All Sessions
Sessions confirmed so far:
Creating Drama from Script to Gameplay
Tameem Antoniades, Ninja Theory
In Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory, Weta Digital and Andy Serkis collaborated to bring performance capture to video games for the first time. With the simultaneous voice, body and facial capture for up to five actors, the techniques pioneered by that collaboration are now being used in major Hollywood movies. Using Heavenly Sword as an example, this session covers the creative process from initial story and script development, through to casting, rehearsals, filming, editing and the subsequent work required to create the final in-game real-time cutscenes. The session is especially geared for designers, creative directors, directors, producers and writers.
ART & ANIMATION SESSION
Why we Sold our Studio – and Why we Didn't
Sarah Chudley, Bizarre Creations, Ian Baverstock, Kuju Entertainment, Michael French, Intent Media, Paul Wedgwood, Splash Damage
A candid discussion about selling up or staying free of three of the top UK developers explore the pressures and opportunities that can lead to agreeing to a studio´s acquisition. Sarah Chudley of Bizarre Creations explains why the Liverpool-based company fell for the charms of Activision, while Ian Baverstock, CEO of multi-site Kuju makes the case for remaining independent. After many years in development, both should have an idea about the potential pitfalls in the others' strategy!
BUSINESS LECTURE
DESIGN KEYNOTE
Why the Future is Brighter than Ever
David Braben, Frontier
The talk will look at the wide range of fantastic opportunities that are now available, typified by contrasting games like The Outsider and LostWinds, come together to make this a fantastic time for games development.
The talk will look at the approach we took to bringing LostWinds to market, and what we have learnt from this process.
DESIGN KEYNOTE
The Truth About Developing Video Games On Time
Andrew Eades, Relentless Software
Abstract to follow.
BUSINESS SESSION
Stop Guessing, You're Crap At It: Design and Production by Numbers
Caspar Field, Relentless Software
Metrics is one of the industry’s buzzwords, but what does it really mean for you and your game? How can you use metrics to quickly gather a mountain of useful data – and once you’ve got it, what the hell do you do with it? This talk will show you some concrete, practical examples of metrics at work and play, using simple tools such as XML, Excel, and one of those internet-things.
PRODUCTION LECTURE
How To Make Children Cry
Jonathan Smith, Traveller's Tales
Children love games more than you do. You’ve got other things to think about in your life – work; responsibilities; a generalized gnawing sense of disappointment in the world – but nothing fills the head of a child more completely than play. These modern games, you’ve seen them all before, and effortlessly draw comparisons with 8-bit precedents - but they’re having fresh experiences with every button press, playing games they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Children love games… but games don’t love them back. In fact, it often seems that games set out deliberately to make children cry. Why is this? And what classic techniques can you utilize to ensure that your games, like so many others, upset and frustrate young players? Drawing upon video interviews with a range of children, and case studies from his work on LEGO games, Jonathan Smith reveals all these secrets – and more…
DESIGN LECTURE
Movies Aren’t Our Friends
Matt Southern, Evolution
There has never been a ‘mainstream’ videogame. After 30 years of existence we stand poised to start truly delivering them, but only if we stop envying movies and play to our true strengths. This session is about identifying those strengths and using other forms of culture as tools to improve what we do. It uses scholarly forms of understanding popular culture, and in doing so tries to argue that academic theorists and researchers - long stereotyped as being insular and irrelevant - can help us head towards becoming the dominant form of art and entertainment in this century that we all know we can be. Scholars are our friends…movies aren’t.
DESIGN SESSION
Secrets, Exclusives & Lies
Ste Curran, Zoe Mode
Games Journalism vs Game Development: FIGHT! Sell-out Ste Curran looks at games journalism, games development, the line that separates the two and what happens when you stumble across it. How do journalists think games get made, and what do game developers really think goes on inside games magazines? Features real life examples of past incompetence from the speaker's personal history and working examples from veterans either side of the battle line.
WORLD VIEW SESSION
One Life Left
Ste Curran, Simon Byron, Ann Scantlebury
One Life Left is Britain's Favourite Gaming Radio Show! It's also still, seventy-odd episodes in, Europe's only Gaming Radio Show and continues to regularly top the iTunes gaming podcast rankings, makings friends and enemies worldwide. It's presented by Ste Curran, Simon Byron and News Fox Ann Scantlebury, and it's back for its third appearance at the Develop conference, featuring news, features, reviews, special guests and competitions. One Life Left's session promises not just to be literally broadcastable but literally broadcasted, live on Eurogamer.Net. br />
LUNCH SESSION
The Opinion Jam 3.0
Ste Curran, Zoe Mode
Ten industry luminaries railing against the system, three minutes apiece, barely competent hosts and a rowdy crowd fired up by the crisp sea air and the thought of booze: welcome to The Opinon Jam, where you're all devil's advocates and the cowering competitor at the front is just another fool begging for destruction. Ste Curran leads the baying mob. Previous winners: Katie Ellwood vs Air Conditioning; Ellie Gibson vs Women in Games. Who's next?
LUNCH SESSION
Before Pixels and Polygons: Using Traditional Art Techniques to Guide Technology
Cumron Ashtiani, Midway Newcastle
Cumron Ashtiani, studio Art Director at Midway, talks about the use of traditional art techniques to guide the creative development of games.,Starting with initial concept, mood sheets and architectural design through to illustrating key mission moments and special FX using techniques such as paintovers and video reference to guide the artists and designers during production.,This talk is designed to help concept artists, lead artists and art directors share and maintain the project vision with their colleagues and teams.,,This talk is aimed at anyone who is interested in art direction and conceptual design. br />
ART & ANIMATION SESSION
Game Censorship in Britain: What really happened with Manhunt 2, and why your game could be next
Vincent Scheurer, Sarassin LLP
A conference, compressed: Ten industry luminaries put their ludicrous opinions under a stress test. Each makes a three-minute speech with as much composure as they can muster, then tries to defend their point under crossfire questioning from their fellow competitiors and the Opinion Jam Devil's Advocate. The winner? The speaker who converts the most people to their lunatic fringe. A new, improved, unnecessarily complex scoring system and thrilling audience interaction make the Opinion Jam an essential choice for attendees whose attention spans have been ruined by video games.
BUSINESS SESSION
An Introduction IP Management and Discovery
William Latham, Games Audit Ltd
Cash in the attic is nothing in comparison to the very real cash that could be sitting in your development company in the form of unprotected intellectual property and copyrights. This presentation will discuss how to carry out an IP audit, how to assess the value of potential IP, patents and copyrights as well as detailing the next steps in the road to intellectual property protection.
BUSINESS SESSION
Engineering Mood and Atmosphere with Light
Dr. Chris Doran, Geomerics
Lighting is universally recognised as one of the key tools for controlling mood and atmosphere in film. In this talk Chris Doran and Ivan Pedersen will discuss how techniques from film cinematography can be applied in games. Whether you are using entirely pre-baked static lighting, or are including dynamic lighting effects at run-time, light, shadow and colour are the main tools for controlling mood in a virtual world. In the past, the technical limitations imposed by hardware have forced developers into a series of uneasy compromises when it comes to lighting their games. But with the arrival of the PS3 and Xbox360 we finally have enough power at our disposal to compute far more compelling and dynamic lighting models. So far, the creative possibilities that this brings are not being fully exploited in games. In this talk we will describe some of the main techniques used in film-making, from flashing lights in corridors in Alien, to the coloured lights of Blade Runner, through to the stark mood lighting of film noire. In each case we will show a simple real-time demo of the same effect, powered by the Enlighten engine. Our goal is to show that with skilful use of lighting, it is possible to create worlds which hang together in a coherent way, and simultaneously transmit a mood to the player. Whether this is used to transmit a feeling of foreboding, calmness, exhilaration or fun is then down to the designer.
ART & ANIMATION SESSION
Snakes! : Implementing Python In Your Game Engine
Doug Wolff, Eutechnyx
This lecture shows how we integrated the stackless flavour of the powerful scripting language python into our game engine. It discusses issues with scripting in general, Python, and finally stackless Python. It covers how we were able to control performance and memory costs on next-gen hardware whilst still running large numbers of agents in a large game world. It also includes the production benefits of this approach. br />
CODING SESSION
At Least We Aren't Doing That: Finding and Fixing Real Life Next Gen Performance Mistakes
Allan Murphy, Microsoft
Everyone is in the same boat, facing similar performance issues. This presentation will draw on the unique perspective of Microsoft's XDC proactive engineering group to present an across the board survey of the performance issues even the very best developers run into, how you can find those problems, and how you can fix them. Applicable primarily to Xbox360, but translating well to PS3 and even high end PC, this set of mini-case studies forms a next-gen post-mortem which will help developers decide where to focus optimisation effort, and ultimately, reassure you're going the right way.
CODING SESSION
Sticking Atmospheric Scattering where the Sun don't Shine
Damiano Iannetta, Rare
High definition gaming demands high quality rendering and the stunning visuals that real-time atmospheric scattering provides can be extremely breathtaking... when done right.,While the mathematical theory isn't the heaviest, making the jump to an artist friendly, configurable and expandable system can be a much more testing process. In this session, Damiano describes his experiences implementing real-time atmospheric scattering at Rare the nuances of implementation, creating a robust system, delivering a usable interface to artists and, with an understanding of what the scattering equations are actually doing, how to abuse the maths to extend the effect further.
CODING SESSION
Physical Gaming and Cameras: Out of the Lab and into the Living Room
Diarmid Campbell, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Diarmid talks about camera-based games such as those using the EyeToy and the PlayStation Eye. He looks at many different techniques that can applied to analysing video images such as image differencing, optical flow, chamfer matching and face tracking. He explains how they work, ways in which they can be used as a game mechanic and where they can fail. The presentation will be illustrated with plenty of videos and live demos to keep you awake. It looks at techniques from past games but also those from games currently in development and those on the horizon.
CODING SESSION
Creatives and how to get the best out of them
Paul Barnett, Electronic Arts
What are creative people, how do you spot them, what are they like. The pit falls and problems they cause, the challenges and trouble they generate. How to make them happy and productive, how to focus them to help you make money rather than cause chaos. How to communicate with them and understand what they are saying. The ten things you need to remember about them.
PRODUCION SESSION
Minimizing to Maximize: Harnessing Accessibility to Strengthen Game Design and Brand Identity
Tommy Francois, UbiSoft
Accessibility is not about making games easy. It´s about enabling our target audience to experience what we had designed for them to experience. Examples from both the industry and from day-to-day life can provide us with the necessary elements to design games that players can understand and find challenging, whatever their background or their level. These key learnings can also be applied to developing new IP and pitching projects.
PRODUCTION SESSION
Creating a Successful MMOG: Challenges, Insights and Production Techniques
Henrique Olifiers, Jagex Ltd.
Less than 1 in 20 massive multiplayer online games released every year reaches maturity in user base terms. Even heavy weight studios with previous experience in the creation of MMOG have recently failed.,,What lies behind this harsh reality, and what makes a successful multiplayer game tick? Why so many fail pursuing elusive online players and, perhaps a clue is in place, why current MMOG look so similar to one another design-wise?,,This session will discuss the major challenges presented in MMOG development while providing insight and techniques to overcome these problems, managing production risks.
PRODUCTION SESSION
Secrets of Process Excellence: The Latest Evidence from Industry Leaders
Jonathan Sapsed, CENTRIM, University of Brighton
This session reports on the findings of a 2-year research project that has investigated the balance between creativity and formal processes. In partnership with 8 companies 4 of which are former Develop Award winners and nominees, the session will highlight the typical 'Hot Spots' (problem areas) and 'Cool Spots' (areas of creativity and excellence) that need special attention. Drawing on the experience of the company partners, the session will show how these Hot Spots and Cool Spots can be anticipated and managed. The objective of the project is to develop a prototype methodology to help the industry upgrade collectively.
PRODUCTION SESSION
Future of AI in Games
Samad Ahmadi, De Montfort University
Applications of AI in video games have been very limited compared to other application areas of AI algorithms. In this panel discussion we will explore the differences between the video games requirements and constraints of AI with other application areas and will discuss the possible directions of AI in games in future from both game industry and academic points of view.,We will start the discussion by describing the current state of art in use of AI in commercial games and the current state of art in AI algorithms in academia. We will then discuss the aims and limitations of AI in games and the reasons it has not progressed as much as other areas. Finally panel members will discus the future of use of AI in games and we will conclude with a summary of views.
CODING SESSION
A Complete XBox 360 GPU Particle System: Tech & Pipeline Simon Scarle, Rare
We describe and demonstrate how to simulate a particle system entirely on the GPU using memory export. This frees up the CPU to perform other tasks, and eliminates synchronisation issues. The simulation includes all the main features required of a particle system, such as; random emission, turbulence, collision detection / response, and distributed sorting for non-commutative rendering modes (e.g. alpha blending for dust and smoke).,,This forms the base technology for a highly customizable GPU particle system pipeline, which utilises a building block approach to construct the requisite simulation shaders. We also cover particle rendering, including geometry amplification for non-point sprite primitives, as well as interfacing simulation variables with rendering. Finally, we give an over view of the GPU particle pipeline: art package interface, interim format, final asset and instance data.
CODING LECTURE
Re-rendering Magical Movie Moments in Games
Phil Gray, Traveler's Tales
Session description to follow.
ART & ANIMATION SESSION
Agile project management in game development - experiences shared from Iceland and 17 other countries
Patric Palm, Hansoft & Noah Ward, CCP
Agile development methods, such as SCRUM and eXtreme Programming (XP), are becoming increasingly popular in game development. The iterative and incremental nature of Agile fits well with game development providing many opportunities to increase studio productivity. However, there are also challenges attached when trying to scale Agile to the size and specifics of game development. The session will describe the case of how CCP implemented an Agile development philosophy across its large organization with sites on three continents. Experiences from CCP and many other Agile implementations will be shared on to how to address the most common challenges successfully. The session will begin with a summary of the conceptual framework of Agile.
PRODUCTION SESSION
How to Get Real Emotion into your Game-world
Marek Walton, The Mustard Production
Some games don’t need it. Some games do. Story, emotion, real characters. If the game needs it, how do you avoid having the rest of the design team using the worst curse word they know – cheesy. How to make your game a cheese free zone. Real characters (how to make them). Making archetypes work for you. Emotion’s not a bad thing. Avoiding cliché. Using cliché. Only 7 stories etc. it’s all about tone and voice etc. How great actors, great direction can help. How to avoid the gap between the capability of the engine and the script. Making script fit the scene. Editing scripts down to the bone to get the truth.
GAME DESIGN SESSION
Heavenly Sword Cinematics: Real Emotion in Real-Time
Stuart Adcock, Ninja Theory
Ninja Theory, in collaboration with Weta Digital and Andy Serkis, pioneered the use of performance capture in real time and set new benchmarks for emotionally engaging characters. This talk will cover the journey and the development of the facial system used on Heavenly Sword, why Ninja Theory chose to implement that system, how they created and setup the digital faces and the benefits of recycling assets. It will also cover advanced topics on how to achieve an extra layer of realism and emotion by refining shapes, shaders and manipulating motion capture data. Takeaway Attendees will be exposed to the process of setting up a face for motion capture and hopefully leave with a good understanding of how to implement a similar system, including which areas an artist should focus on and which areas can benefit from recycling. Intended Audience Technical Artists and Animators interested in facial setups and motion capture. Having some experience in this field will be helpful..
ART & ANIMATION SESSION
Heavenly Sword Cinematics: Real Emotion in Real-Time
Stuart Adcock, Ninja Theory
Ninja Theory, in collaboration with Weta Digital and Andy Serkis, pioneered the use of performance capture in real time and set new benchmarks for emotionally engaging characters. This talk will cover the journey and the development of the facial system used on Heavenly Sword, why Ninja Theory chose to implement that system, how they created and setup the digital faces and the benefits of recycling assets. It will also cover advanced topics on how to achieve an extra layer of realism and emotion by refining shapes, shaders and manipulating motion capture data. Takeaway Attendees will be exposed to the process of setting up a face for motion capture and hopefully leave with a good understanding of how to implement a similar system, including which areas an artist should focus on and which areas can benefit from recycling. Intended Audience Technical Artists and Animators interested in facial setups and motion capture. Having some experience in this field will be helpful..
ART & ANIMATION SESSION
Building world-class art tools
Luke Halliwell, Realtime Worlds
As hardware gets more powerful, game art budgets are rising. This session examines how we've addressed the problem with technology at Realtime Worlds, using procedural techniques and substantial investment in art tools. Illustrated with real examples from the development of Crackdown and APB, it will cover best practices for managing the tools development process, architectural issues in designing editors and editor frameworks, new possibilities for procedural content generation, and some pitfalls to avoid. Attendees should leave with new ideas for building world-class tools to make their art department more efficient.
New Gameplay Dimensions in Role-playing Games Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios
Description to follow GAME DESIGN SESSION
Media Molecule- The Experiment Further Along Alex Evans, Media Molecule
Description to follow BUSINESS SESSION
Elephant in a Shoe Box Craig Wright, Sumo Digital
This session will comprise of practical advice and tips for developers producing 'ports' of titles and for multiple platform development. It will cover common problems faced when moving games from more powerful to less powerful platforms, but should also be of interest to developers wanting to make their titles and engines easier to migrate to other platforms. The bulk of the talk will consist of real-world examples of design patterns, code layout techniques and approaches that, based on experience, can be used to simplify to coding effort required to build and maintain a cross-platform codebase. The talk will cover topics such as static versus dynamic polymorphism, testing procedures, maths library design and low-level components such as particle systems.
CODING SESSION
New Revenue Streams Showcase Ed Bartlett, IGW, David Miller, Double Fusion
In-game advertising, microtransactions, product placement, subscriptions: Developers hear lots of new ways to make money from games these days. But which method works when, and are the revenues anything to email home about? Four panellists pitch their revenue stream of choice.
BUSINESS SESSION
