How to stay motivated during long projects

Posted on 09. Jul, 2010 by Andrew Price in Episodes

19 Responses to “How to stay motivated during long projects”

Sam Wu

09. Jul, 2010

Nice videos. Keep up the good work!
Jay

09. Jul, 2010

just a little tip to add up to your speach: it’s definitely good to write down your ideas and intentions. for two reasons: the first is when you write something down it helps you make clear what problems you have or what is you vision of something. on one hand when you write down something you usually think twice so it help make things more clear, on the other hand it enormously helps to deal with complex problems that can’t be solved at once. when you can’t swallow the whole thing you can stop at some question, put it aside, find another question, put it aside and so on. so finally you have a lot of difficult questions you don’t have an answer for and it’s really discouraging. but when you have things written down you have sorta map or jigsaw puzzle that becomes more and more complete with every question you add. as i mentioned you can’t swallow the whole thing when it’s big so your only option is to feed you brain with little chucks of it hoping you’ll finally get some insight. the second thing to mention is that when you write down you intentions it helps you organize your work and spend less time on games etc. when you hit a serious problem you may want to switch to a game and you can easily forget about it when you’re back, so you hit the same problem again and again you think that it’s too big and switch back to the game :) wrinting things down also encreases your self-discipline, as deadlines do. it’s similar to what you said about blogs but its scale is smaller. sorta signing a contract with yourself instead of your users:) and it’s good to have some usefull hobby so even if you spend a lot of time on it trying to avoid you problems you anyway gain something while with games or the internet you often just waste your time.
Jon

09. Jul, 2010

If you keep wanting to play video games, my advice is this: Don’t just try to stop playing and continue making, just keep playing, and playing, and playing. Soon you will get bored of playing, so then you can continue making with nothing blocking your head. Repeat if nesesary.

NOTE: If you dont get bored of playing video games, dont use blender.
Reyn

10. Jul, 2010

Ignoring world issues and problems was one of the most effective ways I stayed “artistic” and motivated. I agree with you on that, if we can’t be there to help those who are affected, then what’s the point? It sure does help socially to know the events but wasting time is even more worse.

I also second Jon on his opinion with gaming. I’ve been an avid gamer and when 3D became my profession, it just started getting in the way. So what I did was not to totally abandon gaming, instead I kept playing everytime I’m blocked, and at some point in time, I’ll get nothing out of playing, get bored, and got back inspired (not from playing video game but from the relaxation I have had).

Another thing that might help too is just to unwind and go some place far from home and just think free, don’t even think about the project you’ve been stuck on, there will just come a point in time when the solution is already right infront of you.

=)

-Reyn
Jerry

10. Jul, 2010

To stay motivated I post one bender video a week ..
keeps me very motivated..

here:
http://filmart.wikidot.com/start
and on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/nfilmfun

next post will be a river – will be loading later today…
just finally figured it out. lol

Yes.. The news,games… are a waste of time..
fun to play from time to time.. but not all the time..

if blender had not deside to come out with the 2.5 version.. I prob would have never used blender.. I disliked the older version of blender and could never get into it.. This new GUI makes a big difference to me.. I like open source.. but if it does not fit my needs .. I will not use it..
Your tutorials if what is keeping me with blender..

Thanks

and render times..
I hope in future builds they may be able to perfect a little..
but like you said -click and find something to do until fin.. this works.. but drives me crazy.. I cant wait to see the finished result.. and to find its not right.. and I have to redo.. gggrrr…. lol but over all its not bad with a few min video.. but as I get better I am sure the videos will be longer .. :-) so I will have more time to post on the blog here.. lol

Thanks again!!!
Jerry

10. Jul, 2010

I agree the best way is with a deadline..

I post a least one video on the net weekly..
for me – this is best.. plus using blender everyday ..

here is my latest its a river: 2nd try both are posted.. I am still not completly happy with the video render..

looks real krisp in blender when rendered.. but the final video.. looks okay,. if anyone has any sugestions..

but anyway here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuKQNAclb08
Mats H

10. Jul, 2010

Nice thoughts. I would add reading books, PDFs, etcetera to that — to be creative you need to get your brain working. Playing games, watching TV, films etcetera IS entertaining, but rarely engaging.
Rodrigo Silva

10. Jul, 2010

Hey Andrew, really informative video, but i would like to add a slitghly different point of view about the video game part.

Maybe it only works for me, but spending some time playing a video game (obviously not the ones that require almost full time dedication, like MMORPGs, or things like that) gives me the very same effects (or at least something very close to that) of a walk around the town, watching a movie or reading a book (things I actually do a lot). Even when they do not give me any ideas whatsoever, they serve as a good thing to cleanup my mind and make me more calm and focused to whatever i come to do after doing any of them, not only 3d modelling, but everithing ranging from housekeeping stuff to college works.

again, maybe that’s just for me, i would apreciate to know if anyone here feels the same

Best Regards :)
Mike

12. Jul, 2010

Hehe yeah HF 2 and Team Fortress are big time suckers for me too, I have to limit those.

I also try and balance my time spent on tutorials, and my time spent on making my own stuff. The constant learning of new things can be a benign antidote to problems in your own projects
Jerry

12. Jul, 2010

Sorry – last link was bad above.. and river was too dark.. fixed:
posted:
http://filmart.wikidot.com/start

well more like a stream..now.. lol
Oscar Baechler

13. Jul, 2010

I totally agree regarding video games. What happened with me was a solid philosophical shift, where I decided things that dealt with an aspect of creation (drawing, 3D projects, writing, even cooking) were more important in my life. As a result, I don’t even need discipline these days–I’ll just play a video game for an hour, then feel an existential malaise as if I’m wasting my life. Television’s similar, although I make exceptions for trying to watch good movies; IMDB’s top 250, AFI’s top 100 lists, the history of the Best Picture winners, Criterion collection, etc.

Two things I’d add: Force it! I recommend Leechblock for Firefox. I also kept cheating and just using a different browser, so finally I uninstalled all browsers EXCEPT Firefox, and added Chrome and Opera’s homepages to my blocked list XD

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476/

Additionally, if you’re a mac user you can use Self Control, a wonderful little program that can let you guarantee a whole day without Facebook.

http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/

Lastly, do you have a commute? I seriously recommend doing what I do. Request a bus pass from your work, then draw on the bus instead of driving to work. It might mean 15 minutes longer to get home, but it’s a chunk of drawing every day. Much more useful than a chunk of driving every day. Plus, over the course of a year, your body of work builds up tremendously!
Matt Hurley

15. Jul, 2010

Great discussion. Motivation is probably the single greatest asset. Software can be acquired, knowledge can be learned, problems can be overcome, creativity can be stimulated, but motivation is the only thing that you can’t get from somewhere else.

One thing that I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is getting frustrated by the tedious little repetitive things that sometimes there’s just not any way around. If you’re going to make a gear with lots of teeth, you pretty much have to select every other pair of points. There’s just not really another way to do it, unless you can write a script for it. Sometimes you can’t find a script that will do it. Sometimes finding the script takes more time and frustration than just doing it manually. Sometimes there’s just no other way to do it. These are the things that don’t take much skill at all, they don’t really demand much creativity or ingenuity, and they are boring. The only thing that I’ve been able to come up with is sheep tenacity. I just keep doing it even though it’s boring, and sucks, and there’s GOT to be a better way to do it, and whatever.

When I get frustrated by a problem or bored of the tedious little things that you have to do, I often just do a google video search for “Blender 2.5″ and see what comes up. The nice thing is that most of the videos are really short, so they don’t take up much time, but they also show you what kind of cool things are possible if you just keep at it.

Thanks for your work. You’re really helping the rest of us out a lot. Keep it up.
Matt Hurley

17. Jul, 2010

Oh! And losing work. One of the biggest demotivators for me is forgetting to save and then losing a whole bunch of stuff. It makes me feel stupid for not saving, which just adds insult to injury. Losing progress turns something that I love into something tedious and frustrating. SOOOO glad that Blender autosaves! But even that sometimes doesn’t help. Even with an autosave every 5 minutes, the crash inevitably happens at the worst possible moment. Crashing right after a long bake, or a long modifier calculation, something that Blender didn’t get saved, that sucks too.

Again, sometimes you just have to persevere.
Jake

17. Jul, 2010

Thanks for the advice, especially about the “ignore the news” part – I hadn’t really thought of that.

In response to a previous comment:
Jon: “If you don’t get bored of playing video games, don’t use blender.”
Well I completely disagree with that. I don’t get bored of video games and I still use blender pretty well. You just have to teach yourself to moderate your time spent on video games – you should also have the desire to see the project through, otherwise it’s doomed to fail.
Besides, playing a video game after 4-5 hours of blender-ing is a really good way to get some down time.
Terrachild

13. Aug, 2010

Well, if you want to stay relevant as an artist, then ignoring what’s going on in the world is probably a bad idea. The best art is usually a reflection of the time in which it is created. Albeit, often it is a warped reflection.
Also, you can watch the news and if you see a problem in the world, like a flood, then make a small donation. 5 dollars doesn’t seem like much, but multiply it by millions of people and suddenly, real problems in the world could be solved.
Stay connected!
Rutger

24. Aug, 2010

Hey Andrew! I’m starting to enjoy your site a lot! I’m beginning to understand the way Blender works, I already did a little but that was still with version 2.49. Anyways, thank you for putting up this video, as it is really helpful to know how other people think about certain issues. I recognized the thing about playing games, I use to play a lot of games to, both on my Xbox and my PC, but now I just only play once in a while on the PC, and spending the rest of my time learning a lot of graphical programs. I recently finished 2 of my projects, which really feels good! Now I can focus myself on other things like smaller projects. But, to finish this message, it’s good to know how you deal with certain aspects. Thank you Andrew, keep it up!
Mike

25. Aug, 2010

About the video games…
I think people can play them as long as they don’t get in the way of what your doing. Like… A long rainy weekend and you want a break from something long (like creating a hi-poly model in blender) But you wouldn’t just fire up hl2 while your on the roll, making your model, and everything is going well.
But I see what you mean. Good vid. :)
Mike

25. Aug, 2010

Forgot something in my last coment.
It might help if you go search for “online stopwatch” and set it to about 5 minutes. so you can do something, but if you forget blender is rendering, that noise will sound in about five minutes.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

Keepin’ it Real (in the 3d industry) | Blender Episodes | Blender Guru - 17. Jul, 2010
[...] If you enjoyed this post you may also like How to stay motivated during long projects. [...]