GDC Diary 4 – Tutorials and Summits

March 15th, 2011

Tuesday was our first day in the Moscone centre, and I chose to attend a series of Physics related tutorials. Unfortunately none of the the other scholars were interested in coming to the same sessions, but (to my pleasant surprise) I quickly found others to talk to.

The content of each talk varied a great deal, but (thankfully) I was able to keep up and got something out of all of them. Particular highlights for me were Glenn Fiedler‘s networked physics session, which focussed on how various network models relate to physics simulation, and Erin Catto‘s session on soft constraints, which worked through their use as a stable alternative to springs. While the topics covered were interesting in themselves, I think part of the attraction is witnessing how someone smart approaches a problem or subject.

The photo above is from the Ludum Dare meetup which took place in the evening before catching up with other scholars at the IGDA party.

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GDC Diary 3 – Studio Tours

March 9th, 2011

Monday was the first day of GDC, however as scholars we were instead given the chance to visit a number of local studios. Double Fine was the first port of call, and was a fantastic experience. Everyone in the studio was welcoming and happy to pass on advice, and we were given the opportunity to grill developers from a number of disciplines including Tim Schafer himself. The studio itself seemed a vibrant and lively place to work, packed with artwork and props.

Next stop was LucasArts, a significantly different studio. Again we had the chance to talk to some developers, but in this case recruitment specialists were clearly taking the lead. The tour we were given was fascinating, like walking through a museum of matte paintings and Star Wars memorabilia. Overall the opportunity was definitely enjoyable, but didn’t give much insight into daily life at the studio.

Finally, we headed towards Playdom for an excellent talk on Social Games from Eric Todd. I was entirely unsure what to expect from this before attending, but overall the talk itself was interesting and Eric was entirely open to answering our countless questions so I got a lot from the event.

I don’t want to conclude every single diary entry with a paragraph stating how awesome the IGDA scholarship programme is but seriously, I would never have had these opportunities without it and the organised (Jack, Gordon and Sheri) are owed massive thanks. To any students reading: don’t pass up on the chance to apply next year.

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GDC Diary 2 – Tourism

March 9th, 2011

My first port of call was to acquire an American Sim card, which proved both cheap and relatively simple. While having a phone number which differed from the one on my cards was a minor annoyance, being able to contact others at reasonable rates during the week was more important; this is definitely something I’d recommend to others visiting from abroad. Thankfully my mobile was unlocked and tri-band so I could simply stick in a prepaid sim, but the cheapest phones came to less than $40 including some call time if this isn’t an option.

Fellow scholars proceded to appear over the course of the weekend, my first encounter being with my roomate Margret. Familiar with the area and having attended GDC before (as well as being a kick-ass person in general) she was an ideal student to learn from, and I regret that we didn’t spend much time together during the week. We hunted down a number of other scholars already in the city and (as had been arranged throught the modern miracle of social media) headed out for a tasty italian meal, followed by drinks in a noisy and inauthentic Irish bar. I hadn’t been sure what to expect from a diverse and international groups of students getting together for the first time but everyone was incredibly friendly, interesting and fun to be around. It was a fantastic experience. Continue reading »

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GDC Diary 1 – Getting There

February 26th, 2011

I’m in San Francisco!

I won a scholarship from the IGDA to attend GDC. Naturally, as a (student) games programmer, I’ve wanted to attend GDC since I first heard about it. Meeting other developers, attending technical sessions, witnessing the games industry on a global scale – what more could I want? Unfortunately though due to costs and exams in previous years I never saw attending as realistic. With this year likely to be my last as a student though, I couldn’t pass up my last opportunity to apply for the scholarship and thought I should just go for it. Of course, I never actually expected to be chosen!

The weeks since I first heard I would be attending have been a blur, and now I find myself in a hotel in San Francisco in the early hours of the morning, mere days from the start of GDC. I’ll be honest here, I’m absolutely terrified, but incredibly excited at the same time. I’m not a confident or outgoing networker, but I’m determined to get as much out of the conference as possible from both a technical and social perspective. On that note, if you’d like to meet up at some point then drop me an email (hazelmckendrick at gmail dot com) or let me know on twitter (@HazelMckendrick – I recently changed my username). Continue reading »

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Global Game Jam Toolset

January 27th, 2011

Global Game Jam is coming up this weekend, a chance to get together with other devs and students to create games in just 48 hours. One of the interesting aspects is not knowing exactly who I’ll end up working with, and that means being as prepared as possible to adapt.

Having freshly installed Windows 7 on my laptop (I usually run Linux) I’ve had to get hold of all the editors, tools and libraries I need again, and figured I would share here. Everything here is open source, free for non-commercial use or has a free trial version. Continue reading »

Subject: Games, Misc, Programming, Software    Tags: , , ,    
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