Game Development, Crochet, Animation, Augmented Reality, and more.
A Year of Discovery with Shift
Hello! My name is Jonah, and this year was a wild one for me. I did a lot of discovery both in my creative endeavors and internally.
The Beginning
To start the year, I had one big idea — to animate an album (Specifically Andy Shauf’s Neon Skyline, go check it out). As it turns out, that’s a horrible idea for someone with:
- Not a lot of traditional art skill and
- Zero animation experience.
Looking back now, I realize it would even take someone with years of animation experience a long time to animate something that long — so I quickly downsized my project goals to one song from the album (The Moon). I wanted to make sure I had the fundamentals down before I started on the song, so I practiced with what I called at the time a ‘test’ animation, rotoscoping over a video of me skateboarding. Here’s how it came out:
And well… that was it. By the time I reached the end of this 4 second animation, I realized I did not have it in me to animate all 3 minutes and 36 seconds of The Moon, much less a whole album. This was when I realized I’d be better off spending this year trying new mediums and getting what enjoyment I can out of them instead of wasting my energy on creative endeavors I was no longer invested in. So from there I went on to explore a bunch of different things!
Skateboarding Mobile Game
It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to publish a videogame, and while I’ve achieved similar, through the publishing of an app I made onto the Oculus Store last year, it wasn’t really the same. After spending way too much of my time brainstorming crazy ideas, I decided I should just keep it simple, go with something that I know I can do, and put a new twist on it. That turned into the game that I’m developing, which is not dissimilar to Subway Surfers, but the focus is on performing skate tricks and grinds.
While there’s still a little ways to go before this ends up on the App Store, it’s well on it’s way, and it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of the year for me. Being able to share it with friends and watch them compete with each other for high scores, and even see them play it from time to time naturally has been really wonderful. While I’m still excited to eventually publish this — the support I’ve received from the community around me has far exceeded whatever I could’ve ever hoped to gain from creating or releasing this game.
AR Sound Synthesizer Education Tool
For my capstone project this year, I, along with my four groupmates, created a simple AR based synthesizer intended to help teach the basics of sound design and sound construction to young children. The idea was to make the experience of creating your own sound as fun and tactile as possible using animations and 3d puzzle pieces. This was a really fun and challenging project for me to work on, and I’m really pleased with the way all the different pieces came together.
Crochet Projects
Learning to crochet was one of the most rewarding things I did this year. Being able to make soft and cute renditions of some of my favorite characters was really fun, and served as a great way for me to relax. I also got to make a few gifts for people which is always great.
Rug Tufting
I picked up rug tufting in early 2023 as a way to push myself creatively in the design space. It quickly became less about me creating rugs, and more about sharing the joy of creativity with the people around me. Julia and I built a large 5' x 5' tufting frame together and invited everyone to make rugs with it. It was really wonderful to see everyone finding enjoyment with the process, and making rugs for themselves and as gifts. Tufting the ‘Shift Rug’ with the three sandboxes was also extremely rewarding.
Web Projects
Another goal of mine this year was to explore making websites a bit more. I feel like making a website is one of those things that I always come back to because part of myself feels like I have to — like it’s some sort of right of passage. This year though, I decided I’d only make something if I was really feeling excited about it. That resulted in not too much creation, but I’m happy with my output, and I can definitely feel that it’s gotten far easier compared to past attempts. I totally revamped my personal site this year, and also made a fun project that interfaced with the Spotify API to give your music taste a corresponding Pokémon based on your listening habits’ popularity.
3D Printed Beyblade
This project was mainly headed by Isaac, and I just sort of tagged along, but it was a really fun process and I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it. This was my first time using CAD in over 4 years, and my first time getting to 3D print something that I helped to design. While it was only a few days, this project taught me a ton and gave me the confidence to design and print some stuff on my own soon thereafter.
You made it to the end! If you really took the time to read all this, and take a peek at my projects, know that it does not go unappreciated. My year has been more than incredible — and I owe so much of my joy this year to this Shift community.
