’s going on here? We’re starting a pseudo-AMA series. The goal is to achieve two things: share the wisdom of people near the top of the game, and share a little bit of fun. I can’t think of all the fun times I’ve had just chatting up a storm with colleagues and friends over little…
To be (code) or not to be (code)? When you’re working on installations and interactive designs there’s one hurdle that is ever present in almost every job: the point at which your team decides to switch over from designs, comps, renders, or sketches, over to real interactive code. To preface the problem, I’ll briefly talk…
Developing TouchDesigner projects like a professional, not a pro This post is going to talk about a few things that seem unimportant or like side worries, but the more and more you work on TouchDesigner projects and the larger the team/project you’re working with/on, you start to weigh things differently. “Do you remember that one…