More Than A Blog Post

Introduction

Hey, pal! Atlas here, dropping in with a new miscellaneous article. For more misc. content, be sure to check out the Miscellaneous category.

The Usual

By now, you’re probably used to reading articles that are directly related to some progress we’ve made. From Writing and Storytelling to 3D Modeling, we at Atomic Rush love to document our journey. But this post… well, it’s a different one, to say the least. It’s like the “reflection” section of our articles, but the entire article is the reflection. And if that doesn’t make sense, no worries, you’ll see what I mean as we dive into it.

“There is Another.”

When writing articles, I try to hone in on the information I discover when doing research about coding and 3D modeling. Like most other creators, I just use Google or some other search engine to find the answer to my question. Since I often find myself in old blog posts, I’ve been trying to cite the questioner and the various responses they received from other users. I’m going to give you two recent examples of this.

Me when I find an ancient blog post solving my issue

The first example comes from the article This Is Blurry Text ‘Cause We Care What You Think, in which I summarized my journey to creating a spoiler tag function for our website. The goal was to blur any section of text containing potential spoilers for Parallax, and the reader could hover their mouse to reveal it. I dedicated an entire section to a 6-year-old blog post on Disqus, from someone who had the same question as me.

They were equally as passionate about updating The Twilight Zone fandom as I was about updating pages related to Parallax, but we both didn’t want to spoil anything for new fans. Admittedly, The Twilight Zone is an iconic series, meanwhile Parallax isn’t even fully developed yet, let alone having an entire fanbase (but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?). Still, we both were running into the same problem, so I made sure to directly quote their struggle.

The second example comes from the article Viva Las Vengeance 3D Model, where I brought to life the text off of an album cover. Part of creating the model required punching holes through meshes to recreate a certain look. I cited a 7-year-old StackExchange post that helped me figure this out. They were just as lost as I was, and passionately explained how they weren’t happy with the answers they were given. However, a hero from the mixed responses provided a solution for both of us.

More Than A Blog Post

In the examples above, we see the following similarity: those in distress, and those who came to help. Of course, many of the other responses to the questioners are often a bit harsh and unhelpful. But I think these posts contain an underlying message we should all keep in our hearts and minds. That is, you are never alone, and it’s okay to ask for help.

Throughout history, some of the smartest and most influential figures probably felt like they were alone. They didn’t have the same resources to answer their questions. And if they did, they were called crazy, or ridiculed for asking something that might’ve been obvious to others, but not to them. And no, this isn’t to say I’m one of those geniuses; but I would like to point out the impact these blog posts can have on today’s creative minds. As much as we criticize the internet (myself included), I think it’s really comforting to know that this generation can find others like themselves out there.

Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, and Nikola Tesla. They were all probably called crazy during their lifetimes.

There are plenty of problems I run into with the projects I create. When I’m feeling lost and hopeless, however, I think back on all the blog posts I’ve read. Because they’re not just a blog post, they’re a document of the challenges that other people in this world have gone through. Even if I’ll never know them, the blog posts I come across, such as the ones from above, continue to live on for creators like myself.

Reflection

I’ll be honest, I contemplated writing this article. I considered maybe just leaving it in the drafts. But I decided against my doubts, because this, too, is more than just a blog post. It’s an “Aha!” moment for me as a creator. It’s the “Author’s Notes” section of a long novel still being written. And it’s a reminder that your journey as a learner is never-ending. So if you’ve been searching for hours to answer a question, only to receive nothing in return, maybe you can be the first person to make that blog post. And some day in the far future, someone else with the same ambitions could really use it as inspiration.

Thanks for Reading!

~ Atlas from Atomic Rush Studios

“Rushers Stick Together”