Voice Post

If I were to pick three words describing the voice used in Sarah Hegmann’s “Anatamation” blog, I would have to say, “conversational, engaging, and technical.” Or, to put it another way, her blog would be pretty easy to read and interesting to the average blog reader, but it is even better for those familiar with her field.

One of the most prominent aspects of the blog is the voice in which it is written. All of her posts are written in a very conversational manner and are thus quite easy to read. For example, when talking about how excited she is to be working on a newly upgraded computer she writes 

“And doesn't it just give you a warm fuzzy feeling to know you are supporting a favorite program? Maybe that's just me... If the warm fuzzies don't do it for you, knowing that a 3000+ data set can be opened without hiccups and in less than 2 minutes may peak your interest.” 

Both the use of “warm fuzzies” and her use of “I” and “you” make it seem more like being in a conversation with someone and less like reading what someone else has written. In another blog post, she writes that she is “beyond tickled” that some of her work is being used in a new Museum exhibit. At another time she describes a new free program as: 

“Just a whole barrel-full of awesome.” 

Whether or not Sarah Hegmann talks like this all the time, I have no idea. But it certainly adds to the conversational tone and makes her blog feel like a conversation with a good friend.

However, not only is the blog conversational, but also it is interesting, and sometimes downright hilarious. First off, though maybe least important, is the sentence structure.  It varies from long and somewhat complex, to short, and sometimes fragmented. For example:

"Now known just as Unity, (the "indie") was dropped, it has all the features that UnityIndie had. For no money. The game engine that has "made people millionaires" is opening its doors to the students, hobbiests, and other less fortunate folk who couldn't afford this awesome program before."

The title for this particular blog post is “Unity 2.6 Free to a Good Home” which is obviously a play on the common advertisements for dogs, cats, couches, or anything else in need of “a good home.” Another example of humor in the blog is from the end of a different post, in which she describes working with digital scans and images of mummies. After discussing how they are more difficult to work with than scans from live humans, she writes 

“That is pretty much it. Now, I have to find someone I can vivisect to see the brachioplexus in action. Any volunteers?"

However, while most of her blog posts are easily readable for anyone, some of them are geared towards a very specific audience. For example, she posts one of the animations she’s been working on and then writes this as part of her description:

I used a basic particle system for the blood, with a rotating erythrocyte instanced onto the particles - with a uniform field, a turbulence field, and a radial field also affecting the particles. They still have some self collision issues that need to be worked out, obviously. I attempted to use the work around of having each particle generate a radial field, but while that partially works... it also causes the blood to be very jumpy in parts.

The use of “erythrocyte” instead of “red blood cell” and use of the animation-specific terminology greatly narrows down the number of people who would find this passage understandable.

While the technicality of some of her posts (as well as the content) might be targeted towards a relatively small audience, the conversational tone and the humor appeal, I would think, to everyone. Also, though certainly technical, the field of 3D animation is filled with people who are fun-loving and humorous. Thus, I think Sarah’s voice in her blog is both appropriate for the subject matter, and probably increases her reader-base as well.