Zach Monteforte GDC Report

Post date: Mar 17, 2017 2:21:51 AM

    GDC was extremely exciting, especially since it was my first time going to an expo of that size. I arrived on Tuesday to try and get a head start on things and have a sort of plan as to where to go. During the first day I spent some time figuring out where all the buildings were. I made it my first thing to do to get the expo pass so that was out of the way.  Did some more exploration to see what else I can find. I started to get a feeling that VR was probably gonna be all over the place since I was seeing on almost every poster. That got me pretty excited because I never truly delved into VR before so now was the perfect time to learn more about it and experience it for myself. Later that evening I was told about two big parties that were very popular. The first party I checked out was one called Polycount. That was filled with people and it got me a bit overwhelmed but I managed to navigate my way towards some Ringling students so that made me feel a bit more comfortable. I met a few other people and got their cards. After hanging with some Ringling friends, we then started to head over to another party called GitHub. That one was much more my speed. Met some cool people there. Me being an awkward mess sometimes I find it hard to approach people. Thankfully there were games all over the place so I would just go over to a random game and start playing. Eventually someone showed up and we started talking and playing the game together making networking much easier for me. 

    Wednesday was the big day. I had to make sure to get up early for the Crystal Dynamics mixer. Luckily got a taxi nearby since they were sorta hard to find near the hotel. Once I was there I hung around and met one person who was an animator and did some stuff for Naughty Dog we exchanged cards and stayed together on the line. We also met a few a other people who were pretty cool. One of which was trying to start his own small indie company and had a game that was being released soon. The wait was a bit long but we finally got in. It was pretty packed and sorta hard to move around. The table had notes on them that told us which area of interest to go to. I aimed for the environment artists. Overall I got some decent feedback, mostly material and lighting notes, they also seemed to like my modeling so that was nice. I sadly didn't to show them my full portfolio due to lines and time. After the the mixer me and my friend decided to head to the show floor and see what was in store. At first it was a little confusing but we got the hang of the layout fairly fast. We figured we would head for the Ringling booth first since that seemed to make the most sense. After checking out the booth and seeing our stuff on the big screen and watching others play our games we went off and found some other cool things. We got word that Insomniac Games was doing portfolio reviews so we walked over to check it out. Sadly missed out on the reviews but luckily they were doing them the next day so we made a note to return. I mentioned how I saw VR all over before I even got into the expo, once inside it was basically one of the first things you see. It was crazy how many companies were using it. There was even a suit that you can put on that follows your movements. While not exactly Motion Capture, it was still pretty new and interesting to see it being used in a game. We checked out a bunch of smaller companies and got their cards and info. Nintendo was there but it seemed to be the more business side and not really the development side, was still nice to get the info though. We sat down to take a rest and a woman sat down next to us and saw our portfolios. Apparently she was from Naughty Dog, her first name was Candice but sadly she left as fast as she came so we didn't get much info. The rest of the day was mostly just exploring all the nooks and crannies of the floor while finding out about different companies and games.

    On Thursday we set out for the floor once again to find some new things. We tried to find Naughty Dog but never ended up finding them or the woman. We made sure to head straight for Insomniac cause they were doing reviews fairly early. The wait was a bit long but I finally got my portfolio reviewed. The feedback was informative and they seemed into it. They enjoyed the Thesis and the Evocative Biome since they liked the idea of trying to get a "feeling" out of a space. They actually told me my work had a very "Bioshock" sort of look to it which I found interesting. That was also really cool cause it is one of my favorite games of all time. After that we did some more exploring and also checked out the store. I picked up the Dishonored art book and some other small things. Before heading back to the floor we ran into Jason Bennet and we got a chance to catch up. It was nice to see him again.

    Friday was the wrap up day and we tried to find any other companies that we might have missed. We saw that we missed the Intel area and they were doing more VR things. They were in an odd spot sort of up near the stairs near the store. They had a cool VR game where you shoot things. What I found really interesting was that they had a backpack that you strap on that acted as the battery/wire so you didn't have to trip over stuff. That always seems to be the issue with VR right now since it can be annoying trying to maneuver in the game without tripping over the wire. I actually found that many of the setups at booths actually didn't have a wire. It was a cool experience and we got their info. That was really the only exciting thing we did GDC wise on Friday since we checked out almost everything we heard or found out about. After GDC we spent some time with some more Ringling friends and explored the city a bit. We saw the famous China Town and got some food along the way. 

    Overall, GDC was a really cool experience and I can't wait to got back and see more. I think if I were to make a new plan it would be to try and find out about the parties a bit earlier since I may have missed out on some, the ones that I did hear about seemed a bit too crazy for me so maybe it was for the better. I found out about so many different companies and technologies I didn't even know were a thing. Ended up getting some portfolio reviews and some possible connections for the future.