Life in the Background

Some of you may be wondering, “What exactly does a science fiction writer do in his off hours?”

I personally cannot speak for all of us, but I can certainly tell you one of my favorite non-writing projects: making a background for my laptop.

I’m not content with stock images, to say the least. It’s hard to believe that Microsoft seldom considers its cyberpunk market when designing their interfaces. I suppose I could just go online to find and download a more suitable computational backdrop, but where’s the fun in that?

Good thing computer games come with screenshot capacities.

The whole point of video game design is to be interesting, after all, and I chose to take advantage of this. For a while, my favorite backgrounds came from Portal 2 and its related workshop mods. Here are a few examples: 

But then I came across the game Empyrion: Galactic Survival. For those of you unfamiliar and who did not follow the helpful link I provided, Empyrion is an in-development game that is something like a cross between Star Trek and Minecraft. Empyrion allows the players to build their own planetary and orbital bases, as well as vehicles of all sizes and capacities. For example, here’s a capitol vehicle that I built:

In survival mode, your job is to struggle to gather enough resources to build these bases and vehicles, all while fending off alien hordes—then, when your creations are complete, YOU WREAK A BLAZING TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION ACROSS THE GALAXY, LEVELLING EVERY OUTPOST EVEN REMOTELY AFFILIATED WITH THE ALIENS WHO HARRIED YOU WHEN YOU WERE BUT A DEFENSELESS BEGINNER. YOU WILL MAKE THEM PAY! HA HA HA HA—

*ahem* At least, that’s my approach.

There is also a creative mode, in which you can build whatever you want regardless of resources. This mode was how I built my laptop background.

Oh, and one more thing: for my background, I wanted something a little more interesting than just one background. I was after a sci-fi-library aesthetic, but to make it even better I wanted the library to seemingly shift locations. When transitioning from one background to another, the only thing that would change would be the outside scenery. And I did it! This was the result:

This isn’t even the latest iteration of my background. My current “library” has balconies, more holographic stuff, and a classy asymmetrical design for a better outdoor view. Set the background slideshow to 10 seconds, and it gets really distracting.

So here is the simple process of creating a moving-sci-fi-library laptop background like mine, using screenshots from the game Empyrion: Galactic Survival:

1)      Set up a Creative game.

2)      Learn the finer points of Empyrion construction. You might want to experiment by building some vehicles and stuff first.

3)      Build the background building!

4)      In the ideal vantage point, be sure to build ONE SPECIFIC SPOT where your in-game character can wedge himself, like a sloping block in an otherwise smooth floor. This ensures you get the same shot every time.

5)      Paint and furnish the building to your preferences.

6)      Once everything looks a little less hideous, save the building blueprint in your in-game blueprints.

7)      Wedge yourself into that ONE SPECIFIC SPOT in your building.

8)      Focus your character’s HUD crosshairs on ONE SPECIFIC POINT across the room. Remember that point.

9)      Deactivate the HUD.

10)  Take the picture!

11)  Reactivate your HUD.

12)  Go into your blueprints and spawn one of those vehicles you built for practice, preferably one with a long-range warp drive. If you didn’t built a ship use one of the ship blueprints already there.

13)  Fly the ship to a new planet.

14)  Spawn your background building in the new picturesque location.

15)  Wedge your game character into that ONE SPECIFIC SPOT.

16)  Repeat steps 7-11.

17)  NOTE: If you spawn your building in space, be sure to attach a gravity generator or you won’t be able to wedge yourself into that O.S.S.

18)  Realize that your first effort didn’t look so hot. Repeat steps 1-17.

Complicated? You have no idea. I omitted a lot of the early fine-tuning trial and error to figure out what interior configuration was ideal for a background. When you couple that to the fact that I have a custom desktop to arrange around said background…

I like writing. It’s much easier in some ways.