Austin GDC Program Guide 2008

SESSIONS – TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 DESIGn – SESSIOn Create and Animate Assets in Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® MotionBuilder 2009® and Autodesk® Mudbox 2009® Mark Noland (Autodesk) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 8C Session sponsored by Autodesk Watch and learn as we show you the latest innovations in Autodesk® 3ds Max®. This session will focus on new features as well as tips and tricks for maximizing your production process using polygon optimization and integrated audio capabilities. See the 3D sculpting, texture painting and many other new features that Autodesk® Mudbox 2009® has to offer. Witness how Autodesk® MotionBuilder 2009® can enhance your current Maya animation with advanced character animation tools. DESIGn – lECTurE sheriff in an online frontier town, this presentation looks at online community management from the perspective of core human social dynamics aka culture. TEChnOlOGy & SErvICES – SESSIOn Holistic Video Game Optimization Eric Preisz (Venagen, Full Sail University) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 8C Sponsored by Venagen Video Game Optimization (VGO) requires a holistic approach. This session introduces Venagen’s process to efficiently detect and optimize a game using a top down approach. This talk will focus on the process of detecting and solving CPU, Memory, GPU, graphics drivers, and GPU inefficiencies. TEChnOlOGy & SErvICES – lECTurE script drives production. But in games, the design drives production. So how does the writer connect with the design and push for essential changes without alienating the team? This roundtable looks at the practical “soft skills” needed by writers to successfully navigate the game development process without compromising their artistic vision. WrITInG FOr GAMES – lECTurE Unsharding: The Secret to Storytelling in a Massively Multiplayer Environment James Portnow (Divide by Zero) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Ballroom B The narratives in MMOs should be epic, playerdriven sagas rather than pale imitations of single player dramas. They’re not. Why? In part, because of the immense difficulty of supporting different stories on multiple servers. How do we solve this problem? Through unsharding. Unsharding makes player-driven stories possible. This lecture will address, in detail, the storytelling possibilities unlocked by this new approach to narrative worldbuilding. AuDIO – lECTurE Making Games Human: Adding Voice to Videogames Matthew Bellows (Vivox) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 5 Speech is the most natural form of human communication — the first we develop and the most prevalent and personal one we use throughout our lives. But as an interface into our digital lives, speech has been shockingly absent. This talk will span the creative, technical and experiential aspects of speech from both gamers and game designers points of view, and will present a deep dive into the emerging role of voice as an interface for digital community and games. DESIGn – SESSIOn How We Made baTTlefield HeRoes Our Journey From Game Team to Service Team Bjarne Rene (EA DICE) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 7 What started as a normal game development project with a somewhat naïve idea of just publishing it for free online has lead to a rollercoaster ride of development across four continents, building an online publishing platform, building a website with a lot of social networking features all while transforming the team to handle the running of heroeS as a successful service. This session will go into some of the nuts and bolts of what it has taken to get BattlefielD heroeS to where we are today and how the team is set up for where we are going. TEChnOlOGy & SErvICES – lECTurE Juggling Cats Tracy W. Bush (NCSoft Corporation) 3 - 4PM | Room 10 Managing the audio design for a PC game from early concept to final ship can be challenging, what with shifting ship dates, constantly changing tech, as well as the occasional complete redesign. How do you keep up? How do you, the audio director, ship a game that has a valid artistic vision in this chaotic environment? How do you satisfy your producers, keep your employees’ morale up, and hopefully get some good reviews? In this session we will discuss strategies that audio directors can use in trying to fulfill their creative vision in an ever-shifting environment. Team management, managerial diplomacy and initiative taking all play important roles in accomplishing this, and we will discuss how to develop these skills if you don’t already have them, using anecdotes from past games as starting points. BuSInESS & MArkETInG – PAnEl Real World Texture Painting Tips for Game Developers Ben Mathis (Maxon) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 2 Sponsored by Maxon Mathis will demonstrate how to create custom 3D textures – from reference material to handpainted detail for next- and current-gen games. Using MAXON BodyPaint 3D, deployed on Drake’s Fortune and other leading game titles, attendees will also learn how BodyPaint 3D easily integrates into current Photoshop, Maya, Softimage and/or 3dsmax workflows. SOCIAl nEWTOrkInG & COMMunITy – lECTurE Unlocking Flash to Build the Next Great MMO Rafhael Cedeno (Multiverse), Ben Garney (PushButton Labs) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 4 Flash is gaining popularity as a platform for MMO development due to its quick startup time, and also wide install base. This session will explore how Flash can be used to create MMOs and how to avoid common development problems. This session will examine the feasibility of Flash as a platform, which includes details of how to effectively handle the networking demands of an MMO, and technical issues for developing content. Each of these areas will be supported by experience and, in many cases, demo applications. WrITInG FOr GAMES – rOunDTABlE Subscriptions Versus Free-to-Play Moderator: Eric Goldberg (Crossover Technologies) Joshua Hong (K2 Network), Jessica Mulligan (ImaginVenture SA) 3 - 4PM | Room 6 Is the MMO business model in flux? Despite WoW’s success, are we seeing a shift away from premium monthly subscriptions towards a free-to-play model? Can the sale of virtual items possible makeup the difference from a lack of subscriptions? As ever more money is being ploughed in the hot MMO market, we seek to answer these questions in this moderated session. Online Community and Culture: Why it’s Easier to Manage than You Might Think Ron Meiners (MyHollywood.com) 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 9 While the online space creates exciting potential for new forms of interaction in many forms, the understanding of how these social systems operate is very valuable to professionals designing for or working with an online community. From the stories they tell to peer pressure, from trends to the role of Pushing Envelopes Without Burning Bridges: Interactive Writing Soft Skills Daniel Greenberg, Michael M. Hall 1:30 - 2:30PM | Room 3 Publishers and developer studios are more aware than ever of the need to engage a writer from the very start of a project. But it’s not always obvious how to incorporate writers into the traditional design-art-programming trinity. In film making, the 12 Austin Game Developers Conference | September 15-17, 2008 | Austin Convention Center | Austin, Texas | www.AustinGDC.net https://www.cmpevents.com/GDAU08/a.asp?option=C&V=1&cid=AGC08_PGWPX2 http://MyHollywood.com http://www.AustinGDC.net

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Austin GDC Program Guide 2008

Austin GDC Program Guide 2008 Contents Conference-at-a-Glance General Information Conference Overview Advisory Board Keynote Speakers Conference Sessions Game Career Seminar Worlds in Motion Summit Austin GDC Events Austin GDC Evening Events Speakers Sponsors & Media Partners Exhibitor Directory Expo Hall Map & Exhibitors

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.