Griffin Rosnack - GDC 2016

Post date: Mar 20, 2016 4:4:49 AM

As my first time attending the GDC conference, I was absolutely blown away by all the creative projects, people, and conversations people were having. A lot of the hopes I came expecting were delivered, and there were quite a few surprises along the way. The past few days have been a breakthrough and I hope to come back next year.

Wednesday

My largest takeaway from this day came from finding unexpected connections. It was my first day browsing the expo and career floor. There were many exciting experiences happening around the booths and I was introducing myself to industry professionals and students.

The night before I just arrived and attended Destructoid's GDC party downtown. The area was dark and loud but I still found energy to talk with people. Sitting down in one of the seats, I had a person sit down next to me. After almost audible talk from the booming music, I made my first connection with an online engineer from Red Storm, a Ubisoft studio. I would realize there that making contacts and business connections could happen naturally and it didn't always require forcing yourself on other people. Everyone at the convention, though, was welcoming for a quick talk or card exchange.

However, Wednesday while browsing the career floor, I met a youtube personality named Criken who was currently attending USC for game design. Being a fan of his gaming videos and work at the creative group Polaris, I had to introduce myself and talk about his work and his place for GDC. He remarked that his school lacked in the art department when it came to game creation and was possibly looking for collaboration between schools or members. I entertained that I and several interested students from Ringling could potentially collaborate and seek exposure from each other schools and social media. The argument was strengthened further since a candidate from his school was nominated for best student game for the IGF awards. I exchanged my card and shook hands, suddenly realizing that I created a new opportunity to create something remarkable to strengthen my image and exposure to the gaming industry. While nothing yet is concrete, I can conclude that there can be unexpected outcomes from conversations that you would never expect. Meeting somebody can spark interest in involving a project or a major step to being involved with a major company. Being socially active as possible can only result in positive results.

Thursday

Today I was more involved with talks and learned about game development in different scenarios and the technology that goes behind it.

I went to a talk at the Moscone West Hall and sat for the Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide Post-Mortem. Being at Ringling, we're projected to be able to work through the creative pipeline and develop a finished product from start to finish. However, the developers at FatShark had to combat certain obstacles that wouldn't normally hinder the creation of a video game. At the start of 2014, the developers were tasked of taking the Warhammer franchise and creating a game inspired by FPS mechanics, a mixture that Warhammer isn't normally known for. The talk by Rikard Blomberg showed that the game took heavy inspiration from Left 4 Dead and decided to make a game similar with hordes of enemies and special bosses. However after a year of production, the company was purchased by Autodesk and wanted to use it's new gaming engine Stingray for the project. The transition proved to be a difficult task that took 3-4 months followed by more bug testing and fixes for a tight deadline. 

Despite the obstacles, new opportunities erupted from the ability to introduce other Autodesk software that could communicate directly with the new engine. One particular software enabled FatShark to incorporate easy to manipulate psychics for particle effects and creating rigging systems that were more efficient than traditional freeform rigs that ate up performance. The bottom line is that a change in direction for a game can create new obstacles, but also new opportunities to incorporate new features and mechanics.

Another talk I attended the same day was Technical Development for Vulkan. The panel was held by a Valve employee, a Unity engineer, and a developer of the game "The Talos Principle". Vulkan is a new API (Application Program Interface) that serves as a communicator between the graphics card and the game engine. The best example would be DirectX, the most common API that has been the de-facto API since the creation of the first Xbox. Vulkan, however, is an alternative that is proven to be more efficient performance wise at the cost of heavier production input from potential developers. The talk showed the remarked efficiency of the API, the methods of incorporating the API into an already published game, and ways of debugging easily with software developed for Vulkan. While the talk had many technical terms that was geared more for developers and less-friendly for newcomers, the talk was interesting to see the developmental case for a possible new alternative for graphics rendering in game development. In the future, the talk may actually prove more useful as my knowledge of game design continues to expand.

Friday

For the final day of GDC, my main observation was getting a rare glimpse into the forefront of VR and even a conversation from one of the hardware developers.

While exploring the career floor after a very useful talk from the Killer Portfolio panel, I was exploring several nearby booths when I came across some employees from Valve. They were looking at a demo from an indie company given a developmental kit for the HTC Vive, the most advanced VR equipment readily soon for the market. Like at the closed SteamVR booth at GDC, they were observing how indie developers were utilizing their games for their new hardware. I had a small conversation with one of the hardware developers in that their main concern now was creating the content that would compliment the new groundbreaking technology. One of the challenges that is facing the VR market now is creating the experiences that would incite a consumer to stay engaged with the technology. So giving developmental kits to indie companies was the most forward way to generate new gaming experiences for the company. I discussed about the possibility of releasing kits to colleges like ours, but they're priority for now is on indie development (I tried!). 

Afterwards I was fortunate to try out the HTC Vive myself. The device lens and tracking was amazing, which felt more brighter and fluid than my first experience with the Oculus Rift. The device also allowed you to walk in a designated space so you could explore the environment. The demo I played was of a soccer arena and showcased the possibilities of creating new features through the VR tech. You could explore the field through a bird's eye, or get information from a player by pressing them with a trigger. You could also look at the soccer game over a table, giving an interesting feel of immersion and engagement.

My takeaway from this was seeing all the possibilities of VR and how it will impact game development for the future. While gearing content creation for the hardware may introduce new challenges to the pipeline, it creates an amazing experience for the player and has promising features to expand globally.