Post GDC talks and social (take 2)

This is an imported event from the old site.

IGDA London members met at the London Knowledge Lab to hear presentations from Rudolf Kremers and Alex May, creators of Dyson, and Simon Green, Senior Software Engineer at NVIDIA. In total almost 30 members showed up for the presentations which lasted about an hour each including questions. Afterwards we went on to The Perseverance to continue the discussions. The following report was constructed from my hurriedly scribbled notes; any resemblance to actual views or events is therefore a happy coincidence.

Dyson at the IGF

Rudolf Kremers and Alex May came to talk to us about their game Dyson and their trip to the GDC as finalists in this year's IGF.

They first introduced us to their game which was conceived to enter TIGSource's procedurally generated content competition. Their entry was inspired by the work of the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson. One of Dyson's inventions is the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetically engineered plant that lives inside the hollow space within a comet. This, along with some procedural content generation that Alex had developed for his game Deadrock, was the basis for their entry.

Although Dyson didn't win the competition, the publicity from their second place was good and encouraged them to enter it into the IGF. Entry into this competition focussed their efforts and they made many improvements along the way. As a result they received nominations for several awards and were granted a free pass at GDC.

They went on to describe their experiences at the GDC. They found the sessions alone to be well worth the trip and also made many useful contacts for the future. Rudolf said that, coming from the Netherlands, he found San Francisco to be very welcoming and it is perhaps one of the most open states in America.

Although in the end they didn't win any of the awards they were nominated for, they found that the people they met and publicity they received was a significant consolation. Rudolf told us that the other indie developers didn't see them as competitors and were very friendly and eager to help. They were also able to make some significant deals.

In summary, they recommended entry into the IGF as a good and cheap way to get a free pass to GDC (although that does exclude travel and board) and make new contacts and deals for your game.

Questions and answers

Q: What is expected from an indie game and how is that different to the requirements of a mainstream game?

A: Indie developers have very diverse motivations for creating games, but they don't necessarily exclude commercial goals. Where the development experience differs is in creative freedom. Alex and Rudolf said they are not as profit oriented as mainstream companies: they are not aiming to get rich, just to make a living by making the games they like.

Q: How long did it take?

A: It's difficult to judge the hours exactly because it was done in spare time. The first version took about a month but they are still iterating on it a year later.

Q: How do you balance your daily work commitments with creating an indie game in your spare time and does the threat of financial instability limit your creativity?

A: It's hard. Rudolf said he couldn't do it without a lot of support from his girlfriend and loved ones. He also runs a shop selling antique scientific instruments but he suggested you can always find a way to make the time you need.

UKUUG summer conference

Steve Goodwin made a brief call for proposals for summer conference of the UKUUG. They are looking for proposals for events related to free software are games. The conference is taking place in Birmingham from Friday the 7th to Sunday the 9th of August and the deadline for proposals is the 8th of May.

Simon Green, NVIDIA

Simon gave us a shortened version of his talk at GDC. Simon works for the Developer Technology Group at NVIDIA on the graphics SDK. As part of his presentation he showed off some of the new Direct X 10 and 11 effects videos.

NVIDIA has recently changed focus towards general purpose parallel computing on the GPU. Many of the videos Simon showed demonstrated the parallel processing capabilities of modern GPUs. One demonstration of volumetric particles and shadowing effects would be impractical to achieve any other way because it would require huge amounts of data transfer between the CPU and GPU.

We were also shown a demonstration of PhysX, a physics engine that can make use of the parallel computing power of the GPU. In this example we were shown an FPS environment where it was possible to progressively destroy the structures creating debris controlled by PhysX physics on the GPU.

Although Simon didn't have time on the night to go through all the slides he presented at this year's GDC, he has kindly provided them here. The slides provide a more detailed look at the techniques demonstrated in the videos he presented. These slides can also be downloaded from NVIDIAs developer website in PDF format.

He finished up by summarising those things that interested him at this year's GDC. The OnLive system created quite a buzz. This system allows players to stream game images to their consoles or computers in real-time taking the burden of processing from the client and transfering it to the server. Another interesting development this year is the increasing interest in 3D glasses and similar systems.

Questions and answers

Q: Is OnLive really feasible?

A: Generally, yes. It certainly worked well and didn't suffer too badly from lag in the demonstrations shown.

Q: Will OnLive replace consoles?

A: Probably not, but an increase in competition in the market place is a good thing.

Q: Can the GPU be used for game-play?

A: Yes: AI, path-finding would be good examples. CUDA allows general purpose programming.

Q: Is this a back door for NVIDIA into making a CPU.

A: Not really. Although in some ways NVIDIA and Intel are competing over the same ground. Larabee is coming at it from the other side.

Q: Will the GPU end up on the motherboard?

A: In some instances this is already the case: 360, Mac books, and so on. But on the PS3 it is still separate.

Q: Is this processing an extension of the hardware texture and lighting?

A: Yes. That's old school terminology. But the idea is still to push as much as possible onto the GPU hardware.

Q: can calculations on the card be retrieved for processing?

A: It's possible. And data transfer speeds between the CPU and GPU are now very high: up to 4GB/s.

Q: How much of the direction at NVIDIA is driven by API's like Direct X?

A: It's a collaboration. The API designers don't tend to innovate much. But it's helpful to have a common standard to work to.

Q: How important is OpenGL?

A: It's still very important for workstations, mobile phones, and Macintosh. OpenCL is under development and is similar to CUDA.

Speakers