Scotts AGDC 2002 Trip

LECTURES

Listed below are the lectures I attended and my thoughts.

Nip and Tuck - PS2 Clipping and Culling

Tony Albrecht & Dan Glastonbury - RatBag
This was probably my favourite seminar of the show, because it was no nonsense tech. Tony Albrecht kicked off talking about culling techniques. Most of the techniques discussed are common knowledge to gamedev programmers, but I picked up a few gems during the talk. For example, having never made large scenes containing many objects, I never considered fading far away objects into view. This is an oft used technique in games, and although it is happening right in front of your face, no one notices... until they are told. ;)

Dan Glastonbury picked up and discussed clipping techniques, delving as deep as to discuss equations briefly. To illustrate their point, they navigated a cityscape scene populated with many buildings, trees et cetera.

The highlight of the talk was when Tony flew out of the scene to show the water effects around the island. He drew attention to the reflection of buildings on the water, before flying beneath the scene to show that the buildings geometry was actually under the landscape to hack the water effect. On this point he mused "bloody artists".

State Announcements QLD

Bill Walker - Senior Policy Officer
Being from QLD and investigating the possibility of a startup company, I thought it prudent to see what initiatives the QLD government was putting into place to give us a headstart.

About halfway through the talk I realised that I wasn't going to hear what I wanted to hear. The Queensland smart state strategy is to pump money into education... offering scholarships to Queenslanders showing promise in game development. Having won one of these scholarships myself, and having completed the course to become an unemployed guy who is good at gamedev and not much else, I was interested to see what incentives there were for people like me on the other end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, Bill Walker didn't have anything to say about this, and when pressed he fell back on his beaurocratic skills and decided to talk lots about nothing.

As an aside, if you are interested in funding yourself, look into the "New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS)" (http://www-siqacc.indelta.com.au/neis.htm).

Basically if you get this, you can get your dole in 1 lump payment, and you don't have to look for jobs. Thats fine but as we discovered, you can only have 2 people in your company to receive this initiative. I talked to another member of a startup who was the 3rd person in the company. I'm not sure why this silly rule exists, as it makes this "incentive" useless to those not interested in doing some "creative business" just to get their dole payments.

The Making of Neverwinter Nights - From Conception to Completion

Dr Raymond Muzyka - Joint CEO BioWare Corp
Neverwinter Nights has been one of my favourite games recently, so I took great pleasure in attending this lecture and learning how BioWare got such a content heavy game out the door.

It was interesting to discover that Ray Muzyka, on of the cofounders of BioWare was a medical doctor before deciding to start the company with another doctor (BioWare... it makes sense now).

Probably the most amazing fact that I took away from this lecture as that during the production of Baldurs Gate, BioWare had a team of 50, and none of those 50 had worked on a game before that time.

Ray made the point that someone interested in Game Design should get hands on and work on mods. Game ideas are nice, but they are a small part of the job. At BioWare, they won't accept a portfolio for a design job unless it contains a Neverwinter Nights modification, as game designers are expected to use the inhouse tools. Humourously, after undergoing a rigourous interviewing process, potential BioWare designers are put in a room and given 8 hours to come up with a new idea for a mod to be completed in the alotted time.

Battlefiled 1942: A Developers Diary from the Trenches

Lars Gustavsson, Producer, DICE
This lecture was a real hoot. Lars from "Snowy Sweden" is a cool guy. Probably the best bit about his talk were the funny movies he showed starring Battlefield soldiers. He showed the DICE internal self promotioncompany history video, which shows the Battlefield soldiers (DICE founders) dancing in a club before coming up with an idea for a "pinball spiel". It was very entertaining stuff, and I wonder if we can find those videos floating around the internet.

Lars talked about decisions that had to be made and some of the design tradeoffs that had to be made on Battlefield 1942, most notably the inclusion of "climbing into vehicle" animations which had to be scrapped due to their feasibility.

Lars also touched on the point that it was wise to get the game playable as soon as possible, to solve design issues early on.

Design Roundtable

Ray Muzyka
In this freshly announced roundtable moderated by Ray, one single point sticks in my mind as being worth mentioning. Someone posed a question about using game prototypes to build a complete game on. Ray responded by saying that they originally tried this approach but quickly learned that the code became messy and unusable, and the game became unstable. Its a much better idea to prototype your ideas, and then dispose of your code and start again.

As one of my old trainers Christian Schladetsch said, "don't get emotionally attached to your code".

So throw away prototypes when you're done.

The Business of being a Start Up

Justin Green - Evolution Games
I thought this lecture was so valuable that I wrote notes on my virgin free AGDC notepad. Here's what I got from Justin:

SET GOALS. Determine the feasibility our your goals.

For your pitch to a publisher, remember what you are selling, keep a close eye on your products competition and differentiate yourself based on your strengths.

Justin talked briefly about Original IP (Intellectual Property) vs existing licenses, making the point that original IP requires a fully detailed design, while a license pitch should focus on what value you can add to the existing license.

Communication is important. Constantly manage your scope.

Risk management is vital. Justin also went on to say that you should share your problems early, lest they fester and bring a whole project down when they rare up and hit the radar too late. Even if you are talking to your publisher, share your problems, and they can help you. Its also a good way to develop a repore with a publisher.

Justin also mentioned some avenues to explore when attempting a startup:

- Peer support
- Industry Associations
- Professional Developers
- Mentor programs
- Government Assistance
- Reference books

He also offered that a business plan is important (mission statements help remind you of what you're doing), and offered the resource found at www.sd.qld.gov.au

I also sketched a little dragon. :)

Flexible Engine Design for Multiple Platforms

Sean Hammond - Evolution Games
I didn't really take too much away from this lecture that I didn't already have as not much of the tech was revealed, rather some high level concepts for design. Most of these ideas I felt were common sense to programmers.

The main message I took away was the importance of a flexible engine Design for multiple platforms to ensure the safety of the game should a console you're developing for no longer be "the shit" in 12 months time.

Another thought to be pondered is that although it is possible for a game developed with such an engine to be published on multiple platforms, it shouldn't be assumed that it will. In the retail climate, shelf space is valuable and 2 copies of the same game won't necessarily be desired.

Introducing Playstation 2 to PC Programmers

David Carter - SCEE Ltd
I was scared. Programming for the PS2 is very low level. As Dan Glastonbury from Ratbag said in his lecture, writing for the PS2 is fine, once you get over the fact that you're a device driver writer.

In short, the PS2 is very powerful in the way it works if you use the hardware correctly, but its an extra layer of challenge added.

Personally, I think that the Xbox strategy of making a platform that closely resembles a PC making it possible to port to Xbox in a day or 2 will see lots of games hitting the Xbox and perhaps tipping it towards being the most successful console. Until that time though, those who have mastered the PS2 beast will get all the money. :)

Inside Xbox Live

Pete Isensee - Microsoft - Xbox
I was blown away by this talk. Microsoft showed off Xbox Live, the broadband multiplayer aspect of the Xbox. It was just awesome, and it made me want to develop for the Xbox immediately. The Xbox crew seem to have it all stitched up in terms of support and options for developers. They handle security and billing systems for you, and it is possible for developers to release their game incrementally by adding new features, weapons, levels... whatever and using the inbuilt billing system to charge for it.

The Xbox Live kit also comes with a headset, as they want players to communicate via speech. A cool feature that was demonstrated was "avatar voices". Much like the filters that come with the soundblaster LIVE stuff, modifiers can be applied to the players voice in realtime, making them sound like monsters, little kids etc. How this technology is used is also up to the developer. Many cool possibilities.

Its just a shame that Australia sucks so bad when it comes to telecommunications and broadband support. Hopefully things will change soon.

It's Only a Game?

Laura Fryer - Director, XBox Advanced Technology Group
In this lecture, Laura Fryer got back to basics and looked at what a game actually is. She pressed the importance of games in society, for their cathartic value, and the bonding that can be done playing games.

In respect to the bonding aspect, Laura mentioned the difference between console gamers, and PC gamers.

When a console gamer gets a new game, they invite some friends over and play each other.

When a PC gamer gets a new game, they lock themselves in their room and kill people. Although this may seem antisocial, it needn't be, as gamers are able to relate their ingame experiences to each other. To this end, Laura mentioned the importance of the depth of the universe in games, allowing players to get lost in the world, although she warned that depth does not make a bad game good, but depth makes a good game great.

Simulation, Emulation and the Game Design/Development Process

Doug Church - Ion Storm
Doug Church didn't turn up after the previous nights party. BOOOO Ion Storm! John Romero where were you?

I left this lecture in disgust. >:(

General Design Roundtable

Lars Gustavsson
In this roundtable, Lars mentioned that in a good design there should be contingency measures written into the design documents. For example in Battlefield 1942, if "climbing into vehicle" animations can't be done, make the character pop into the vehicle.

The point was also made that programmers are designers best friends and worst enemies at the same time, as programmers offer a reality check. Its a good idea to check the design over with a programmer early and often to ensure that the game is actually feasible.

It was also mentioned that if you are interested in designing for MMORPGS, you should be playingmaking MUDs.

I remember something about jellyfish too.

Guys sharing their battle stories

Ratbag guy, Ray Muzyka, John De Margheriti, Krome guy
In this impromptu lecture, some gamedev guy shared their strange tales. These were very entertaining indeed. I'll try to relate some of them, but perhaps you had to be there...

John told how he got started working in a game store and responding to a customers request to make a demo of a potential game. They didn't have a computer at the time (a C64), so they spent $3000 to get one. They had but a weekend to make the demo, so they rotated programmers taking turns sleeping. In the end, they completed the demo and got a contract... and returned the PC to the shop.

John also shared a story about approaching a publisher for funding on a project with the costs for the complete development. The publisher asked if the figure was for a months production, so they said yes... and the next month? the same... surely they couldn't get away with such large figures? They did.

Ratbag guy and Krome guy also shared 2 stories that were similar, about impressing visiting publishers by hiring offices for a weekend, and hiring actors to pretend to be programmers.

Ratbag guy also related a story about E3 and staying in the cheapest crappiest hotel possible the night before the show, impressing publishers, and getting driven in a limo to a classy hotel the very next night after the show.

BOOTHS

Hail
Hail was a game developed by students of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. Having attended QANTM, a rival gamedev training organisation, I was interested to see what our peers could come up with. I was initially impressed by it all. It looked good, it didn't crash too often, it moved, it worked... cool.

I was a little blown away when talking to their trainers... for Hail they had a team of 20:

5 programmers, 15 artists, and 7 MONTHS IN DEVELOPMENT!!!

7 MONTHS!!! What were you doing guys? For our QANTM projects, Ethan Watson and I managed to kick out something that looked the same in 6 weeks. 7 MONTHS!!! Bah. Although I must say the game was pretty cool, I'm glad that QANTM took the approach of letting us work on our own games, and many of them. I think during the course I made 4 games of varying quality and scope... from PONG to a 3rd person shooter.

Anyway, enough pimping. :)

QANTM
HOORAY QANTM! I saw my game screenshots in their slideshow and it made my day. Michael Sobek is also the champ. I got a free QANDOM, the QANTM pen with a rubber nipple on the end. Very cool. QANTM is still the best place to go to train for a career in gamedev... and if you live in Queensland you can try for a scholarship. :)))

Maya I got free T Shirts from Maya people... every time their staff changed I would go back and get another free Tshirt. It seems that the Maya people are pushing to kill Max and become the gamedev tool of choice. Maya is now cheaper than Max at $2000.

atomic
I saw Ben Mansill.

Auran
Auran unveiled their new initiative... www.nextyearsgame.com a competition to make people use Auran Jet. The prizes seem good, so I may have a crack at the competition. I made a demo with Jet when it first came out and I didn't like it too much, but hey, prizes? We'll see.

Game Competition
Some fly shit here. I wasn't expecting this level of quality. The game that won the competition was an interesting 3rd person DJ game where the player trips in a space like arena filled with stuff. They can walk on stuff from different angles adding a whole new dimension to the playfield. When they get stuff, the music changes, so the cooler you get, the cooler the music gets. Another game I saw that impressed me was a car game. I know how hard rigid body physics are, and these guys did it very well. I hope people appreciated their cleverness.

PARTIES

This year, MicroForte hosted a party on The Polly Woodside, a ye olde pirate ship. It was a pretty cool night.

The first obstacle was actually boarding the ship. Pretty much everyone followed the boardwalk that ran adjacent to the ship but didn't actually get anywhere near it.

Being a staff party, the drinks were managed in a responsible manner (everyone got a punchcard with a 5 drink allowance, 1 food and 1 alcoholic slushie). This was probably just as well considering that lectures started early the next morning.

Most of the party was located on the dock next to the ship (gamedevers are LANDLUBBERS!!!), although there was much action on the lower levels of the vessel.

Down below MicroForte demoed their BigWorld technology with a playable 3rd person demo. The demo ran well and showed a character running around on a heightfield terrain. I also noticed that players were able to enter interior areas with no transition.

The graphics were not too bad for a "thrown together demo", with some pretty trees and grass effects.

Unfortunately, being a single player demo it offered little indication as to the potential of the technology as a base for MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games). As an aside I got word that MicroForte are looking for technical support writersproviders for the BigWorld technology. ;)

There were also 2 XBox stations, one running Splinter Cell, and one running some racing car game that I don't care about.

Further inspection of the Polly Woodside lower decks revealed an entire level filled with logs. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do here, so I quickly moved on.

Towards starboard on the lower decks was a sealed room. Through the small window I could see a TV and DVD player sitting there. Perhaps this was a competition, but soon I gave up on this also, as I couldn't reach the devices.

At 11:00 we were all evicted from the site. Regrettably, I was unable to redeem my alcoholic slushie as the stand had closed. I've since tried to redeem it with my punchcard at some Brisbane bars, but with no sucess.

Sony Delegate Cocktail Party

On Saturday (the second day of the show), Sony hosted a cocktail party. This was my favourite event at the AGDC, as they challenged me to drink as much free beer as I could in only 1 hour.

The place was packed with pretty much all AGDC attendees, as well as some sneaky lanners.

There were tables with a fine assortment of dips, strange prawn things in spoony ladles... and PS2 condoms. Yep, with the food there were PS2 condoms. On the packaging it showed 4 condoms, each with a different PS2 controller symbol (eg triangle, X..).

I'm not sure why these were placed near the dip, but they were a prized commodity and disappeared quickly. (what would nerdy game developers need with all of those condoms?)

I was disappointed on further inspection to find that the condoms were actually of normal shape, rather than the kooky sony designs shown on the packaging.

During the proceedings, our attention was called to the stage where the competitions were drawn... PS2 games and goodies.

After about an hour, the party came to an end, the "hey you, beer guy"s started avoiding everyone, and it was time to stumble back to the hotel.

Melbourne

Having never been to Melbourne before I had no idea what to expect. On arriving, I wasn't too impressed with my surroundings. The weather was shitty, sleety and cold. This was a rather nice change coming from hot sticky Brisbane weather though. Unfortunately as a result, there were no hot sticky girls walking around. My AGDC roommate, Ben Vale (members.optusnet.com.au/~lava_monkey/) had no idea that it would be cold in Melbourne, so he packed nothing but T-Shirts. He ended up wearing all of his TShirts at once. I was laughing.

We ended up staying at Hotel Enterprize (www.asiatravel.com/australia/hotelenterprize/), which was about 5 minutes walk from the AGDC. It also happened to be the cheapest hotel available. the rooms were pretty small, but comfortable. We stayed in a twin share room, which was in fact 2 small rooms with a wall missing. Just to be classy, we snuck a 3rd person in to stay with us. Since we only had 2 beds, 1 of us had to sleep on the wooden support part of the bed while the top matress was thrown on the floor. We decided that that person was Ethan, but after some complaining we decided it was fair to rotate so we all had a night on the "shit bed". It was indeed a shit bed.

We had some fun and games on checking in to the hotel as well. Apparently the AGDC (who was handling our bookings) booked our room, but forgot to forward the first nights rent we made as a deposit. As a result the snooty french reception woman gave us a hard time. After pointing at her face and talking loudly, we convinced her to call the AGDC, and after some running around it was all settled. The fact that we weren't allowed to check in until 12:00 also chapped our asses as we got in at just before 8 that morning.

After a few hours at the AGDC, we decided to head off for food. After wandering around for about an hour we came to the stark realization that there weren't any junkfood places around... just fancy cafes. Luckily we chanced upon a McDonalds that kept us going. John Passfield also suggested we try a noodle shop around the corner from the AGDC, but we never found it.

On the second night we were mighty sick of McDonalds (and mighty sick from the free beer at the Cocktail Party) so we decided to try a pizza from next door. We thought that $15 for a crappy pizza was a bit much, but it was worth it just to watch Ben discover that he didn't like anchoves.

On the last day after the AGDC had ended, we went exploring. We discovered nothing worth mentioning, except the SBS building which looks like a junk heap. After we discovered that we weren't allowed to see Des Mangan (the guy that introduces the Saturday Night Cult Movies... our favourite guy of all time) we moved on to have dinner at some anonymous cafear called something stupid like "The Melbourne Bar!". The food was bad, and being keen on sampling the Melbourne nighlife, we were disgusted to find the bar closing shortly after our meal.

Ethan went back to the hotel, and Ben and I set about searching for a bar. We decided to to take a gamble, and have a look at the Crown Casino... BOY DID OUR CARD COME IN (or whatever chainsmoking whitetrash gamblers say)!!!

On exploring the complex, we found that everything good about Melbourne that we couldn't find was housed under the one roof. Junkfood places, hot sticky girls, and the bars! After exploring the game arcades (the likes of which I've never seen... its an arcadeamusement park), we found a nifty concept bar called BarCode.

BarCode is a bargaming arcade, not a bad idea at all. We kept coming back to this place during the course of the night. Although BarCode was a good idea, we proved that gaming and drinking are two passtimes best kept seperate.

After 20 scotches under our belts, we found ourselves having a whirl at Sega Rally while holding even more scotches. Unfortunately, we didn't realise that the cockpit moved with the game. It became a game of skill and chance to pilot the cars while balancing our drinks. Unfortunately we failed. After spilling most of our drinks and not making a single lap, one of Bens ill-fated scotches left balancing on the cockpit fell into the speaker and made bad noises. At this point we solemnly left. I guess the lesson there was that you shouldn't drink and drive. ;)

We also sampled many of the other bars and nightclubs, finding the sportsbar to be our scene. Being a game developer, I find sports repugnant, but the beer was cold, the screens were big, and the wrestling was on. The general noise level was low as well, letting us kick back and talk. Unfortunately, this place closed early and we were forced upstairs to the fancier nightclubs.

After paying $10 admission to get into a club starting with M (sorry, I was drunk at the time), we were mortified to discover that we had stumbled across an OLD PEOPLES CLUB!!! The club was populated with frumpy older couples dancing badly. They also had a smoke machine which spewed out all too much smoke. The wrinkly revellers must have thought this "charming", as they took great delight at standing in the choking smoke and assuming their favourite rockstar pose. This wasn't to our liking at all so we quickly left.

Lastly we came across an RnB club. Ben and I are not fans of the RnB genre at all, but there seemed to be lots of girls going in, so we payed the $13 covercharge to have a look. I'm pretty sure that all of the hot girls in Melbourne were in this club. It was pretty packed. On stage, there was some rapper with glasses and a hanky on his head making funny noises like Shaggy. Regardless of this, it was a pretty cool scene. This can mostly be attributed to the awesome dancing girls on stage. Ben and I stood dumbstruck watching this spectacle until the foxy biatches were whisked off stage.

In true game nerd style, Ben and I ended up in the poorly lit "lovers lane" section of the club talking loudly about industry trends and general nerdy stuff while couples were making out around us.

Thats all I remember of that night. Anything else Ben says is a DAMNED LIE!

Thus that concludes my account of the AGDC 2002. Below are my top 10 tips for enjoying AGDC 2003.

3. Buy Scott a scotch.
4. Go with at least 1 friend.. everyone sticks to their own usually.
5. If you're a student, don't bother the delegate guys too much, its their holiday.
6. If you're a student, replace your student tag with a delegate one and bother the delegates.
7. If you're not from Melbourne, the crazy bastards turn right from the left lane. !!!
8. Buy Scott a scotch.
9. Steal free stuff. When the free stuff booths change staff, steal free stuff.
10. Buy your AGDCPlane tickets EARLY to save $$$.

(Thanks to Scott for writing his personal account of the AGDC, especially from us who couldn't be there!

You can find more about the AGDC at: Australian Games Developer Conference website) Discuss or comment on this article in the forum!