The AIE and Qantm are known as THE places to go to learn all about game developing in Australia, but Universities are gradually becoming the new alternative...
"The thriving computer games industry in Australia is being taken up by the education sector, with new courses springing up.
Sturt University in Bathurst, NSW, began a Bachelor of Computer Science (games technology) in 2001 to a healthy student demand. Senior lecturer in computing and course coordinator for games technology at the…
Justin Green, CEO of Evolution Games, held a seminar at the Australian Games Developer Conference where he gives some insightful knowledge and tips for those of who want to start a game developement company. Thanks to Dominik (for transcribing the lecture and sending it to us), we're able to have it up on Sumea for those of you who are thinking of heading up your own developement studio! Read it all here.
Sumea Launchpad has been over 12 months of unpaid development (website design and backend/administration) and maintenance (news updates, and website optimisations/fixes). It is currently running on a small hosting plan that is paid from my own pocket. As you can tell from the lack of banners and pop up ads, Sumea receives no revenue for its service, and is run at great personal expense. It has been a labour of love, and was never intended to make money, nor was it expected to have grown as big…
Sidhe Interactive have some goodies for you to download...
"A prototype of next years NRL based Rugby League game has now been made available to the public. Featuring basic rugby league action between Telstra Premiership grand finalists the Sydney Roosters and the New Zealand Warriors, the prototype provides an early view of the potential of the game."
NRL has a download page, where you can also find many questions answered about the game. Click here.
Ingaming.com have written up their 3 day experience at the Australian Games Developer Conference. The article briefly describes the keynotes they attended with Tantalus, Dr Ray Muzyka, Lars, along with Xbox live, and Nvidia presentations. A very short article, although they promise a more detailed look later on. They have a few pictures of the speakers and their slides there, so head on over for a look!
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…
Gamespy had a preview of Blue Tongue's Jurrasic Park : Operation Genesis a week back, and now it's IGN's turn.. As usual, they discuss the theme park building nature of the game, but also give praise on the art...
"Initially, I was most impressed with the flora. Trees and tall grass move very realistically and the texture work is superb. But as the trees are pushed aside and a massive dinosaur comes running through, you'll soon see that the dinosaurs are the best-looking thing in the game. You…
Microforte have put up a new website for their BigWorld Technology. You can find licensing details, press releases, and lots of other information on their impressive MMORPG middleware. View it all at www.bigworldgames.com.
Things are definately not looking good for Vivendi Universal. The no. 2 publisher of PC games worldwide with titles such as the Half-Life, Diablo, Warcraft and Tribes series, and movies such as "The Scorpion King" and "A Beautiful Mind" seems to be pulling a Worldcom, fudging it's financial reports to boost up share prices.
"Vivendi Universal, the Franco-American media giant and parent company of games labels including Blizzard and Vivendi Universal Game, has had its headquarters in Paris…
Gamenation reports a new show on computer and console games is set to appear on our tvs, starting this Sunday. Ratbag will also be making an appearance in there! It's only half an hour long, and there are only two shows mentioned, but hey, it's better than nothing..
"Control Freaks will premiere on Sunday 15th and 22nd December 2002 at 12.00 Noon on Channel 7. The show is Australia?s only TV programme dedicated to computer and video games and covers all the latest news and big titles in the…