Blender 2.8 Code Quest - Here I come!

Tomorrow marks the start of my next big adventure - travelling quite literally half a world away (with a 12 hour time inversion to boot)!

As most readers of this blog would probably know by now, next week, the Blender 2.8 "Code Quest" begins in Amsterdam. 10+ core developers of Blender will be gathering in the Blender Institute/Animation Studios for several months to get Blender 2.8 ready for public use - finishing off many todo's from the 2.8 project and/or laying the foundations for the next 5-10 years of Blender development!

Early tomorrow morning, I'll be flying out to join the team, spending some 26 hours or so of bone-crunching, butt numbing long haul flying. (Alas, this is one of those times when New Zealand's relative isolation from the rest of the world is a bit of a curse). Sitting here typing this tonight (while wrapping up a few last preparations on the stuff I'll be bringing along), it feels quite surreal to think that soon I'll finally be meeting many good friends and colleagues "in the flesh" for the first time after knowing each other for over a decade, and having spent many years watching the conference/BTS content wanting to visit Blender HQ and hang out with everyone.


That said, I'll have to be honest, and say that the last few weeks (and particularly the last few days) have been a bit of a roller coaster of emotions - ranging from excitement, a good dose of nerves/trepidation, and probably also a hint of the usual pre-trip FOMO on all my favourite home comforts. It's understandable though, considering that this will be longest that I've ever been away from home (previously, the longest trips I've taken were at most 2 weeks, and even those seemed long at times), and to such a far off land.


(Thankfully, through the modern marvels of "Street View", "Image Search", "On Demand Video Streaming", and "Internet", I've hopefully staved off at least some of the cultural shock of landing in a place where all the words have far too many vowels and syllables XD   *fingers crossed*!)


Unfortunately, it's also ended up being a bit of mad dash, scrambling to tick off a long list of things that need to be done. In particular, I've ended up having to bring forward a whole raft of equipment upgrades/refreshes that would have had to happen at some point (but travelling so far means that making do with old equipment isn't really feasible, so I've ended up having to fast-track the commission/setup process, with the added pressure of trying to get everything I need from the old machines onto the new one without accidentally leaving off something, and wishing that I had it).

Anyways, I've still got quite a bit of packing to do, so I'll leave keep this post short. I'd originally intended to have to "Future of Animation Workflows" roadmap post up last week, but getting everything sorting has ended up eating up a lot more time + energy. So, that may have to wait till after I get to Amsterdam. (Unfortunately, I doubt I'll manage to work on it on the flights - despite having the time, it's usually struggle just trying to not get completely squashed by the other passengers...)  Oh well, I could do with a bit of a rest after all the stuff I've been doing these few days :)

Laters!  See ya all on the flip side!