GDC08
The company I work for sent me down to GDC this year. It's my first time attending.. and man, is it ever big. I attended sessions every day I was there, and I think I only saw maybe 5% of what was on tap. Everything was scheduled on top of everything else, because there really are only 3 days worth of convention. (They run it so you can get in 5 sessions per day, with half hour breaks in between. At the end of every day, you're dead tired.) Sometimes stuff you want to see overlaps; that happened a couple of times for me..
I went to the Microsoft keynote, but that's about the only 'big' thing I went to, with the exception of the Square-Enix programming talk. The Microsoft thing was unabashedly a PR event. The Square-Enix session.. was a waste of time, to be honest; it dealt more with explaining the internal politics of Square-Enix in transitioning to a single engine than anything else, and had very little take-away. Not that it mattered; I think most of the folks who were there were only interested in the Final Fantasy XIII footage they showed at the end.
I dropped in at the Expo area once or twice, just to check it out, but I only saw maybe half of what was set up, because I was pressed for time. (Expo area = crazy booths where everyone goes swag hunting..) I only got a chance to try out one game that was on display. Frankly, it was kinda nuts in there.. and not really targetted at me. (I don't think?) I felt somewhat out of place.
So what did I check out? Programming sessions, and lots of them. Specifically, the graphics ones. From the effects in Bioshock to the work from Crytek.. lots of fun stuff to leisurely learn about. The only exceptions were a set of talks on spherical harmonics. Peter-Pike Sloan's presentation Stupid Spherical Harmonics (SH) Tricks looked like it was designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, and made extensive use of calculus. As such, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the title was him being a touch cheeky. :)
If you want to see one of the cooler talks from GDC, check out the Sparse Virtual Textures presentation by silverspaceship. It's really quite neat. :)
I went to the Microsoft keynote, but that's about the only 'big' thing I went to, with the exception of the Square-Enix programming talk. The Microsoft thing was unabashedly a PR event. The Square-Enix session.. was a waste of time, to be honest; it dealt more with explaining the internal politics of Square-Enix in transitioning to a single engine than anything else, and had very little take-away. Not that it mattered; I think most of the folks who were there were only interested in the Final Fantasy XIII footage they showed at the end.
I dropped in at the Expo area once or twice, just to check it out, but I only saw maybe half of what was set up, because I was pressed for time. (Expo area = crazy booths where everyone goes swag hunting..) I only got a chance to try out one game that was on display. Frankly, it was kinda nuts in there.. and not really targetted at me. (I don't think?) I felt somewhat out of place.
So what did I check out? Programming sessions, and lots of them. Specifically, the graphics ones. From the effects in Bioshock to the work from Crytek.. lots of fun stuff to leisurely learn about. The only exceptions were a set of talks on spherical harmonics. Peter-Pike Sloan's presentation Stupid Spherical Harmonics (SH) Tricks looked like it was designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, and made extensive use of calculus. As such, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the title was him being a touch cheeky. :)
If you want to see one of the cooler talks from GDC, check out the Sparse Virtual Textures presentation by silverspaceship. It's really quite neat. :)