GDC 2014

Post date: Mar 26, 2014 12:37:7 AM

I went to GDC for the first time and I feel like I have learned a lot from the speakers that I have attended. I have met so many people and was it was a very interesting experience. The first talk I went to was called :

What modern interior design teaches us about Environment art.

The speaker was Dan Cox from Ubisoft Toronto, I felt the talk was relevant to what we learn at Ringling, he talked about making interesting game spaces with tips and technique from using the rules of interior design. We should look out for form, function, balance of intent, lighting balance, emphasis, repetition, rhythm, proportion and scale.

Form - evoke emotions through form 

Function - 

-What you do in the space

-Spaces have a function

-Function changes how something look

Balance of Intent

-Don't over contrast things

Lighting

-Lighting fixtures are contrast that draw the eyes

Balance

-Asymmetry makes the space more exciting.

Emphasis

-Creating some elements that don't make the space empty

Repetition

-Some shapes are soft or hard. Variation.

Another tip that I have learn is "don't fight the architecture" What it means is that, architecture can't be change, but as level designer, environment designers, we can add things to create the illusion in filling the space. For example, if the ceiling is too high, add moldings to create the illusion that the ceiling is lower then it actually is. 

I also learn about the 60 - 30 - 10 color ratio. 

I went to Play the cutscene : The characters of Ryse by Abdenour Bachlr and Christoper Evans from Crytek. This is one of the coolest talks I have went to. They shared information on their main character marius. They created a next gen character, they use 4k texture map, 4 channel (diffuse, specular, gloss, spec) this is generally the same pipeline as what we learn at school. Their mesh polycount range from 40k - 160k tri. What was really cool about this talk was how they made the wrinkles when a facial animation is done. They compiled a different variation of wrinkled emotion all on the same normal map, and while a certain emotion is called out, the same wrinkle emotion is subtly shown through the animation which makes a lot of difference. Its called a wrinkle mask 6 area per channel. They use a tool called wrinkle man, they combine the normal map with wrinkle map. 

I attended a talk by a Japanese game designer, his name is Taro Yoko, He talked about Making weird games for weird people which was interesting because I did not realize there was a market out there for very obscure game genres. He talked about his scriptwriting guide lines that he make up with made to sense. He made up his own way of writing and called it backwards script writing and photo thinking. It is the process of creating cause and conclusion on the story. He went on and talked about what is an emotional peak which is a strong emotion created by the player. Emotions are triggered by events and experiences, the more the player experience in the game, the more they feel. They invest in time and skill. Photothinking is envisioning the situation in your head, an application of visual memory skill.

He said that story is a series of small events, he advise those who are fairly new to making games should find similar games to what you are making and mimic it. 

I also went to talks about, the making of Elizabeth of bioshock, Infamous Second sons, Cinematic lighting of The last of us. My overall experience at GDC was fantastic and I would definitely attend next year.