IGDA Chicago - Meeting Report

Meeting Report

September Soiree Breaks Records!

September 2002

by Carrie Gale

Big thanks to Midway Games, our presenter, and Discreet, our sponsor who generously provided all food and beverages, for a fantastic September IGDA meeting! We had a fully-packed (no exaggeration) house at Bar Louie in Bucktown, with over 47 artists, developers and game enthusiasts in attendance. Martin Murphy from Midway Games kicked off the presentation by explaining Midway's commitment to Chicago - from the extra detail in their games when it comes to designing Chicago's own stadiums, to the hiring of local talent. Marty provided everyone with a thorough explanation of the current and upcoming job openings at Midway Games, and instructed those who were interested to talk to him after the presentation.

The first presenter from Midway was Charlie Ghislandi, who used the technique of "zeroing out" the animation, so that after the foot-lifts off the ground, the character goes back to 0,0,0 in Cartesian Space, to allow the programmer to move the character in game play (for super-jumps, or impact with objects.) He demonstrated this using 3DS Max 4, showing a character with bones imported from Kaydara Filmbox and motion captured at Midway. The character was linked to a dummy object, and the motion offset by the animation of the dummy.

The next speaker Drew Dorman, who demonstrated his development of a real-time particle system used by Midway Games in their Slugfest game. He showed the program's ease of use, with attachable behaviors that acted on particles in real-time, and how the program will write code for other programmers to use. Demonstrations included explosion effects, motion trails, and even fireflies. Gravity effects, wind speed, collisions, and shape and color changes can be added, along with a list of behaviors and effects. He also showed his program that allowed programmers to import stadium models and give various deflection behaviors for players, balls, etc. to different surfaces. All programs were very intuitive and artist-friendly.

The last demonstration was given by Mehran Torgoloey, who demonstrated the use of vertex shading, and subdividing the surfaces to achieve the best effects in terms of real-time shaders. He also showed how the players shading changes as he enters shadow areas, all without lights and shadows, and the computational expense they require. All presenters were fantastic - lasting almost two full hours!

If you would like more information on the job openings at Midway, or want to know more about Discreet's latest version of 3DS Max 5, please see their websites at www.discreet.com and www.midway.com.



		Meeting Report September Soiree Breaks Records! September 2002 by Carrie Gale Big thanks to Midway Games, our presenter, and Discreet, our sponsor who generously provided all food and beverages, for a fantastic September IGDA meeting! We had a fully-packed (no exaggeration) house at Bar Louie in Bucktown, with over 47 artists, developers and game enthusiasts in attendance. Martin Murphy from Midway Games kicked off the presentation by explaining Midway's commitment to Chicago - from the extra detail in their games when it comes to designing Chicago's own stadiums, to the hiring of local talent. Marty provided everyone with a thorough explanation of the current and upcoming job openings at Midway Games, and instructed those who were interested to talk to him after the presentation. The first presenter from Midway was Charlie Ghislandi, who used the technique of "zeroing out" the animation, so that after the foot-lifts off the ground, the character goes back to 0,0,0 in Cartesian Space, to allow the programmer to move the character in game play (for super-jumps, or impact with objects.) He demonstrated this using 3DS Max 4, showing a character with bones imported from Kaydara Filmbox and motion captured at Midway. The character was linked to a dummy object, and the motion offset by the animation of the dummy. The next speaker Drew Dorman, who demonstrated his development of a real-time particle system used by Midway Games in their Slugfest game. He showed the program's ease of use, with attachable behaviors that acted on particles in real-time, and how the program will write code for other programmers to use. Demonstrations included explosion effects, motion trails, and even fireflies. Gravity effects, wind speed, collisions, and shape and color changes can be added, along with a list of behaviors and effects. He also showed his program that allowed programmers to import stadium models and give various deflection behaviors for players, balls, etc. to different surfaces. All programs were very intuitive and artist-friendly. The last demonstration was given by Mehran Torgoloey, who demonstrated the use of vertex shading, and subdividing the surfaces to achieve the best effects in terms of real-time shaders. He also showed how the players shading changes as he enters shadow areas, all without lights and shadows, and the computational expense they require. All presenters were fantastic - lasting almost two full hours! If you would like more information on the job openings at Midway, or want to know more about Discreet's latest version of 3DS Max 5, please see their websites at www.discreet.com and www.midway.com.