Motivation

[Crisp_N_Dry]

Just a quick query regarding any techniques you guys use to keep yourself motivated to program. When I first started I couldn't stop myself from programming but as a newcomer I found my haste would always lead me into trouble because I wasn't thinking things through. After a long hiatus from programming I decided to take things slow. While I make fewer design errors and tend to make more stable programs it means I am reluctant to advance at any sort of pace in case I break my code. For me, breaking it is like hitting a brick wall and I very rarely find the impetus to repair it and move on. What methods do you guys use in order to keep progress going without hitting hurdles on the way?

[JSoftware]

i make marks..

when i complete a new section of a design spec then i create a new folder where i put all the code fromlast mark and develop on from there. if i screw up or my design is wrong then i still have the old source which i can go back and develop on from

i really lack on motivation at the time though :cry:

[Traveler]

i really lack on motivation at the time though

Same here. Haven't touched Delphi since the end of the 4e4 contest. Tbh I picked up World of Warcraft again. Getting lots of ideas from it, that much is sure. But as long as the little wow icon on my desktop remains more attractive than the Delphi icon, those ideas wont be realized anytime soon.

In regards to the question, i'm not sure I can help you there. I think its more of a personal thing. Unsually when I break something in the code, its because its a mess. And if thats the case, then its a sign for me to clean up. It can be a bit of a pain to do, but afterwards the rewards are certainly there.

[alexione]

I write TODO list - I put down any idea that comes to my mind! Right now, I have almost 100 points in TODO list for game engine NODE (rendering engine, client/server architecture, UI improvements, ... ... ...). So, when I get tired of client/server job, I do some stuff on UI, then I jump to optimization, then back to render engine....) I found it refreshing to change area I work on.

[User137]

Lol, wow was the main thing that unmotivated me too for last half year maybe. Especially free playtime on beta server month ago was a strict "no coding" season
It's hard to recover, you need an active project group that keep you busy which i don't have.

[technomage]

for me I try to work on small units of functionality. So I say "I'll get the planet rendering system written as well as the editor", that way you get to see come of the results at small intervals. I found that many people just start onthe graphics and leave the important (and boring stuff) till later, I think it#s better to do some interesting stuff, then some boring stuff and so on.

As for keeping code, I use CodeSave http://www.torry.net/pages.php?id=47 which is a free source control system, it's quite light weight if you can't be bothered to setup cvs or subversion. However if you're not used to checking your code out when you want to edit it it can be a bit of a cculture shock...

[LP]

When it comes to developing a freeware project doesn't give me direct bonus (for instance, Asphyre, TMDC entry, etc.) motivation becomes an issue. Although motivation has its own seasons (i.e. a time when you get inspired by an idea or a time when you are have lack of any ideas whatsoever), I've noticed few things that help to keep up my productivity:

1) Avoid distractions at all costs. Playing a game or visiting GameDev.Net Lounge (if you know, what I mean) can be a very good distraction which not only gives a loss of an hour or two, but also gets you tired and you won't have any motivation to develop things after that. Additional distractions may include chatting by ICQ/MSN/similar and others. I've noticed that if I avoid all of these distractions for a given time, I won't have to worry about motivating myself for the project

2) In your project, develop most significant parts first; parts that gives a great visual and/or technical difference. This way, you can naturally see "your progress", which also works as self-motivation.

3) If you are at the very start of your project, sometimes it's difficult to find a "starting point" and it also lowers your motivation (so you can't really start a project). In this case, I keep a series of steps (usually common to any project) to get started with the project structure. After this, you can apply point (2) to work on most significant parts first.

4) Lack of sleep, stress and hunger usually seem to have impact on working motivation. In my case, lack of sleep can usually drop all my working efficiency and since I can't acoumplish much during first development hours, my motivation drops. In order to solve this, I have to make many futile attempts to sleep enough

5) Motivation and working efficiency seem to have related to the time of day (perhaps because you get used to it). Several months ago, I had greater motivation in the morning (like 7 a.m. or so) and could acoumplish many things at that time. Now, it's in the evening (about 6 p.m. and later) - where I can motivate myself for a project. What I do is to follow a certain working schedule, so I work on a project where my motivation/efficiency is high.

6) Single project focus: try to work on a single project at a time and try to finish it before working on the next one. The slower a single project goes, the more likely you will lose motivation to keep working on it.

From all things, I think the most important point is (1): distractions. If you feel lack of motivation for a certain project, try the following experiment:
a) Uninstall all games from your machine, put the disks away, so you won't remember about them.

b) Download all manuals / docs and other files required for the project, then shut down your internet connection, if possible. At least, close all chat software like MSN/ICQ/etc., and don't read forums/e-mail during development phase.

c) If you completed steps (a) and (b), it's more likely you can get to work for a period of time without distractions. Get working on the project, even if it's not very motivating at first. Eventually, you'll get "into the mood" - a condition where you get high concentration in something. Motivation will come in as soon as your acomplishments will speak for themselves


[size=9px]Sorry for large post: these forums are silent enough =)[/size]

[Sly]

I've been suffering from a very large lack of motivation over the past several months. There are a few factors behind this.

- I've been working full-time on the games development industry for over five years now. I'm reaching the point where people burn-out from the constant crunch periods, severe lack of structure in the design and development process, and constant pressure to do better than everyone else. This is just going to get worse with the introduction of the next-gen consoles such as Xbox 360 and PS3. The pressure is going to increase to create better, more realistic games, but development difficulty is going to escalate due to having to manage multiple CPUs. The Xbox 360 launch has already been marred by many reports of games crashing and/or freezing. I am not looking forward to working under that pressure.

- I got married. That takes a lot of spare time away.

- I have been left behind by the fast pace of advances in 3D. I could not tell you how to use a pixel or vertex shader, let alone write one. Render states leave me confused. Matrix math is fine as long as it stays simple. Anything more and I'm a blubbering mess.

- The progress of the Delphi IDE is greatly disappointing. Each release now seems worse than the previous while it gets more and more bloated with new features that Visual Studio introduced several years ago, except Visual Studio did them well. FreePascal is an interesting option, but there is no decent IDE/debugger yet. Lazarus is nowhere near ready for general use.

I'm looking at going back to grassroots development. I've ordered the new GP2X handheld game system which is made for homebrew development. I will not be using FreePascal for it. I will be using C. Why? Every resource available for development on this unit is in C. I have seen mentioned that FreePascal has support for ARM, but only ARM7 and not THUMB yet. The GP2X has two ARM9 CPUs. If I'm wrong, correct me.

I've had this entire week off work recovering from a minor operation, and in all that time I had no motivation to do any games stuff in Delphi. It's just not as fun as it used to be.

[cairnswm]

Like Sly I've been through a rather rough patch at work. For about 3 months I was working 60 to 75 hour weeks. It takes a toll and ment I had no time for doing my own stuff.

That period ended about 8 weeks ago. It took me about 5 weeks of being pretty much a zombie (do minimum work and ignore anything that can be ignored) for me to get over that lack of motivation.

The last three weeks have been the opposite. Suddenly I want to do stuff again. In the last three weeks I made my first 3D game, am learning mobile game development with J2ME etc. Of course this means nothing is getting completed, but hopefully I'll settle down and start finishing things again soon

I think the most important thing for me about motivation is the love/passion I have for my hobby. At the moment I am now finding time to make my games (even sometimes stealing time at work for it). As it is my hobby, when I dont feel like doing it I dont need to. Putting pressure on yourself to do it will make yourself less motivated.

I agree on removing distractions. My biggest distraction are my kids, (my wife understands when I want to code ), and often I need to ensure that my kids are nowherenear me when I want to do gamedev coding.

Last thing. If you are not motivated to make new games, take a break. If you are really passionate about making games as your hobby, you WILL come back to doing it - I promise. If you find that you would rather take up a new hobby, go for it. Dont make yourself do something just because you think you should! Do it because you love doing it.

[Crisp_N_Dry]

Fantastic response guys. A few things I like the sound of:

Uninstall all games from your machine, put the disks away, so you won't remember about them.

Damn good idea Lifepower, although I'm not sure if I have the will power to delete BF2. It really is that good.

write TODO list

I have a TODO list for my current project and I find it is definately helpful when it comes to finding direction for my programming time.

Dont make yourself do something just because you think you should!

I do love doing it, I always knew I wanted to program games from the first time I played one aged 7 but my problems lies in overcoming design flaws. While my design skill has improved especially since I started writing more object oriented code I found it helps a great deal when I find something doesn't quite work how it should. However I still find I have trouble finishing the majority of my more complex endeavors. And I guess the answer to that would be to Keep It Simple, Stupid but where's the fun in that?

btw, Grats on the marriage there Sly.