Div Tags, Nodes, and Gentrification

Accomplishments are light compared to the week prior to this last one. Most weeks would in comparison. Job hunting distractions hit hard which meant fielding phone calls, writing emails, and doing research for interviews. The trade-off is it helps get me employed but takes away from project time. So here's what's happening.

Game PD – Div Research

The Game PD project's reliance on html tables for layout is embarrassing. To work towards fixing that problem, I experimented with organizing image files using css and div tags. It's a different way to manage things but I can see the degree of flexibility gained from doing it this way. The next step is to fix the tags in Game PD itself.

JMonkey – Node Experiement

This past week's JMonkey topic was the node system. JMonkey nodes are a little like css/div layout in that they help organize visual entities presented to the user. For my experiment, I took liberties with an existing tutorial on the topic. I gained experience in node set up, rotation, and scaling using the api. Aside from a snag with property settings, it went pretty well.

Blender Addons – Gentrification

A visit to New York City lead to research on gentrification, a topic that matters to Blender Addons. Gentrification refers to affluent people moving to poor neighborhoods and improving them. This causes the underclass to either adjust or move out because it becomes more expensive to live there. Some of the underclasses most affected are poor minorities and artists. This likely includes many 3D artists as well.  So gentrification serves as yet one more reminder that my audience is one of modest means.

This matters because I view Blender Addons as a business and the first rule of any business is to make a profit.  That means that the choice of target audience has consequences that cannot be ignored. I'll think this over carefully before making any decisions.

Conclusions

That's all for now. Aside from interviews, there's plenty of interesting work yet to be done. I'll keep you posted when I have new things to share. Cheers.