GDC 2018 - Harry Gray

Post date: Mar 26, 2018 6:28:11 PM

This was my first year attending GDC. What an experience it was. I talked to a few people about how it’s hard to put the value of time spent into a monetary summation, but I fully believe I got out of it what I put in, if not more.

The first talk I went to was directly involved in what my second thesis pitch is, VR Immersion. The talk was given by a group of people who’d worked professionally in VR in a number of different cases. What I thought I’d be most interested in was Jessica’s, Face Your Fears; a horror VR game, however I quickly realized that the insight each of these people had into VR was extremely relevant to almost any VR experience of immersion. One of the big topics that the panelists discussed was identity immersion. The fact that people from many different backgrounds would be coming in to play your game, and if one thing doesn’t fit them, or doesn’t mesh well then the immersion would be broken. E.G. a black female playing a VR game where her hands are that of a white male. This would immediately and constantly be signalling to the player that they’re not themselves here, they’re playing a someone else, breaking immersion. Another thing is that people become so heavily focused on their environment. There would be a horrific event happening behind a player but they wouldn’t notice it because, “Oooh this curtain is right in front of me and it’s CG!” Therefore focusing on either ‘look’ events or going heavy on the environment is extremely important to create a positive, immersive experience for the player. Ways that these ‘Look’ events can be encouraged is through audio cues with good directional sense. Which brings up the topic of how important it is to have perfect sound design for a VR experience. Without good sounds, everything feels fake and immersion is destroyed. There was one quote I heard that really struck a point to me, “Discomfort vs. Unease.” Discomfort is not what a player should feel. They shouldn’t feel physically ill or confused. But Uneased is perfect. This can be accomplished by taking away a small bit of control from the player. Tilting the camera just a bit, distorting sounds and views, all of which must be heavily fine tuned in order to create an emotion of Unease, not discomfort. Finally in the case of making the most of a VR experience, bringing the environment to the player. Hanging items that come right to the players face, narrow halls that look like they’re encapsulating the player, having things close to the player that they can interact with and truly feel immersed in the VR experience. These are just a few of the many things I learnt from a single talk I went to.

One great thing I got to see was the Indie section in North Hall. Seeing people really breaking barriers of what is expected with VR and AR was truly inspiring for prototyping concepts. The two I will focus on are Hack and Paint, and Level Ex. Hack and Paint have decided to forefront the attempt of a third person VR experience. By having the player be a spectating presence in a 3D world while controlling the character felt great in VR. Hack and Paint have a goal to bring a sense of adventure, story, and character into a platform of games that thus far has lacked in said values. Discussing game design and ways forward was an honor as they really seemed to be taking into account suggestions I made for making gameplay easier to read; with better player feedback and level design to guide the player. Another company I found was Level Ex. I met Ryan Blaker, the founder of Level Ex, and he talked to me about what they do. A company that has decided to take VR to a medical level; creating realistic surgery situations for doctors to practice on. Their interactive training experience has been given the license to award actual credit to doctors while they train each year. These two companies are pushing what we think is possible with VR, which was incredibly inspiring when considering my own prototyping and concepts to develop in the future.

The final thing I did at GDC really wrapped it all up as a worthwhile experience. The “Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer” session was a boon for my prospects of getting an internship this summer. I have a second round interview with Ghost Story Games coming up and their Lead Artist, Shawn Robertson, was one of the portfolio reviewers in the session. When it came my turn to choose who to review me I was lucky enough to get him. Meeting Shawn Robertson in person was a good lesson in many ways. First off, introducing myself as calmly as possible as I looked in the eyes of a person who would determine part of my summer fate was a good exercise in containing myself. He gave a great crit for my work, remembering a couple of the pieces and saying he really liked them, but then also ‘dinging’ me for a few things like scene noise and noisy materials. Discussing this with him actually lead me to realize that that is very probably my biggest weakness, not recognizing when a piece is too noisy, or if it is then why. He made sure i wasn’t too worried about this as it’s a conversation they’re having every single day in the office, figuring out and finding the balance for those far, mid, and close reads. When it came up that we had an interview he seemed like he was glad and in retrospect I realized that the questions he asked me were essentially a pre-interview. I’ll be taking into account a lot of what he said from an industry/non-instructor perspective and hope to use it to improve my future work as a whole.

These are just a few of the things I experienced at GDC, besides free beer. Meeting people from algorithmic at their Substance After Party was a great first evening. Wes McDermott and I had a full one on one heart to heart about where we want to see our art go and what we do with it. The expo floor was great for seeing new and upcoming technology in the gaming and real-time industry. And the random fortunate bump ins with people who worked around the world was a great time, learning from people and hearing about how they got where they are was a treat.