The
Midlands chapter is starting to gain some real momentum now,
with every event drawing a larger crowd. Meaning that we've
had to move location to a much larger venue. The very regal
Royal
Pump Rooms of Leamington Spa.
This
is the listed historical building that put Leamington Spa on
the map, as Queen Victoria often used it when she visited the
Spa baths in Leamington. Now often referred to as Royal Leamington
Spa, for this reason.
On
Thursday 6th April, it played host to a very different type
of clientele. All the local game developers, well if it's
good enough for royalty it's good enough for us!? It certainly
was a very nice venue and we shall no doubt hold other IGDA
events here in future.
We
had over 160 attendees from as far north as Birmingham (Swordfish
studios), south from Oxford (Rebellion) and of course a fair
few from the closer studios RARE, Blitz, and Codemasters. After
a short reception in the bar, the evening kicked off at 8pm,
in the main Ball Room.
THE
TALKS
First
up was Mark James from Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEE),
who gave us an interesting talk about the kind of vision Sony
have for entertainment on the PlayStation 3. Very good advice
and pointers as to what we as developers must consider as
we go forward to the next generation. We are all too heavily
focused on graphics, which are important, but we must make
games for the 'casual mass market entertainment, and make
it fun!’. And of course the market just expects it to
look incredible! Although I know quite a few people were disappointed
not to get a glimpse of some PS3 games in development.
After
another short drink at the bar, it was back for the 2nd half,
Nick Manning from AutoDesk explained to us the strategic acquisition
that they made of Alias, so that now they have the 3D graphics
creations tools fairly well monopolised, owning 3D Studio Max,
Motion Builder and now Maya. He went on to explain that no one
package is better that another, that they all have their own
strengths, and possibly argued that artists should have all
3?!
Kevin Booth went on to give some live demos of what is now possible
with the new versions of Max and Maya, showing examples of how
to very quickly create things like normal maps and occlusion
maps, the kind of features you need for next generation art
creation.
Unfortunately,
things started to run very late now, and by the time Richard
Huddy from ATI got to the stage to give us a technical talk
on the 'Toyshop' demo, he started after the time the evening
talks should have finished. Whoops!!! (We'll be keeping better
time next time guys!). After a consensus, he agreed to cut his
hour talk to 20 minutes and gave us a very lively and very exciting
informative look on just how they created the stunning ATI Toyshop
demo.
This really is exactly what developers need to appreciate in
terms of graphics as we start to create for Playstation 3 and
Xbox360.
RAFFLE
PRIZES
PSP
and Pacman World 3 – Blitz Games
Winner : Kory Vandenberg from Blitz
FIRE GL V5100 Graphics Card – ATI
Winner :Simona Tassinari from Rare
PSP Games - Sony
Winners: Neil Campbell from Blitz
Jim Horth from Rare
Phil Palmer from Blitz
Thank
you!
We would like to thank our sponsors:
· Autodesk, and Neil Parmer from BlueGFX for the sponsorship
of the bar
· Mick Morris from Audiomotion for paying for the venue
Our guest speakers:
· Mark James from Sony Computer Entertainment for his
talk on Playstation 3, and supplying some PSP games for our
raffle.
· Nick Manning and Kevin Booth from Autodesk, for giving
us the talks on Max & Maya.
· Richard Huddy from ATI for showing us how the 'Toyshop'
demo was created, and the prize of a very high-end graphic
card.
And lastly thanks to our volunteers:
· Emma Morle, Kim Blake, Kaye Elling, Matt Black, Rob
Blake and Pete Smithies, all from Blitz, for helping organise
the event and manning the entrance on the night!
IGDA
midlands will return shortly after E3 (mid May)
First
up was Mark James from Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEE),
who gave us an interesting talk about the kind of vision Sony
have for entertainment on the PlayStation 3. Very good advice
and pointers as to what we as developers must consider as
we go forward to the next generation. We are all too heavily
focused on graphics, which are important, but we must make
games for the 'casual mass market entertainment, and make
it fun!’. And of course the market just expects it to
look incredible! Although I know quite a few people were disappointed
not to get a glimpse of some PS3 games in development.
After
another short drink at the bar, it was back for the 2nd half,
Nick Manning from AutoDesk explained to us the strategic acquisition
that they made of Alias, so that now they have the 3D graphics
creations tools fairly well monopolised, owning 3D Studio Max,
Motion Builder and now Maya. He went on to explain that no one
package is better that another, that they all have their own
strengths, and possibly argued that artists should have all
3?!
Unfortunately,
things started to run very late now, and by the time Richard
Huddy from ATI got to the stage to give us a technical talk
on the 'Toyshop' demo, he started after the time the evening
talks should have finished. Whoops!!! (We'll be keeping better
time next time guys!). After a consensus, he agreed to cut his
hour talk to 20 minutes and gave us a very lively and very exciting
informative look on just how they created the stunning ATI Toyshop
demo.
PSP
and Pacman World 3 – Blitz Games
