MTuner
The Toolsmiths

Toolsmiths GDC 2018 Guide

Posted on 26 February 2018 by Victor Stepanov

There are around 650+ sessions at this year’s GDC, and it isn’t easy to find sessions that you as a tools developer might enjoy. I have tried to find and collect most of the talks that a tools developer would be interested in attending or watching after the fact. The list contains not only tools centered talks, but lectures that will give insight and inspiration. This year’s GDC is a special one because Geoff Evans and David Lightbown have organized the very first Tools Tutorial Day. The Tools Tutorial Day will be a full day of cutting-edge tools centered talks presented by Tool Developers from around the world. Don’t miss it! Also, there will be excellent tools centered roundtables:

  • Tools Roundtable (hosted by Robin-Yann Storm)
  • Technical Issues in Tools Development Roundtable (hosted by Geoff Evans)

This year is going to be better than ever for game tools developers! Hope to see you there!

How to use this list

  • If you are going to GDC, you can follow the links in the list below to create a schedule for yourself (when the schedule is up). Or if you already have a plan you can check and make sure you don’t miss out on anything you would enjoy.
  • If you are not going, you can still look forward to watching sessions that you want to see in the GDC Vault.

Sessions marked with Toolsmiths logo - point to sessions that you should consider going to because they are 100% tool centered.

Tools Tutorial Day (Full Day)

Tools Tutorial Day: Tools to Reduce Open Bug Count at Media Molecule

  • Programming
  • Media Molecule
  • QA
  • Automated Testing

Tools Tutorial Day: Bungie’s Asset Pipeline: ‘Destiny 2’ and Beyond

  • Programming
  • Bungie
  • Pipeline
  • Dependency Graph
  • Iteration Times

Tools Tutorial Day: Shipping ‘Call of Duty’

  • Programming
  • Production & Team Management
  • Infinity Ward
  • Build Process
  • Revision Control

Tools Tutorial Day: UX Microtalks, Part 1

  • Programming
  • UX
  • Ubisoft Montreal
  • Unity Technologies
  • Guerrilla Games
  • Productivity
  • Efficiency

Tools Tutorial Day: Workflow Driven Tools Design

  • Programming
  • Production & Team Management
  • Remedy Entertainment
  • Workflows
  • Architecture

Tools Tutorial Day: UX Microtalks, Part 2

  • Programming
  • UX
  • Ubisoft Montreal
  • Ubisoft Massive
  • Quel Solaar
  • Rebellion
  • Productivity

Tools Tutorial Day: A Tale of Three Data Schemas

  • Programming
  • Electronic Arts
  • Engine
  • Data
  • Workflows

Tools Tutorial Day: Playtesting ‘Overwatch’

  • Programming
  • Blizzard Entertainment
  • Pipeline
  • Playtesting
  • Iteration Times

Roundtables

Tools Design Roundtable Day 1: Design

  • Tool Design
  • UX
  • In-house Tools
  • Workflows

Tools Design Roundtable Day 2: Production

  • Production & Team Management
  • In-house Tools
  • Workflows

Technical Issues in Tools Development Roundtable Day 1: Process Day

  • Technologies
  • Best Practices
  • Asset Organization
  • Revision Control
  • CI
  • Automated Testing

Technical Issues in Tools Development Roundtable Day 2: Asset Day

  • Asset Optimization
  • Global Optimization
  • Pipeline
  • Build

Technical Issues in Tools Development Roundtable Day 3: Tools Day

  • Programming Languages
  • Frameworks
  • UX
  • UI

Technical Artist Roundtable Day 1

  • Pipeline
  • Asset Tracking
  • Tools
  • Scripting
  • Shaders

Technical Artist Roundtable Day 2

  • Pipeline
  • Asset Tracking
  • Tools
  • Scripting
  • Shaders

Technical Artist Roundtable Day 3

  • Pipeline
  • Asset Tracking
  • Tools
  • Scripting
  • Shaders

Machine Learning Roundtable Day 1: Neural Networks in Content Generation

  • Naughty Dog
  • Programming
  • Visual Arts
  • Deep Learning

Machine Learning Roundtable Day 3: Artificial Intelligence as a Creative Partner

  • Naughty Dog
  • Programming
  • Visual Arts
  • Deep Learning

The State of QA Roundtable Day 2: Tools

  • Production & Team Management
  • Testing
  • QA

Automated Testing Roundtable Day 1: Process

  • Programming
  • Production & Team Management
  • QA

Visual Effects Artist Roundtable Day 3: Technical Lens

  • Techniques
  • Approaches
  • Technology
  • Post Processing

Design

World Building with Architecture

  • Design
  • Environment
  • Narrative

‘West of Loathing’ Design Postmortem

  • Design
  • Process
  • Postmortem

Designing Unforgettable ‘Titanfall’ Single Player Levels with Action Blocks

  • Respawn Entertainment
  • Prototyping
  • Process

Visual Arts

The Animation Pipeline of ‘Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle’

  • Ubisoft Milan
  • Iteration Times
  • Pipeline
  • Prototype

Visual Effects Bootcamp: Autonomy in Real-Time Effects: Artist Driven Tools and Techniques for Large Scale Production

  • Epic Games
  • Blueprints

Ruins of the Reich: Debris and Rubbles Pipeline in ‘Wolfenstein 2’ with Substance Designer

  • MachineGames
  • Substance Tools
  • Pipeline
  • Asset Creation

Capturing Great Footage for Game Trailers

  • Camera
  • Trailer editor
  • Debug Tools

Artist Workflow Improved: Digital Content Creation Tools Roundtripping & Worldbuilding

  • Unity
  • World Building
  • Iteration Times

Repopulating the Earth: Character Production on ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’

  • Guerrilla Games
  • Best Practice
  • Content Creation

Computer Graphics

Frostbite GPU Emitter Graph System

  • Electronic Arts
  • Technical Design
  • Visual Effects

The Visual Effects Technology of ‘Destiny’

  • Bungie
  • Technical Design
  • Visual Effects

The Lighting Technology of ‘Detroit: Become Human’

  • Quantic Dream
  • Programming
  • Pipeline
  • Calibration
  • Validation

By Grabthar’s Hammer, What a Savings: Making the Most of Texture Memory with Sprite Dicing

  • Programming
  • Secret Lab
  • Optimization

Understanding Content Creators

Finding Inspiration: Tools for When You’re Stuck

  • Visual Arts
  • Design
  • Brainstorming
  • Process
  • Inspiration

Animation Bootcamp: Tricks of the Trade

  • Visual Arts
  • Tips & Tricks

Procedural Generation

Procedurally Generating History in ‘Caves of Qud’

  • Indie
  • Replacement Grammar

Procedural World Generation of ‘Far Cry 5’

  • Ubisoft
  • Tech Art
  • Open World
  • Level Art

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Procedural Islands of ‘Dauntless’

  • Tech Art
  • Houdini
  • Pipeline

Spline-Based Procedural Modeling in ‘Agents of Mayhem’

  • Volition
  • in-editor
  • Prototyping

Beyond Procedural Horizons: Exploring Different Uses of Procedural Content Generation

  • Ideas
  • Dialogue
  • Environment
  • Audio

Creating Photorealistic Procedural Materials with Substance Designer

  • Bungie
  • Workflow

Math for Game Programmers: Semi-Procedural Content Pipelines

  • Pipelines
  • human-AI collaborations

Production-Level Facial Performance Capture Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

  • Remedy Entertainment
  • facial motion
  • machine learning

Plot and Parcel: Procedural Level Design in ‘XCom 2’

  • Firaxis Games
  • procedural levels
  • level design

Math for Game Programmers: The Power of Procedural Recipes

  • Tips & Tricks
  • content

Math for Game Programmers: Staged Parametric Map Generation

  • Math
  • map generation

Math for Game Programmers: Digging with Perlin Worms

  • Math
  • map generation

Math for Game Programmers: Discrete Constructs in Endless Worlds

  • Math
  • map generation

Neural Networks

Deep Learning for Animation and Content Creation

  • Sponsored Session
  • NVIDIA

Deep Learning: Beyond the Hype

  • Programming
  • Electronic Arts
  • Toolbox

AI

Winding Road Ahead: Designing Utility AI with Curvature

  • Programming
  • ArenaNet
  • AI Design Tools

Building an Open-Ended Conversation System for Expressive Game Characters

  • AI Summit
  • Dialogue System
  • AI Design Tools

Pipeline

The Asset Build System of ‘Far Cry 5’

  • Programming
  • Ubisoft
  • Pipeline

‘Middle-earth: Shadow of War’: Asset Pipeline Growing Pains

  • Programming
  • Monolith Productions
  • Pipeline
  • Workflow
  • Lessons learned

Production Pipelines for HDR and Wide Color Assets

  • Sponsored Session
  • Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Production
  • Programming
  • Visual Arts

Tech Art

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Zen in the Art of Rigging

  • Avalanche Studios
  • Animator
  • Tips & Tricks

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Contributing to Open Source

  • Volition
  • Tips
  • Open Source

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Production Values: Improving Quality, Longevity and Scalability

  • Creative Assembly
  • Workflows
  • Tool Improvement
  • Pipeline

Technical Artist Bootcamp: Learning an Established Content Creation Pipeline, Workflow and Codebase

  • BioWare
  • bug-reporting
  • documentation
  • debugging

Audio

Reinventing the Sound for ‘Call of Duty: WWII’

  • Sledgehammer Games
  • Audio Production Tools
  • Development Practices

Making Good Tools for Making Great Audio

  • Echtra Inc.
  • Blizzard Entertainment
  • Productivity
  • Creativity

Audio Asset Management Tips and Tricks

  • Asset Management
  • Wwise

Production

Tech Toolbox

  • Indie
  • Tools
  • solutions

New Tools in Shotgun for Production Management in Games

  • Sponsored Session
  • Production & Team Management
  • Autodesk
  • Integration

Shotgun Case Studies: EA, Crystal Dynamics, and Ubisoft

  • Sponsored Session
  • Production & Team Management
  • Autodesk
  • Integration
  • Production & Team Management
  • Ubisoft Toronto
  • Prototyping
  • new IP

Autodesk Keynote: 3D Tools, Pipelines, and the Future

  • Sponsored Session
  • Production & Team Management
  • Autodesk
  • Integration
  • TD

15 Years of ‘Ratchet & Clank’: A Lombax Story

  • Production & Team Management
  • Insomniac Games
  • Learned Lessons
  • Process

Multi-Platform Production from Day Zero

  • Production & Team Management
  • Multi-Platform
  • Tips & Tricks
  • QA

Don’t Break the Chain: Maintaining Productivity on Your 19th Game

  • Independent Games Summit
  • Productivity

Animation Bootcamp: Bringing Life to the Machines of ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’

  • Guerrilla Games
  • Visual Arts
  • Pre-production
  • Prototyping
  • Process

Your Indie Game on Console: A Practical Guide to Porting

  • Independent Games Summit
  • Console

Autodesk and Unity: Better Interop for Collaborative Game Development

  • Sponsored Session
  • Production & Team Management
  • Autodesk
  • Integration

Production and Pipeline Management, Shared Learning from the Trenches

  • Sponsored Session
  • Sponsored Session
  • Production & Team Management
  • Autodesk
  • Pipeline

Adopting Continuous Delivery

  • Production & Team Management
  • automated testing
  • practices

QA

Automated Testing and Profiling for ‘Call of Duty’

  • Programming
  • Production
  • Activision
  • CI
  • Build

‘Horizon Zero Dawn’: A QA Open World Case Study

  • Production
  • Guerrilla Games
  • Automation

AI-Driven QA: Simulating Massively Multiplayer Behavior for Debugging Games

  • Cygames
  • Machine Learning
  • Logs
  • Framework

‘Assassin’s Creed Origins’: Monitoring and Validation of World Design Data

  • Ubisoft Montreal
  • automated testing
  • debug

‘Horizon Zero Dawn’: Using Automated Tools to Support Testing an Open World Game

  • Poster Session
  • Production & Team Management
  • Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • QA
  • Automation

Programming

Terrain Rendering in ‘Far Cry 5’

  • Programming
  • Ubisoft

Walking, Talking, and Projectiles: Storytelling Tools in ‘Destiny 2’

  • Programming
  • Bungie
  • Visual Scripting

Rebuilding Your Engine During Development: Lessons from ‘Mafia III’

  • Programming
  • Hangar 13 Games
  • Production & Team Management
  • Lessons Learned

A Practical Approach to Developing Forward-Facing Rigs, Tools and Pipelines

  • Programming
  • Creative Assembly
  • Plugin Architecture
  • Metadata

Build Great Tools: Workflow Guidelines from Vicarious Visions

  • Programming
  • Vicarious Visions
  • Development Workflow
  • Design Strategies

Source Code Management for Game Devs

  • Sponsored Session
  • SCM

VR/AR

You will need a VRDC@GDC Add On Pass

Explorations in XR Creation Tools

  • Unity
  • XR
  • Editor