Jordan Santell immersive engineer

Codevember 2017

I participated in Codevember 2017, creating and publishing a new WebGL sketch for 30 consecutive days in November.

Thumbnails of all 30 dailies that I created for Codevember 2017.

The commitment of producing creative content everyday for a month is practiced by artists from all media. Since 1999, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a global community of writers that attempt to write a 50,000 word novel every November, and illustrators share a new sketch everyday in October during Inktober. Codevember is a similar idea, challenging software engineers to publish some creative coding everyday in November. Participating in these challenges can provide structure and community while encouraging the discipline of making something everyday. The challenges are useful frameworks for practicing with an unfamiliar medium, experimenting with new techniques, or ensuring progress on a larger project.

Goals

I've never been involved with creative dailies like this, and I was interested in how I'd handle the constraints and commitment. It was also a good opportunity to improve my 3D math and shader skills. I initially used daily themes from codevember.xyz, but ended up following my curiosity most days.

A personal favorite, Day 6 of Codevember 2017, a full-screen fragment shader, "Storm".

What went well

Day 16 of Codevember 2017, illustrating a barycentric coordinates material.

What didn't go well

Would I do this again?

Maybe! It was exhausting. I'd avoid any experimental/new techniques if each day is to be unique and new, there's just not enough time. I think having a more focused scope, like making 30 unique fragment shaders or 30 procedurally generated plants, would reduce the amount of "black screen" time during development.