TLDR: Cleaning my study for the first time since 2020 turned up a pile of bits and bobs from the Dreams days. Some random reflections: Twitch and the Dreams community, presenting the first Impy for Favourite Streamer, the signals gadget that never shipped, telling VRChat about OSC, and a launch that COVID wrecked. I'm still dreaming.
Doing a bit of a cleanup of my study trying to rearrange everything and I've just been sorting through and I found these bits and bobs from the Dreams days.
So I thought I'd share some random reflections.
Twitch and the Dreams Community
I joined Justin.tv because of StarCraft and set up Jagex's first account and streams. Made the first Twitch Plays game (long story) and it got me the job at PlayStation where I worked closely with Twitch in the early days and YouTube etc... For me the Dreams community and Twitch were perfect.
Building the extension I was constantly frustrated I couldn't do more and I had so many cool things cooking. So a highlight was to get to present the first Impy for Favourite Streamer.
You're not meant to have favourites. Esp as a dev but I really enjoyed hanging out in Keld's streams... Still wonder what he is doing these days.
He had an awesome vibe and creativity that I enjoyed.
Telling Stories
I've written and directed plays and the potential to create stories for me was huge. With the state of WebXR and WebGPU I wonder if we could be doing spatial video export to web now.
This series always made me think of an early 2000s flash ninja anim series about a travelling lonely ninja.
Ways to Perform
Always wanted to capture more ways to perform. Multiplayer, Twitch and voice commands showed me we needed a generic signals API to super boost. Client couldn't keep up. I thought I had the solution. It was a gadget that never shipped and one of the last things Alex and I worked on before we left.
I stayed a bit longer to put a ribbon on it in the hopes it would ship... Never did. Though my next job was a choice between nDreams, Adobe and VRChat. I told VRChat about this cool spec OSC and what the XR, mocap and other communities were doing with it and my ideas... They shipped it.
Highs and Lows
It was some of the highest and lowest points of my career with an intensity that no other project has matched. The bright spark was the people. I really miss them and COVID wrecked us, it just hit at the worst time.
2020 was meant to finally be the year I streamed more, did more talks (I had a bunch lined up) and shared all the awesome. Launch was fucked and I hated how online communities changed. Stopped streaming.
Mostly recovered now but it took a long long time. Also my ADHD is medicated thank fuck.
Conclusion
I should get back to sorting this mess. First time doing it since 2020.
I'm excited with what I'm doing and hope you are all doing well.
I'm still dreaming.
Links
Related posts
- Netflix, Cloud Gaming, and Low-Interaction Play - the long story behind Twitch Plays Dead Nation
- April Update - project round up after Mm, including the OSC Twitch Extension Bot
- Lip Sync in Virtual Reality - written between leaving Media Molecule and the next job
- Started at Adobe - the job I took after Mm
- Why leave an awesome team in Adobe Substance Modeller? - closing the book on creative tools after Dreams and Modeller
Dreams
- Dreams (Wikipedia)
- Media Molecule
- The full version of Dreams will launch on PS4 next February (PlayStation Blog) - launched 14 February 2020
- Dreams Early Access nears its end, Media Molecule announces the IMPY Awards (PlayStation Blog) - the first show streamed live on Twitch on 26 January 2020, with Favourite Streamer voted by the community
- Dreamview: Noguchi's Bell Episode 1 (Impsider) - Cyber Sheep Film's samurai series made in Dreams
- Noguchi's Bell Kickstarter for a full animated series (Push Square)
Tech mentioned
- Justin.tv (Wikipedia) - the streaming site that became Twitch
- Open Sound Control - the OSC spec
- VRChat OSC for Avatars - VRChat's OSC announcement
- VRChat 2022.1.1 release notes - OSC out of beta in February 2022
- WebXR Device API (MDN)
- WebGPU API (MDN)
Original thread
- Bluesky thread - where this started