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Game
Developers Conference 2001 Preview The annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) is right around the corner. GDC takes place in San Jose, Calif., this year on March 20-24. We've interviewed a few of the key presenters to find out what they'll be talking about at the conference, and why the GDC is important to them. For more information about the conference, visit its web site at www.gdconf.com. Level
Designer, LucasArts Entertainment Company What are you speaking about? I am giving a presentation on examples of recent American architecture. There is great interest in the architectural profession in using the computer as a design tool, to have it be more than just a drafting aid. In games, we try to simulate real-world environments to enhance the sense of immersion, but architects are also using the computer to develop new types of spaces. Hopefully, the presentation will serve as an introduction to ways that architects have integrated the computer into their process and highlight designs that will have an application for game levels. You're giving several talks on architecture and level design this year -- how essential is it for a level designer to understand traditional architectural design methodologies? I definitely think it is helpful for a level designer to have a feel for traditional architectural design. An architectural background helps in developing ideas and scenarios for games that support plot and gameplay. Once those ideas are understood and approved, you have the ability to implement them. There are other parallels to architecture in terms of the processes that game development goes through, the project cycles, and studio setup. What games have you worked on at LucasArts? I've worked on Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith, Star Wars Episode 1: Racer, and most recently, Battle for Naboo. How many years have you been going to the GDC? Why is it valuable to you? This will be my second year. I am really looking forward to it after last year. The general raising of developer awareness that takes place as a whole is very valuable. It really brought home that there are people doing similar things. People who have different approaches, different problems, better solutions -- it is a terrific learning experience. [Back to top] Melissa
Farmer What is your roundtable on? My roundtable is designed to be an open discussion of where people think the genre of games for girls is at. Is it really failing as it appears or is this just a temporary slump? I'm hoping to attract developers who were or are actively involved in making games targeted to girls and women. Please note that I use the term "girl" loosely; I'm also using it as a term for games designed for the entire female audience. Do you believe that making games (or a game website) designed specifically for girls is no longer financially viable? I don't believe that. What I do believe is that those developers who have tried it in the past have made some serious missteps in their products. I believe that too many of the previous attempts that we've seen were failures because they weren't fun, weren't marketed right, or both. My own personal opinion is that the market is there; we just need to figure out how to tap it. What do you think could be done by the game development industry to attract girls? There are so many things that need to be addressed before we will be able to attract large numbers of girl gamers to the software store and women to the industry as developers. I believe it has to start at the very beginning -- by maintaining the interest of young women in computers and technology as they begin to mature into their teens. Studies have shown that up until about nine or ten, girls and boys have the same level of interest in computers and technology. Then, right around ten years old, girls tend to lose interest. Why? Any number of reasons: a lack of good, stimulating games targeted to them; an increase in other interests such as extracurricular activities, boys, and so forth; and a lack of encouragement and support from schools. Other factors play into this as well - making software stores more female friendly, figuring out how to market games to girls and women properly, and so much more. But I could go on all day with ideas on how best to bring more girls and women into the gaming arena. Is there still a glass ceiling in the game industry? Yes, but it's showing signs of cracking. Until just recently, most women were relegated to typical women's positions in the game industry -- marketing, HR, trade show coordination, and so forth. Women were simply not thought of for more technical roles such as programmers, producers, or game designers. At one of my early roundtables, I had a woman who was a senior producer from a very large game company relate the following tale: "I have an assistant who works with me who happens to be male. We had a meeting to review a game concept with some developers today. They come into the room, and immediately ignore me and begin speaking to my assistant. They thought I was in marketing, but they never bothered to ask." The perception that females in the industry belong in "women's jobs" is beginning to change. I have some very dear friends who are now lead programmers/engineers, art directors, and senior game designers. The tide is starting to turn as people realize we can be successful in more technical positions and I think you'll see the industry begin to more closely reflect the percentages you find in our society. We are creative, we are technical, and we are successful. All we need is the chance to prove it. How many years have you been going to the GDC? Why is it valuable to you? I've been going to the conference for about eight years. I started out as a conference associate, then became the executive director of the CGDA, and have been a speaker for the last three or four years or so. The most valuable part of the conference for me is actually twofold: learning from my peers and seeing folks I only get to see once a year because we're scattered across the country. The best way for us to grow as an industry is to share our ideas, in my opinion. New ideas tend to spark new creativity; they help expand the way you think and conceptualize. By hearing what my colleagues are doing, I can keep up with the newest techniques in game development. [Back to top] Andrew
Kirmse What is your roundtable on? We'll be talking about what it's like to move from PC game development to console game development, in particular the Playstation 2, Xbox, and Dreamcast. Though a lot of the challenges are the same, we had a steep learning curve getting used to the limited memory environment, a different style of input, display on NTSC and PAL televisions, the approval process, and the style of play that people expect from consoles. We'll be discussing all of these issues, as well as some structural approaches to make the transition easier. The idea is to share knowledge to help all console developers, but especially first-time console programmers. Do you believe that the game industry is shifting toward a greater degree of console support? From a corporate standpoint, it just makes sense to make games for the platforms that sell more copies, and today that's the consoles. The converse to the low barrier of entry on the PC is a glut of titles, some of dubious quality, which confuses customers and hurts sales. Console publishers tend to regulate the quality of the games that they put out and assure at least a minimum standard. The main appeal of consoles for developers is a fixed hardware platform. PC hardware is improving at an incredible rate, but PC owners are not upgrading as often as they used to. That puts PC developers in a dilemma. A game has to impress at the high end to compete with other titles, but it needs to run on low-end hardware to reach the masses. What other talks should people attend at the GDC? Try to make the keynote speeches by the "big names". Even if you don't like the person's games, it's an educational experience to learn how successful people work and how they got to where they are. How many years have you been going to the GDC? Why is it valuable to you? I first attended in 1997 to give a lecture about the development of Meridian 59, which had recently launched. It was a great morale boost to see people sharing their knowledge, similar to the academic environment I had just left. My hat is off to the companies that advance the state of the art by describing their techniques at the GDC. Talks by id Software and Dynamix come to mind as proof that you can share your innovations and still stay at the top of the industry. You may pick up a technical trick or two to add to your game, but the main benefit is a restoration of your sense of wonder. When you hear some of the best developers in the industry describing what they've done, it puts your work in perspective and dares you to do better. It's like going from being a superstar in high school to being just another overachiever at college: you realize that no matter how good you are, there are lots of people who are better. It's said that the entire industry grinds to a halt for the week of the GDC; I think it's more than made up in the weeks after the conference as everyone applies what they've learned and tries to impress their colleagues.[Back to top] Walter
Park What is your roundtable about? I want to discuss the best ways to use the crazy polygon counts that the new generation of consoles is giving us as artists to play with. Just because we can put more polygons in a character's face than we used to use in whole models doesn't mean we should. I believe that there are ways to use that power more effectively and at the roundtable we will explore some of those. In what ways do game artists miss the mark in creating an immersive sense of "place" for players? I think we tend to get caught up in the process of making really cool parts and sometimes miss the whole. Our characters may be fantastic and elements of our environment may be great, but it's rare to see them combined in a world that creates total immersion. It takes a world that seems to work on its own, that your character is just a part of, to really put a player in a place. What could 3D artists do to improve their worlds instead of simply creating more detail? First, I want to say that detail is important. Too much detail in our models, however, will limit our use of other things that might be even better at bringing our game worlds to life. Fog, rain, wind, reflective water, birds, waving grasses, blowing leaves, fireflies, smoke, fires, crowds, snow, smog, footprints, splashes, foggy breath, flapping banners -- I believe that these sorts of things can have a lot more impact on the immersiveness of a game world than creases and rivets. How many years have you been going to the GDC? Why is it valuable to you? I've been going for three years. GDC is a great opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the luminaries in our field. We also get a fantastic sharing of ideas across company and genre boundaries that can really help enrich the games we are making.[Back to top] Scott
Patterson What is your lecture about? I'll talk about the game design issues and music design issues that influence how programming for interactive music is done. I'll cover the basic needs that almost all games have for interactive music and also get into the more interesting kinds of controls that a game can have over music. How is interactive music important to a game? Music is an important part of the suspension of disbelief formula, right? And unlike a movie soundtrack, the game may ask for changes in state at any time rather than following a scripted sequence. If a player's status in the game has changed in a significant way and the music doesn't reflect this in an equally significant way, then we have missed an important opportunity for better entertainment and immersion. What are the best tools for someone who wants to compose interactive music? Well, certainly DirectMusic Producer is a fine choice for PC or Xbox development. But interactive music can be created using whatever composition tool is most familiar. The music can be marked with various labels and a custom music processing tool written to package the data for your custom interactive music sequencer. What books are you reading lately? You mean besides Game Programming Gems? [Laughs.] The other books at the top of the pile are 3D Game Engine Design, The Algorithm Design Manual, and The Quick Python Book. And the award for longest-titled book that I have been reading lately is Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in C++. How many years have you been going to the GDC? Why is it valuable to you? I think 1998 was my only previous attendance. I'm happy to make it again this year! I can get up-to-date information, meet the experts who can answer my questions, get exposed to new design ideas, learn new approaches to tricky problems. . . . What is most valuable is that it's all valuable.[Back to top] Owner,
CleverMedia What is your tutorial about? I'll be showing everyone how to build Shockwave and Flash games. I'll talk a little about the advantages and disadvantages of using each, and then summarize the basics of how they are built. From there, I'll touch on some more advanced topics and show some Lingo and ActionScript code used in games. I'm also planning to have three other developers present case studies of some games they have developed. Web-based games have been around for several years now, but the industry is just beginning. While the latest 3D first-person shooter may seem cool to hardcore gamers, millions of people aren't interested in them. They would rather play the wide variety of games on the web. You can take a crash course in what these games are about and how they are made. There'll be something for programmers, artists, and business people alike. What are the primary differences between Shockwave and Flash? The lines are getting blurry. Shockwave started with Director, which was a CD-ROM-building tool. It is very deep, with a powerful programming language behind it. It is also very easy to learn and use. Flash started as a vector animation tool. It is still primarily that, but the most recent version added a complex programming language that allows us to make all sorts of games. Another major difference between them is the playback engine. Shockwave is a large, complex playback engine that about 60 percent of Windows and Mac users have. Flash, on the other hand, is available on more than 90 percent of Windows and Mac machines, as well as Linux, and may soon also be on handheld devices and set-top boxes. Do you believe that Shockwave and Flash will continue to dominate as the tools used by web game developers? Yes. I see Flash use growing particularly. Some complex projects will require Shockwave, at least for the time being, but Flash is a very fertile ground for game development. I see Macromedia making sure that Flash stays several steps ahead of the competition. How many years have you been going to the GDC? Why is it valuable to you? I first went in 1998, the one in Long Beach. I came back very inspired. It was one of the reasons why I started changing my company, which had done general multimedia until then, to become a game development company. I gave one-hour sessions on "Designing Web-Based Games" at the 1999 and 2000 conferences. A lot
of people answer this question by saying the people you meet or the
connections you make. While those things are definite highlights of
the conference, I have to say that the tutorials and sessions have been
incredibly inspiring. I come home with tons of ideas about games and
business from these sessions. [Back to top] Roundtable: "Porting PC Graphics Technology to the Playstation 2" What is your roudntable about at the GDC? Porting PC Graphics Technology to the Playstation 2. Probably the most difficult aspect is changing how you think about a graphics engine. It requires a deep change in philosophy on how you code and design a system. You can't treat the PS2 like a high level API, that just dosent work. Starting from a PC base is an excellent idea, as you have all this exisiting infrostructure supporting the engine i.e.you dont want to be validating the exporter plug-in data generation on the developer kits a month after they turn up. Thats not to say, you can just port a Direct3D or OpenGL engine but it provides a framework from which to begin experimenting and learn concepts exclusive to the PS2 with real-world data. What advice do you have for someone who is just starting on a PC title but is intending to port it to PS2 down the road? Abstracting everything, I/O, Sound, Graphics and design a huge amount of flexibility into the graphics engine. My favorite is the microkernel approach where functionality is not built into the engine and insted enabled through dynamiclly loaded components. How many years have you been going to the GDC? What do you think is the most valuable part of the conference? This is only my seccond year but I'm hooked.The best part would have to be free T-shirts. [Back to top] Discuss
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