A Preview of GDC
GDC has several tools centered talks this year, and I wanted to give everyone a heads up about a few of them (especially because searching for “tool’ or “tools” brings up every session that wants to give you the tools to succeed).
First, as happens every year, John Walker will be hosting his usual Technical Issues in Tools Development roundtable. John is an excellent roundtable moderator, and the discussions are always excellent. This year, John has smartly put in specialized topics for discussion each day, so you can know which day to go if you’re specifically interested in one topic. If you’re interested, you can view prior year’s notes on these round tables at the IGDA Tools SIG wiki, located here.
In addition to John’s roundtable, Jeff Hanna will be hosting the Technical Artist Roundtable, which very frequently talks about tools and tools design for artists.
On the lecture front, our own Geoff Evans will be giving a lecture on The Tech Behind the Tools of Insomniac Games. Geoff has already posted a little bit about this, and I’m sure the talk will be excellent.
Other talks that looked potentially interesting to tools developers:
- When Good AI Goes Bad: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for Testing and Debugging AI
- Two pipeline talks from Gears of War 2, one on the cinematic pipeline and the other on the character pipeline.
- A talk on test tools called Test Tools Potluck, which won’t talk about development of the tools, but may give you a good idea of how tools can improve your testing process.
Lastly, but most importantly, I will be hosting a round table specifically to talk about the Tools SIG and our plans for the next year. I really want to encourage everyone to come out to this round table so we can get ideas and focus our initiatives over the next year. I also want to get an idea of who would be interested in helping with the many ideas for white papers and community contributions that have been floated on our discussion list in years past. So, if you’re free during that time, please make an effort to come out and support the SIG.
Anyone else know of any tools talks happening at GDC this year? Specifically talks on build process? They seem to be very lacking this year.