|
|
|
|
|
Windows and Xbox 360 System Programming Developer Tools: XNA and Visual Studio Producer and Business Development Quality Assurance and Certification
Learn about the exciting next generation of graphics technologies for Xbox 360 and Windows, highlighting Direct3D® 10 as the future of graphics development. Delve into the best graphics techniques for character skinning, geometry shading, high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and more. Learn how to get the best graphics performance from your games using tools like the Performance Investigator (PIX).
Introduction to Direct3D 10: Coming to a PC Near You Speaker: Michael Oneppo
Get up-to-speed on Direct3D 10! This session is the fast path to understanding the latest hardware and software infrastructure for graphics developers on Windows. Discover the span of new features in Direct3D 10, including an entirely new shader model (version 4.0) and new pipeline features such as geometry shaders and stream output. This one-hour trip down the Direct3D 10 pipeline sets the stage for the rest of the graphics track.
Using Direct3D 10: Getting the Most from Your Direct3D 10 Engine Speakers: Jeff Noyle and Sam Z. Glassenberg
Building on fundamentals delivered in the Introduction talk, this presentation focuses on practical usage of the Direct3D 10 API. Learn how to drive upcoming graphics hardware with maximum efficiency through the new interface. Delve into real-world usage scenarios that describe how to effectively manage state, manage shader data, and handle resources.
Effects 10: Driving the New Effects System Speaker: Relja Markovic
As shader and device state complexity increases, so does the need for a new state management system. This talk presents Effects 10 (FX10), the brand-new Direct3D effects system that delivers unprecedented performance across multiple Microsoft platforms while lowering development complexity and cost. The talk focuses on solving both offline and runtime state management problems on Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 10. Learn how you can take advantage of the large performance gains FX10 delivers.
Exploiting Direct3D 10: Advanced Techniques Using Direct3D 10 Speaker: Shanon Drone
Direct3D 10 opens the door to previously unattainable real-time graphics techniques. Learn how the Direct3D 10 samples team uses this latest technology to create stunning visual effects. This talk describes in detail several techniques demonstrated in the DirectX SDK including GPU-accelerated morph targets and particle systems. This talk also speculates on the Direct3D 10 techniques game developers will be using in the near future.
Advanced Lighting and More from Microsoft Research Speakers: John Snyder and Hugues Hoppe
Microsoft Research continues to explore the bleeding edge of graphics. This talk introduces and explains several cutting-edge techniques under investigation by the research division, including real-time soft shadows in dynamic scenes using spherical harmonic exponentiation, the latest developments in real-time texture synthesis, and uses for a Perfect Spatial Hashing algorithm including collision detection, vector images, texture sprites, 3D-parameterized textures, and more.
Graphics Futures: Going Beyond Direct3D 10 Speaker: David Blythe
Direct3D 10 paves the way for vastly more complex processing on the GPU. This talk discusses where graphics processing is heading next and how it will affect the way game engines and content are designed. We will discuss possibilities for how rendering pipelines may change in the future and cover the growing adoption of GPU processing into other parts of the game engine, from physics simulations to AI processing. This talk is designed for beginners and experts alike.
Xbox 360 Direct3D and GPU Performance Update Speakers: Andrew Goossen and Michael Dougherty
Are you craving a deep understanding of Direct3D and GPU performance features for Xbox 360? Learn about Xbox 360 enhancements to Direct3D, including accelerated predicated tiling and z-prepass, precompiled command buffers, and significant runtime performance improvements. We will also discuss the usage and under-the-hood architecture of a new PIX (Performance Investigator for Xbox) feature: the GPU analysis tab. This analyzer inspects over a hundred hardware GPU counters in conjunction with an accurate GPU simulation to generate a detailed performance analysis of GPU events.
HLSL Shader Compiler Update for Xbox 360 and Windows Speakers: Jack Palevich and John Rapp
Several recent enhancements have been made to HLSL to support the new graphics features available in Xbox 360 and on Windows. This talk covers the HLSL language additions that expose the full power of the Xbox 360 GPU, as well as new annotations, flags, and runtime changes that can make your shaders run faster on Xbox 360. For Windows, the presentation covers the HLSL language enhancements that expose the new features of Direct3D 10, how the new features map onto down-level hardware, and basic strategies for writing high-performance, cross-platform HLSL code.
Under the Hood: Revving Up Shader Performance Speaker: Mikey Wetzel
So you’ve got a fast GPU, but your shaders are still lagging in the quarter-mile? Running inefficient shaders with lots of stalls can be like running the hardware at half speed. Between ALU count, GPR usage, control flow, fetch latency, and other speed bumps, tracking down performance-limiting bottlenecks can be more elusive than ever. This talk shows how to run diagnostics on your shaders and use HLSL annotations and platform-specific tricks to get your engine running on all cylinders.
Seven Ways to Skin a Mesh: Character Skinning Revisited for Modern GPUs Speaker: Matt Lee
Character skinning is a technique that is commonly used in games, and is commonly expensive as well. Modern GPUs have new features and different performance characteristics than GPUs of a few years ago, and old assumptions are wearing thin. With the advent of shader model 3.0, Xbox 360, and Direct3D 10, it's time to revisit character skinning and rebuild this technique for better performance on the hardware of today and tomorrow. Many skinning methods and optimizations will be presented, including details on the memory export features of Xbox 360.
HDR the Bungie Way Speaker: Chris Tchou, Bungie
Adopting a linear high dynamic range (HDR) lighting model introduces a number of challenges to your rendering pipeline that must be overcome if you want to integrate high-performing HDR into your title. It pays to understand which challenges are important and why. Learn the “Bungie way” to balance range, precision, and performance in your render targets, calibrate color-spaces for consistent colors, and make effective use of auto-exposure, post-process effects, and tone-curves. Full analysis and pretty pictures included!
Cross-Platform Graphics Engine Development Speaker: John O’Rorke, Monolith
An ever-growing majority of games must support multiple platforms, and with the advent of Direct3D 10, this is an issue that even Windows-only games are likely to encounter. This talk presents potential pitfalls and strategies for creating a renderer that will operate efficiently on current and future PCs and Xbox 360, based upon experience from previous cross-platform rendering work. The talk emphasizes how to effectively leverage the strengths of individual platforms while minimizing the amount of effort for engineering and content creation. Topics include platform tips and tricks, code organization and abstraction, levels of detail, and optimal asset management. This talk is designed for developers of all levels of experience.
WINDOWS AND XBOX 360 SYSTEM PROGRAMMING
Master advanced programming practices for squeezing every drop of performance out of your CPU, whether it sits inside a console or a PC. Learn about the most recent changes, technologies, and techniques for developing quality games for Xbox 360 and Windows, from optimal memory management to intelligent multithreading across multiple cores to ideal disc layout for streaming.
Designing Multi-Core Games: How to Walk and Chew Bubblegum at the Same TimeSpeaker: Jonathan Haas
The free ride is over. As clock speeds reach their limit, chip manufacturers are keeping up with Moore’s Law by giving us more, not faster, CPU cores. Gone are the days when your code would automatically run faster with each new generation of processor. The only way to take advantage of the full power of next-generation CPUs is multithreading, and effective multithreading takes careful planning. This basic talk covers the rudiments of multithreaded game engine design, synchronization primitives, potential pitfalls, and the joys of multi-core debugging.
Multi-Core Memory Coherence: The Hidden Perils of Sharing Data Speaker: Bruce Dawson
Creating threads is straightforward, but communicating between threads in an efficient and reliable manner can be very tricky. This talk covers synchronization techniques such as critical sections, spin-loops, and lockless programming, as well as pitfalls such as false sharing. The talk introduces high-level techniques and explains their low-level consequences—including the complexities of out-of-order reads and writes.
Sublime C++ for GamesSpeaker: Pete Isensee
As game programmers, we aspire to create C++ code that is straightforward yet efficient, simple yet complete. Meeting the lofty goal of sublime C++ is a difficult but worthy effort. This wide-ranging presentation covers techniques that will put you on the path to C++ nirvana. Topics include efficient STL, fast cross-platform vector math, 64-bit programming, pointer aliasing, localization, and other common performance issues. Expect illumination, inspiration, and maybe some controversy, too!
Games as Malware: Why Security Is Your Problem TooSpeaker: Dave Weinstein
Security is a huge concern for Microsoft, motivated by the sometimes painful lessons of the past. The baleful eye of the hacker is ever watchful, and there is no more interesting target than the games that millions of users play on their systems. This talk highlights the security vulnerabilities in games, game servers, and the new digital distribution systems being created by the game industry, and explains how improving your code and protecting your assets can help you secure the platform and keep your customers. Don't let your game end up on the next security bulletin or be blocked as malware by security tools!
Hardening the Box: Xbox 360 and Windows Vista Security ModelsSpeakers: Michael Howard and Sebastian Lange
If you’re concerned about making your game secure (and you should be), this talk provides some answers. Our focus is the security lessons learned from the first generation of Xbox and previous generations of Windows, and how these lessons helped forge Xbox 360 and Windows Vista security models. Learn how to play nice with platform features such as Least-Privileged User Accounts. Ensure that players can run your games without compromising the security of their system. The techniques we present will help prevent your game from becoming the weak point that lets hackers “own” a customer's machine or compromise protected services like Xbox Live.
Supercharging I/O: Hard Disk, DVD, and Memory Unit Speakers: Zsolt Mathe and Brian Schmidt
Short load times, fast streaming, and a seamless user experience are critical features of great next generation games; none of which are possible without optimal usage of the file system. Learn about the file systems on Windows and Xbox 360 and how to use them to shorten development time and achieve high performance. This talk covers DVD layout and characteristics, the Xbox 360 cache partition, XContent APIs, access privileges on Windows Vista (LUA, or Least-Privileged User Accounts), memory-mapped I/O, and 64-bit data portability. Understand how to maximize the efficiency of all types of storage devices, from hard-disk drives (HDD) to DVD drives to Xbox 360 memory units (MUs).
Memory Management Internals: Allocation Strategies for High PerformanceSpeaker: Steve Smith
It’s commonly said that on next generation hardware, main RAM is like a really fast hard disk. Most developers spend a lot of time thinking about the I/O performance of this “disk.” But how much do you know about the “file system”—the collection of kernel and runtime library routines that allocate, map, and manage memory? This talk explores the internals of hardware and operating-system memory management operations on Windows and Xbox 360. We’ll discuss how these operations impact your games and tell you when and how to override system memory management to get better performance.
Power Debugging: Nasty Bugs and How to Find ThemSpeakers: Cristian Ioneci and Mitch Dernis
There are few guarantees in the world of game development. One guarantee is that your most elusive bug will appear just as you’re ready to ship, after you’ve stripped the final debugging code out of your executable, and only on the machine that’s physically furthest from your office. This presentation prepares you for that reality by examining the common causes of uncommonly difficult bugs, and showing strategies for tracking them down quickly. Gain a deeper understanding of advanced debugger fundamentals and the interaction of a debugger with running code. Learn why established debugging tools can sometimes fail, and what to do about it. Discover low-level tools beyond Visual Studio, and techniques that will not only save the day but also save your nights and weekends. Taming the CLR: How to Write Really Fast Managed CodeSpeaker: Rico Mariani
Using managed code inside a game?! Believe it! This talk demonstrates optimal integration of managed code, including the Common Runtime Library (CLR) and the XNA Framework, into real-time contexts like games. A key focus of this talk is memory management and good practices for getting high performance out of the garbage collector, with additional emphasis on sensible coding techniques for managed code. Open discussion is encouraged. Windows Performance Topics for GamesSpeakers: Kev Gee and Steve Pronovost
This talk explores the low-level workings of the Windows operating system with a view to getting the most performance out of your game, while avoiding common pitfalls often encountered by game developers. Topics discussed include the Windows XP Display Driver Model (XPDM) and Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM). The talk also highlights several tools that can be used to detect game performance bottlenecks.
Topics: Windows Internals (common services, components, etc.), known hotspots (Direct3D9 drivers, KMIXER, Vista changes), ETW, VSTS Profiler, PIX features for CPU Xbox 360 CPU Performance UpdateSpeaker: Bruce Dawson
Improving game performance on a fixed platform requires both great tools and techniques. The Xbox 360 CPU performance tools are continuing to improve, but you have to know how to use them and what to do with the results. This talk covers the latest CPU performance tools, gives recommendations for how to apply the results of those tools, showcases new information on making the compiler generate efficient code, and provides assembly language optimization advice for those times when every clock cycle is critical. Developing Games for Windows and Xbox 360: Stories from the TrenchesPanel Moderator: Joe Waters
Making noise on Microsoft platforms has never been more dynamic or accessible to content creators! Presentations will cover the array of tools, libraries, and services provided for adding sound to your title, including the Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) for Windows and Xbox 360. Other topics include programming the low-level audio layer, using real-time effects and audio compression formats, and working with multichannel audio.
Full-Service Audio: A Comprehensive Guide to Tools, Libraries, and Services for Audio on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista Speaker: Brian Schmidt
The Xbox and DirectX Software Development Kits provide an overwhelming array of libraries and tools for “making noise” in a title. This talk provides an overview of each, from both technical and creative/aesthetic perspectives. Topics include the Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), the X3DAudio math library for 3D positioning, the Xbox Music Player system service and library, reverberation and other DSP effects, and audio-specific elements of Windows Vista.
The Fundamentals of Audio Rendering on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista Speaker: Brian Schmidt
“I know I’m definitely playing it at full volume, so why can’t I hear it?” Has this ever happened to you? Walk the path of the audio playback and rendering pipelines of Xbox 360 and Windows audio systems. This talk covers the objects and interfaces of the two systems, with implications for the audio programmer as well as the sound designer. The low-level audio rendering layers on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista share many of the same philosophies and functionality: a fully software-implemented pipeline with the flexibility and power to manipulate sound effects in a variety of ways in real-time. Because the programmability of these rendering layers is such a key component, we dip briefly into the challenges and best practices for developing a title’s own real-time DSP effects. This talk also covers each stage of rendering, from pitch shifting and volume control to real-time reverberation, filtering, dynamic range compression, and Fourier transformations; from multi-track 48 kHz PCM input to 5.1 Dolby Digital optical output.
XMA Implementation and Aesthetics (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Compression) Speakers: Ian Lewis and Scott Selfon
The ever-increasing scope of games and increasing size of game audio assets makes some form of audio compression essential for games. But along with the decision to use compressed audio come many questions. Content creators want to know the best compression settings to use and how small is too small. Programmers want to know the best way for an audio engine to play back wave files in which bytes and samples have no fixed relationship. This intermediate-level talk addresses the concerns of both content creators and programmers. With a focus on XMA, the compression technology built into the Xbox 360, we discuss how to tune compression settings and listen for artifacts in compressed sound. We also draw on experience designing the XMA2 format and APIs to present ways of abstracting playback of both compressed and uncompressed audio.
Using the Top Rear Left-of-Center Low Frequency Speaker: How Multi-channel Audio Works on Xbox 360 and Windows Vista Speaker: Scott Selfon
2.0, 5.1, and 7.1, oh my! With so many audio configurations out there, what is a sound designer or programmer supposed to do to make sure the user gets a consistent, immersive experience? Is 3D positioning alone sufficient? Can we do better than doubling all of our sounds in the LFE channel? This talk covers, in detail, the multi-channel audio path on Xbox 360 and Windows, as well as how various output formats can influence and modify the mix, and potential challenges in optimizing for multiple output formats. Going beyond simply the basic data paths, the presentation covers various technical and aesthetic techniques for utilizing specific speaker assignments, including use of the X3DAudio positioning library, real-time DSP effects, and content formats natively supporting multi-channel content.
Distributed Composing: Managing Audio Collaboration and Cross-Platform Deployment for XACT Projects Speaker: Scott Selfon
Remember the days of being the lone “audio guy” on an entire project, locked in a basement to compose, sound design, mix, edit, and do everything else related to sound? As titles thankfully devote more resources to content creation, the question arises of how to effectively collaborate, particularly when multiple artists need to work on the same content. Working on a title that will be deployed on multiple platforms can create even more challenges. Fortunately, XACT supplies several solutions for each of these challenges. After a brief summary of general XACT functionality for those not already familiar with it, we delve into project collaboration, merging, and sharing of XACT objects, both from an authoring and an integration/build perspective. Additionally, we discuss data management, opportunities for data mining, and tips and tricks for working with game-scale projects in XACT.
An Analytical Study of Audio Implementations for Existing Windows and Xbox 360 Titles Speaker: Scott Selfon
Audio content reviews
are one of the more informative – and free! – services offered by the
Microsoft Game Technology Group. In these reviews, we examine the
title’s audio implementation both holistically and as various individual
components. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how we perform these
reviews, and discover the most frequent recommendations made to titles.
Using illustrations from actual games, we discuss subjective
measurements for addressing such challenges as defining and maintaining
reasonable reference levels, quashing repetition wherever it may lurk,
and implementing sounds that “live” in the game universe.
Additional recommended talks for Audio track attendees:
XACT
Hands On: Fashioning Dynamic and Interactive Sounds Making Your Game Sound More Cinematic An Overview of Voice Recognition Implementation The State of the (Audio) Nation: A Conversation with Leading Audio Middleware Solutions
Microsoft Casual Games delivers casual gaming content to multiple platforms and devices, including MSN® Games, MSN Messenger, Windows, Xbox Live Arcade, and mobile devices. Learn about the unique aspects of developing for each of these platforms and distributing titles across these services.
Developing Games for Xbox Live Arcade Speaker: Katie Stone
Following the launch of the Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade has sent ripples through the casual game development community. The console market that previously seemed inaccessible to most casual game developers suddenly became a platform with stellar conversion rate numbers and great gaming press to go with it. This session covers development for Xbox Live Arcade today and heading into 2007. Come find out what will make up the next generation of casual games on the console, and how your game can be part of it.
Developing Web-Based Games for MSN Games Speaker: Rocco Crea
As one of the leading casual games portals, MSN Games is a great channel to get your games into customers’ hands. This session discusses developments on MSN Games, requirements for web-based games, and future directions for system and platform requirements. Find out what MSN Games is doing to make your games more compelling and drive downloadable game sales.
Preparing Casual Games for Windows Vista Speaker: Jason Sandlin
With the upcoming release of Windows Vista, game developers will have a number of new tools to deliver improved gaming experiences to their customers. This session discusses graphics and audio technologies in Windows Vista, designing applications for proper behavior under Windows Vista, and developing casual games that take advantage of the new Games Explorer and Parental Controls system.
Casual Smarts: Successful Downloadable Game Development Today and Tomorrow Speakers: Jeff Tunnell and Josh Williams, GarageGames
The market for small-scale, downloadable games on both Windows and Xbox 360 is booming, and game developers ranging from small indie game teams to major game studios are producing casual games. Accordingly, the production quality bar for casual games is rising rapidly. In this session, GarageGames shares technical and business lessons learned developing high-end downloadable games, including Marble Blast Ultra on the Xbox 360 Arcade, and 2D games for the PC.
Developing Casual Games for MSN Messenger Speaker: Benjamin Ellinger
With over 120 million users worldwide, MSN Messenger is an excellent vehicle for developing and delivering multiplayer casual games. 16 million of those users actively game on the platform today, and the number is increasing. With users already online and already connected to their friends, this is possibly the easiest platform to enable a multiplayer game experience. This session presents an overview of the Game Development Kit for MSN Messenger and offers successful strategies for messenger game development.
Future Platforms and Opportunities for Casual Games Speaker: Todd Landstad and Loke Uei Tan
Innovations in hardware and software are leading computing platforms in new directions that provide great new opportunities for casual games development. To help developers take advantage of these opportunities in their games, this session covers the specifics of developing for tablet PCs, ultra-mobile PCs, Windows Mobile and other platforms.
Additional recommended talks for Casual Games track attendees: Games for Windows Vista: Nail the Essentials, Showcase the Innovations Migrating Game Technology from Native to Managed Code Live Anywhere: Bringing the Live Experience to Windows "I have to put WHAT in my game?!" - A Developer's Guide to In-Game Advertising
With Xbox Live and the Live Anywhere initiative, Microsoft provides the tools that developers need to drive innovation and excitement in multiplayer games and player communities. Get the latest details on integrating with Xbox Live for the Xbox® video game system, Windows-based games, and beyond; extending game functionality with Xbox Live Server Platform; developing for in-game advertising; using Live Web services, and more.
Live Anywhere: Bringing the Live Experience to Windows Speaker: Vito Sabella
You heard it at E3, and now you want to know: will Live Anywhere let me bring the world of Xbox Live to my PC titles? Yes! Will Live Anywhere let me expand my user community across platforms? Yes! Will Live Anywhere write my code for me? Ye—wait, no. This session showcases Live Anywhere features for Windows and presents the basics of the cross-platform gaming experience. We also discuss integrating Live Anywhere into your game and creating a balanced and fair play experience between the two platforms.
"I have to put WHAT in my game?!" – A Developer's Guide to In-Game Advertising Speakers: David Sturman, Mat Adams and Justin Titi, Massive
Although many developers have an initial “WHAT?!” reaction to the idea of in-game advertising, Massive has spent the past few years enabling developers to incorporate real advertising into their game environments, enhancing the realism and profitability of titles without sacrificing aesthetics or gameplay. This talk briefly covers the business model behind in-game advertising, and then delves into the integration process, the technology used behind the scenes, and how Massive's infrastructure interfaces with Xbox Live, the Xbox Live Server Platform (XLSP), and other online technologies.
Session Enhancements: Host Migration, TrueSkill™ Modifiers, and More Speaker: Jonathan Haas
The XSession system on Xbox 360 has brought us out of the dark days of having to manage network connections and matchmaking end-to-end, but we’re not finished! We’ve heard your cries and are working hard to make the multiplayer development experience even better. In this talk, we’ll present the latest session improvements, along with when and how to best make use of them. This is an intermediate-level talk intended for network engineers. Topics include host migration and the TrueSkill ranking system.
The New Xbox Live Server Platform: Opening up the Network Speakers: Ian Lewis and Matt Hansen
The Xbox Live Server Platform (XLSP) opens up the Xbox Live system by allowing Xbox and Xbox 360 clients to connect to custom game publisher-hosted servers outside the standard Microsoft Live services like matchmaking and leaderboards. The May 2006 release of the Xbox 360 XDK was the first XLSP release approved for wide distribution, and it features many improvements and performance enhancements over earlier versions. Come see what’s new in the Xbox Live Server Platform and learn how to extend Xbox Live with your own custom servers.
Community Extensions: Further Options to Customize Your Game's User Experience Speaker: David Shaw
We all know that the Live Experience is about gamers beating gamers – er, that is, meeting gamers. We’re committed to giving multiplayer game developers the tools you need to crank your game’s community experience up a notch, and here’s the result. We’ll present the latest ways to customize the user experience for your title, and cover many techniques for doing so. This is a design-focused talk, but anyone with an interest in fostering better, more lively community interactions in games is encouraged to attend. Topics include custom player lists, custom message payloads, and improvements to the Guide extensibility features.
Achievements and Stats: Adding to the "Just Five More Minutes" Factor Speaker: Jeff Sullivan
Does “what’s your gamerscore” sound familiar? Achievements and statistics are among the most talked-about features of Xbox Live, and we want to share everything we’ve learned about how best to use these features to generate more excitement for your game. We’ll walk through the best practices of using gamer profiles and achievements to create a compelling game experience, and look at what’s coming next for achievements on Live. This talk is intended for game designers and game developers looking to enhance the player experience.
Additional recommended talks for the Cross-Platform Xbox Live track attendees: Marketplace: Future of Digital Distribution Games as Malware: Why Security is Your Problem Too Developing Games for Xbox Live Arcade The Dos and Absolutely-Do-Nots of XLSP: A Middleware Perspective Hardening the Box: The Xbox 360 and Windows Vista Security Models Creating Games with the XNA Framework Working Smarter and Building Faster with Visual C++ 2005 Community Development and Management - Finding the Balance
DEVELOPER TOOLS: XNA AND VISUAL STUDIO
Get the latest update on the XNA development platform, a suite of Microsoft tools and technologies that can help you tame the cost and complexity of game development. Learn more about how the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 development system can help increase your productivity, Visual C++® enhancements, profile guided optimization (PGO), new debugging technologies, security improvements, and more. Take a look at Visual Studio Team System and explore its support for enabling more collaborative and productive development groups.
Working Smarter and Building Faster with Visual C++ 2005 Speaker: Boris Jabes
Over the years, programs have become ever larger and build times more excessive. This talk looks at the many ways you can be more productive in Visual C++ 2005, with a focus on techniques to improve your build time. This session delves into issues such as proper physical structure of code, effective usage of pre-compiled headers, symbol servers, and management of build properties in large projects. This talk also explores tricks in the development environment that enhance the daily editing and debugging experience. If you want to be more productive in your daily coding activities, you cannot afford to miss this talk.
Managing Content Builds with XNA Build Speaker: Joe Nalewabau
XNA Build is a core component of XNA Studio and provides a set of tools and technologies which help game studios manage the growing complexities of the game content build process. After a brief overview, this session provides an in-depth demonstration of the XNA Build features and benefits using some Xbox 360 games as examples. This session also highlights the added benefits of integrating XNA Build with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server's Team Build.
An Introduction to Agile Development Speaker: Noel Llopis, High Moon Studios
Game development projects continue to fail at an alarming rate industry-wide. As a result, many organizations looking for a fresh approach to development have turned to Agile development methodologies that focus on team collaboration, technical excellence and adapting to change. But, how can you transition your team from a document-centric, plan-driven approach to a lighter, more agile process? In this session we introduce Agile methods and share the most successful processes and key lessons learned transitioning teams to Agile.
Creating Games with the XNA Framework Speaker: Mitch Walker
The XNA Framework will revolutionize how games are made. Using the XNA Framework, game teams can create games extremely efficiently, while targeting multiple platforms, including Xbox 360 and Windows. This talk provides an overview of the XNA Framework, describes how it fits in the XNA vision, and gives a detailed look into the various pieces of the framework. Topics covered include the graphics, audio, input, math, and storage components, as well as the application model, which takes care of the platform abstraction and plumbing, letting you focus on the important stuff: making games. We’ll have plenty of demos and get our hands dirty writing code!
A Closer Look at the XNA Framework Content Pipeline Speaker: Michael Klucher
Looking to make the move to 3D content in your games but finding the process confusing and difficult? This session covers the XNA Framework content pipeline, which is designed to simplify the process of getting 3D content into games. The session provides a detailed explanation of how assets flow through the XNA content pipeline. This session builds on the overview presented in “Creating Games with the XNA Framework”.
Migrating Game Technology from Native to Managed Code Speaker: Josh Williams, GarageGames
GarageGames, in collaboration with the Microsoft XNA group, recently ported its full-featured game engine to managed code for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Xbox 360. In this session, Josh Williams and the GarageGames XNA engineering team dive into the technical issues encountered while successfully porting a complex suite of game technologies from C++ to C#, .NET, and the XNA Framework. Attendees will walk away with a good understanding of what architectural and low-level code changes are required to create large, full-featured, high-performance managed code bases. The GarageGames team will discuss lessons from the trenches, technical design strategies and their trade-offs, performance statistics, and more.
Additional recommended talks for Developer Tools track attendees: Taming the CLR: How To Write Really Fast Managed Code Extensible .NET Tools for Game Development – Guidelines and Lessons Learned Casual Smarts: Successful Downloadable Game Development Today and Tomorrow Combining Different Middleware Solutions to Create a Customized Platform Cross-Platform Graphics Engine Development Developing Games for Windows and Xbox 360: Stories from the Trenches Live Anywhere: Bringing the Live Experience to Windows Introduction to Direct3D 10: Coming to a PC Near You
And don’t forget to visit the XNA booth in the Expo Hall!
Tap into the expertise of the gaming tools and middleware community. Presenters will share the cutting-edge solutions that they have developed and discuss best practices and lessons learned to help you integrate their technologies into your title. Not a forum for sales pitches, this is an in-depth technical track that will explore how third-party tools can help you create games that will shine on next-generation platforms.
Adding Camera-Based Gesture and Face Tracking to Your Games Speaker: Francis MacDougall, GestureTek
This talk examines the steps required to add interactive camera support to your games. We examine both the basic and advanced methods for initializing and controlling the camera. We detail the settings for motion detection including blur and history, and detail the face tracking controls as well, with some potential applications for each. The session includes live demonstrations of additional tracking mechanisms, including object and color tracking.
Making Your Game Sound More Cinematic Speaker: Matt Tullis, Dolby Laboratories
Game audio is more important and complex than ever before; top-selling titles increasingly rely on cinematic, high-quality sound. In this session, learn tips and techniques to make your Xbox 360 or Windows game sound better. The session starts with bass management and downmix considerations for the Xbox 360, then moves on to mixing techniques for your game audio engine. We will touch on creating compelling ambiences, panning considerations for sound effects, the use of dynamic range, and how to best deal with multi-channel music.
Extensible .NET Tools for Game Development – Guidelines and Lessons Learned Speaker: Paul J. McLaurin, Emergent Game Technologies
Game developers recognize the ease of developing GUI tools using the .NET Framework and Windows Forms, but most game engines are still written in native C++ code. Also, several different tools requiring strong interoperability may be needed to address various aspects of the game development pipeline. Based on the experience of developing Emergent Game Technologies’ Scene Designer tool framework, this talk discusses methods for creating an extensible tool framework with managed code that interacts with a native game engine and supports many different types of functionality. Wrapper assemblies, plug-in architecture, and configurable UI paradigms are discussed, along with how such a framework can be extended to take advantage of forthcoming XNA ARM technology.
An Overview of Voice Recognition Implementation Speakers: Tim Hong and Craig Belliston, Fonix Corporation
Have you always wanted to add voice recognition to your game, but thought it might be too difficult? This session offers an overview of how easy it is to add voice recognition. The session highlights all the basics of voice recognition, and drills down deeper into all the capabilities of our voice recognition SDK. The talk also covers several tips on successfully implementing voice recognition in games. The session will focus on both Xbox 360 and Windows.
Meshing AGEIA and Granny Speakers: Dave Moore, RAD Game Tools and John Ratcliff, AGEIA
The talk presents initial results from a recent effort on the part of RAD Game Tools and AGEIA to enable developers to more easily use the Granny animation library in concert with the AGEIA PhysX SDK. This involved the creation of a mapping layer between the two APIs, as well as several novel tools for creation and iteration of rag-doll systems for arbitrary skeletal meshes. We'll cover both the new tools, and the challenges of meshing APIs with necessarily different design strategies, including how to do the merge yourself in the absence of vendor support.
Combining Different Middleware Solutions to Create a Customized Platform Speaker: Folker Schamel, Spinor
Combining middleware solutions from different technology areas can help game developers create the customized development and runtime setup that meets their individual needs. This talk presents case studies on the integration of AI.implant by Engenuity Technologies, Havok Physics, and both Bink Video and the Miles Sound System from RAD Game Tools with the Shark 3D game development platform by Spinor. We examine the problems encountered during integration, and the solutions that were adopted, and as an example demonstrate the use of a custom platform integrating AI.Implant with Shark 3D as the development platform for an RTS game.
The Convergence of AI, Physics and Animation Speakers: James Park and Jacques Gaubil, Kynogon; Martin Walker, Artificial Mind and Movement
New consoles and PCs are providing more CPU power than ever before. The industry now faces the challenge of translating all that processing power into the best possible game experience. What will distinguish next-generation games will not be a few extra thousand polygons but a new level of interaction with, and immersion of, the player. This new level of gameplay is possible only through development of the AI, physics, and animation triptych. These three fields are linked closely and advances in any one field necessarily call advances in the other two.
This presentation discusses the need for symbiotic development in all three fields and addresses the challenges of this simultaneous development. More specifically, panel members will address how AI is the key to fully exploiting recent advances in physics and animation.
The Dos and Absolutely-Do-Nots of XLSP: A Middleware PerspectiveSpeaker: Sean Blanchfield, DemonWare
DemonWare has been involved with half-a-dozen Xbox Live Server Platform (XLSP) game projects. This presentation is an aggregation of everything we’ve learned helping studios use XLSP to add additional multiplayer functionality to their Xbox 360 titles.
Advanced Tools and Techniques for Shipping Your Game On-Time Speaker: Jonathan Lindo, Replay Solutions
Challenges in game development are rising exponentially. Multi-core hardware on Xbox 360 and from Intel and AMD can make it difficult to write, debug, and ship code on these platforms. Multiplayer issues can be a nightmare. Recording game play with VCRs just doesn’t cut it anymore. Where is that race condition in my code? How can we track down multiplayer networking problems fast? What are the best teams doing to face these challenges? How can we integrate these tools and technologies into our workflow? We will show you some of the best tools and technologies being used today to answer these questions. Looking at specific post-mortem case-studies from recently shipped titles, we discuss what worked well, and what technologies really saved the developers’ backsides.
Creating a DirectX 10 Shader Authoring Sandbox Using SOFTIMAGE|XSI Speaker: Gareth Morgan, Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc.
DirectX 10 graphics introduces a new, more consistent symmetrical programming model for realtime shading allowing highly sophisticated effects to be used in next-generation games. This presentation explains some of the strengths and challenges of creating content for a DirectX 10 -based game, and illustrates use of the new DirectX10 tools for Softimage|XSI as an in-context sandbox shader development environment.
The State of the (Audio) Nation: A Conversation with Leading Audio Content Middleware Solutions Speakers: Jacques Deveau, AudioKinetic; Daniel Peacock, Creative Labs; John Byrd, CRI and Brett Paterson, Firelight Moderator: Scott Selfon
A rich palette of content-driven audio solutions is available to game titles being developed on Microsoft platforms. Each shares an underlying philosophy of easy content creation, and has its own strengths, areas of focus, and specializations. This panel begins with presentations and demonstrations of tools including CRI Audio, Creative Labs’ ISACT, Firelight’s FMOD, and AudioKinetic’s Wise. From there, we initiate a moderated discussion on philosophies for the division of responsibilities, game audio implementation pipeline optimizations, future tools plans and visions, and open question-and-answer with lecture attendees. Please also feel free to visit these and other audio tool providers at their booths during the rest of the conference.
Behavioral Animation for Next-Generation Characters Presenter: Jeff Yates, Havok
This session introduces Havok’s latest innovation for composing blended and state-driven animation for characters, which is pushing the state of the art in Xbox 360 animation and tool technology for games. Introduced is Havok Behavior, Havok’s new behavioral composition tool and SDK, along with cutting-edge demos that illustrate the combined strength of Havok’s full suite of tools and middleware. Hands-on exercises with the Havok Behavior Tool will help attendees become familiar with its operation, and understand how it can work in conjunction with Havok Physics and Havok Animation.
Direct3D 10 Shader Model 4.0 Hands-On Workshop Presenter: Shanon Drone
Test-drive the Geometry Shader! The next-generation Direct3D 10 platform enables bleeding-edge techniques of geometry processing implemented entirely on the GPU. Discover how to leverage the capabilities of the Direct3D 10 graphics platform to energize your content by using procedural techniques in hardware. Empower your shaders with primitive processing, adjacency traversal, geometry amplification & destruction, dynamic topology, and stream output. This advanced workshop is designed for professionals with experience authoring shaders in HLSL.
Creating Art Assets with SOFTIMAGE|XSI in a Programmable GPU Pipeline Presenter: Mark Schoennagel, Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc.
This session focuses on technical training for artists and shader programmers. By hands-on use of SOFTIMAGE|XSI, audience members will learn how to transform high-res characters into low-res in-game models by using normal, parallax, and ambient occlusion maps generated with XSI’s Ultimapper feature and GATOR technology. In addition, artists will learn how to create and tune a variety of real-time shader networks by using DirectX.
Autodesk MotionBuilder in a Production Pipeline Presenter: Amer Yassine, Autodesk
This 90-minute session gives you the opportunity to learn Autodesk MotionBuilder software in a hands-on environment. Whether you’re familiar with 3ds Max or Maya, the new UI and workflow paradigms that are introduced will allow you to unlock the power of MotionBuilder. With real-time visual feedback, animators will immediately see the workflow efficiency they gain while creating exceptional animation.
XACT Hands-On: Fashioning Dynamic and Interactive Sounds Presenter: Scott Selfon
It’s time to make some noise! In this hands-on session, attendees can approach the Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) as programmers or content creators to implement audio in a sample title. Workshop handouts present concepts that include non-repetitive audio, dynamic and responsive sound effects, interactive music, compression, and general organization of XACT audio objects.
Solving Real-World Game Physics Problems with PhysX: Case Studies and Hands-On Exploration Presenter: Michael Skolones, AGEIA
Today’s high-performance game platforms offer potential for simulation-based design elements that we could only dream about in recent years. This session offers a close look at physical simulation as it relates to game design and engine implementation on PC and Xbox 360. Topics covered include performance characteristics of large-scale rigid-body simulation; multithreaded asynchronous physics on PC and Xbox 360; and a character animation system, with particular emphasis on the role of animator or level designer. This session will provide hands-on examples of using PhysX with off-the-shelf game engine technology as well as a tutorial framework. The Q&A session will be equally useful to programmers and artists or animators.
PRODUCER AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Learn about recent developments in the Windows Vista™ Showcases and Essentials program, marketing and retail efforts around Games for Windows, sponsorship and dynamic in-game advertising on Xbox and Windows, digital content distribution opportunities in Xbox Live Marketplace and Live Anywhere, and more! You’ll come away understanding the tools necessary to build differentiated games that take advantage of the best features of Microsoft gaming platforms.
Games for Windows Vista: Nail the Essentials, Showcase the Innovations Speaker: Skip McIlvaine
With Windows Vista
releasing in January 2007, gamers will be expecting the next generation
of games to adopt the latest in usability, compatibility, and
cutting-edge technical features. This talk covers the Windows Vista
Showcases & Essentials features, and how you can align yourself with the
various technical, marketing and retail activities Microsoft is
undertaking to re-establish Windows as a premier gaming platform. The
talk covers some technical topics, but only at a high-level; it will be
most useful to producers and marketing managers; programmers may find
the overview of key topics useful as well.
Marketplace: Future of Digital Distribution Speaker: Rohan Oommen
Xbox Live Marketplace is one of the key successes of the Xbox 360 platform, and it has had a tremendous impact on the entire ecosystem between consumers, publishers, retailers, and Microsoft. With Marketplace, we have now truly moved from the latent potential of digital content delivery to the manifest reality of a successful business and partnership model. This overview talk reviews lessons learned from the past year, covers the current successes of Marketplace, and helps you understand how to take advantage of the promotional, revenue, and marketing opportunities that Marketplace offers. This talk is intended for anyone interested in learning more about the new paradigm of digital distribution via the console and how best to position themselves and their titles for success.
Making Your Windows Titles Come ALIVE Anywhere! Speaker: Drew Johnston
The Live Anywhere announcement at E3 this year set the tone for the future of online gaming. This session describes how Live Anywhere extends the Live Experience to Windows with a unified service, gamertag, friends list, achievements, and more. Learn how both publishers and gamers will benefit from Live Anywhere in their Windows and Xbox 360 titles. Topics include the Live Anywhere vision, features, release roadmap, business model, and title approval process. This talk is intended for publishers and business development teams interested in learning how Live Anywhere will benefit both their Windows and Xbox 360 titles.
Community Development and Management – Finding the Balance Panel Moderator: Brett Schnepf
With game community sizes growing well into the millions, developers and publishers see the lucrative opportunity to harvest more sales from these fields of dedicated gamers. How can you harvest such that you walk the balance between doing pure community management and monetizing that community? How can you reap more sales while simultaneously growing the community? How can you design your product to maximize the opportunity? What infrastructure issues do you need to plan in order to address a large community? This is a complex topic with as many questions as answers. Panel members include community managers from some of the top game companies on the planet.
An Update on the U.S. Gaming Market Speaker: Anita Frazier, NPD Group
Getting the right data from the right sources can be the most important part of understanding your game’s audience. This talk takes an in-depth look at the gaming market statistics that NPD has collected for the U.S. market. Items of particular focus are buyer demographics, player demographics, genre profiles, the retail market, and the PC online market (including MMOs). This talk appeals to those who are looking for the data to help inform and influence their key decision-making.
A Producer's Guide to Surviving In-Game Advertising Speakers: Craig Telfer and David Sturman, Massive
There is no question that the cost of game development is rising. With the next generation of games, however, there is a great opportunity to both offset the rising cost of development, and create a more dynamic and immersive gameplay experience by including advertising in your next game. Massive has spent the past few years enabling developers to satisfy this demand without sacrificing aesthetics or gameplay. If you are considering how to implement in-game advertising in your games, this talk is a must-attend session that covers the business model behind in-game advertising, as well as the integration process and how it affects game development schedules.
Next Generation Xbox 360 Accessories Speaker: Rob Walker
This talk provides an in-depth look at next-generation accessories for Xbox 360 and the experiences that they enable. You will learn about accessories available now or in the near future, the ways that gamers interact with games when using these hardware accessories, and the live experiences that are now possible. Attend this talk to understand how to take full advantage of all of the ways that gamers interact with their games and have fun on Xbox 360.
Xbox 360 New Market Efforts Speaker: Michael Mott
India, China, and Brazil are just a few of the markets that Xbox 360 consoles will ship to in the coming months and years. This presentation provides an overview of market entry plans, launch schedules, as well as content requirements and requests.
Expanding Your Audience Through Accessibility Speaker: Brannon Zahand
Do you want your customers to play your games 30 years from now? How do you make a game that appeals to a wide range of players? How do you keep from losing players of different capabilities as they play through your game? This talk focuses on accessibility, and shares thoughts on how to make your game enjoyable by a wider demographic.
Rise Above: Improve Your Game's Chances for Success by Focusing on What Players Want Speaker: Mike Mace
Mix together the following: over 250 games on multiple platforms, thousands of hours of gameplay, a critical eye, and a knack for seeing what works and what doesn’t work in games. What do you get? Amazing insight into how game designers and producers can create even more compelling games by following some simple guidelines. We share key insights into what today’s game players expect from next-generation games on PCs and consoles. Learn how to avoid “player punishment,” why players should always be able to save and quit, why unrelenting darkness is surprisingly unsatisfying, and why the default controller layout can make or break the player’s game experience. This talk is aimed at producers and designers creating the next generation of video games on Microsoft platforms.
QUALITY ASSURANCE AND CERTIFICATION
As games advance to the next generation, the need for great testing practices and high quality control increases. Get solid advice on the industry’s best practices and testing techniques, as well as not-to-be-missed details on technical certification and program requirements for Xbox and Windows.
Game Quality Organization Uncovered Speaker: Debby Engevik
This session covers the game processing and testing roles within the Game Quality Team (A.K.A. Xbox 360 Certification Team). Learn about the types of testing conducted, a day-by-day schedule for a typical game going through certification, and the various networks used for testing your game submission. This session also presents the optimal submission timeline required to hit your desired street date. This talk is particularly relevant to producers and testers of games.
Tools and Techniques for Optimizing Your Xbox 360 Submission Process Speaker: James Jacoby
Has preparing an Xbox 360 game for submission been a painful process? Have you spent time fighting with XLAST or xbGameDisc? Are you unsure of how to prepare for your first game submission? You’re not alone — submission has been the most difficult part of the certification process. See hands-on demonstrations of tools and techniques to quickly build clean submissions, every time.
Introduction to Windows Error Reporting as a Service Speaker: Jason Hardester
Gamers want software to just work and have little tolerance for crashes, hangs, and other unwanted events. This session presents an overview of the new Windows error reporting service that provides unprecedented access to information about your product’s unwanted events so that you can fix and distribute more reliable software. Learn how to leverage this service in your product-development and sustained-engineering cycles to increase your product’s reliability and your customer’s satisfaction.
Games for Windows Vista Compatibility: The Essentials Speaker: Skip McIlvaine
This session steps through best practices for Windows Vista game compatibility and presents them from the perspective of Quality Assurance. Is your installation overly clumsy or complicated — could it actually be the reason that someone can't play your game on Windows Vista? Are you taking full advantage of Game Explorer in Windows Vista? Does your game properly check the OS and DirectX for correct versions? Are you putting files and shortcuts in the right folders, and if not, how might installation, operation, or removal of your game fail? These questions and many others will be explained through specific test cases and real-time demos of a game that does it the right way.
Microsoft Games Testing Organization: Testing Evolved Speaker: Andrew Marthaller
As games get larger and increasingly complex, quality assurance teams need to evolve to meet new and greater challenges. The Microsoft Games Test Organization has been investigating solutions to some of the largest problems caused by this explosive growth, and in this talk, shares its progress with the quality assurance community. In particular, this talk focuses on automation, model-based testing, and time-saving tools and processes.
A Publisher’s Perspective on Xbox Game Certification and Submission Speaker: Ben Crick, EA
Failures during certification can delay your product launch and affect your bottom line. Passing certification the first time is the key to success. Presented by Electronic Arts, this session examines how this large-scale publisher has continually improved its Xbox game quality to achieve a pass rate of nearly 100% for first-time certification. This talk provides an overview of the organizational structure and compliance strategy within EA, followed by suggestions for staffing, and for utilizing test personnel and submission managers.
Open Panel on Quality Assurance and Certification Panel Moderator: Josh Eash
A Q&A session specifically designed to provide an open discussion on all topics from the QA/Certification track. In addition to the day’s speakers, several representatives from the different branches of Microsoft Game Quality and QA will be on hand to field your questions about certification and QA.
Additional recommended talks for Quality Assurance and Certification track attendees: Power Debugging: Nasty Bugs and How To Find Them
An Introduction to Agile
Development Live Anywhere: Bringing the Live Experience to Windows Managing Content Builds with XNA Build Rise Above: Improving Your Game's Chances for Success by Focusing on What Players Want Games as Malware: Why Security is Your Problem Too Hardening the Box: The Xbox 360 and Windows Vista Security Models Next-Generation Xbox 360 Accessories Expanding Your Audience Through Accessibility Community Development and Management - Finding the Balance An Update on the U.S. Gaming Market Future Platforms and Opportunities for Casual Games The Dos and Absolutely-Do-Nots of XLSP: A Middleware Perspective Marketplace: Future of Digital Distribution
And don’t forget to visit the Certification and Independent Test Vendor booths in the Expo Hall!
Art teams are integral to the success of next-generation game development. The powerful hardware in modern PCs and Xbox 360 enables sophisticated graphics technologies that require new techniques in art generation. Discover what it takes to improve the overall visual fidelity and pipeline productivity for next-generation games for Windows and Xbox 360.
Dynamic Animation in Next-Generation Games Speakers: Simon Mack, Natural Motion Ltd. and Chris Williams, Lucas Arts
Dynamic Motion Synthesis is a new approach to 3D character animation. Unlike conventional animation techniques such as keyframing and motion capture, DMS lets the animator use the CPU to create the character's movements in real time. This talk, presented by NaturalMotion, discusses how dynamic animations can generate unique moments and create new forms of gameplay. In addition, the talk focuses on how animators can maintain control over simulated characters and how the risks of using a cutting-edge system such as motion synthesis can be managed in a production environment.
Exporting SOFTIMAGE FACE ROBOT into a Real-Time Engine Speaker: Mark Schoennagel, Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc.
The next great challenge for 3D animators is to create memorable, lifelike, and exciting character performances. The heart of a good story is characters that audiences can connect with on an emotional level. This talk showcases Face Robot, a powerful tool from Softimage that allows artists to create life-like facial animations for in-game characters. In addition, the talk explores functional pipelines that artists can use to integrate Face Robot into a real-time game engine.
Unlocking the Power of Autodesk 3ds Max for Next-Generation Asset Creation Speaker: Shane Griffith, Autodesk
The difference between a good artist and a power user is often just the tricks and techniques they utilize. Learn to harness more power from Autodesk 3ds Max and use it in an efficient content production pipeline. This presentation also covers new features from upcoming releases. No matter how much you think you know about Max, this session will teach you something new.
Unlocking the Power of Autodesk Maya for Next-Generation Asset Creation Speaker: Steve Roselle, Autodesk
Think you know everything there is to know about the power and capability of Autodesk Maya…well, think again! The upcoming releases bring a tremendous amount of innovation and introduce countless new features. This session breaks down some of the new features and teaches attendees how to better integrate Autodesk Maya into a game content production pipeline.
Character Animation in Autodesk Workflows Speakers: Steve Roselle and Shane Griffith, Autodesk
Procedural Texturing Using ProFX: 2K Textures in 2 KB Speaker: Gilles Fleury, Allegorithmic and Joshua Glazer, Naked Sky Entertainment
Procedural textures provide an alternative to image-based textures. The trade-off is between memory cost and execution time. This presentation discusses the space-saving and time-saving features of Allegorithmic ProFX as well as optimization strategies for working with procedural textures. ProFX is a texture generation package with both authoring tools and a highly optimized Xbox360 runtime library that leverages both multi-core and GPU accelerations. This session covers how to integrate this innovative technology into your art pipeline, and create a dramatic impact on game team productivity, on memory footprints, on visual complexity, and on the overall aesthetics of a scene.
How'd They Do That? Graphics Samples Explained Speaker: Mikey Wetzel
Are you the type of person who sees a cool visual effect in a movie or game and asks, “How’d they do that?” If so, your curiosity will be satisfied as a graphics developer takes four recent graphics samples from the Xbox 360 and DirectX SDKs and breaks them down into easily understood pieces. For each sample, such as Variance Shadow Mapping and Relief Mapping, you learn how the effect works, the pros and cons of the technique, performance concerns to be aware of, and which variables the artist can control. After this talk, you’ll understand what you need to implement these effects in your own title.
Creating Captivating Visual Content for DirectX 10 Speaker: Kevin Bjorke, NVIDIA
Ever-faster and more capable graphics hardware brings new technological possibilities to games, but only if the games themselves make use of these new possibilities. The introduction of DirectX 10 opens up many new and innovative choices for visual styling and gameplay; these choices come as much from the content creators as they do from the programming teams. This talk demonstrates a number of the new ideas in graphics and animation currently being developed for DirectX 10–class hardware by the demo and dev-tech teams at NVIDIA. The talk explores not only new ideas for real-time graphics but also new ideas in how to expose tremendous capabilities to artists through the application of new and enhanced art tools. Be prepared for an unprecedented look into the innovative future of graphics hardware and its capabilities in modeling, animation, and shading.
Shaders and Shader Tools for Artists Speaker: Guennadi Riguer, ATI
The latest developments in real-time graphics seen in modern games have brought us shader effects that we could only dream of just a couple of years ago. The fast-paced game development industry demands that artists become technically savvy and quickly grasp the technology behind these effects so they can tweak them appropriately. This session helps artists understand shader technologies and how to use tools such as ATI RenderMonkey to create and manipulate stunning shader effects.
Pushing the Pipeline: Creating a Next-Generation Art Pipeline in Less Than Six Months Speaker: Andy Marchal, Neversoft Entertainment
Over the past year, Neversoft made the leap into native development on Xbox 360. The old fixed-function graphics pipeline that served us well for the past five years no longer accommodated our needs going forward and had to be abandoned. To replace it and meet the demands of a tight one-year development cycle, we built a new, more dynamic shader-based pipeline. This talk addresses the decisions and consequences of developing and implementing a new graphics pipeline.
Photorealistic Lighting Solutions for Next-Generation Games Using Turtle 3 Speakers: Magnus Pettersson and David Larsson , Illuminate Labs
Next-generation consoles offer an unprecedented opportunity for artists to create photorealistic games. This opportunity requires new tools that can handle the performance the console’s offer and the audience requires. Turtle 3 is the first dedicated baking and rendering solution designed to streamline next-generation game lighting through faster workflow and higher performance. This presentation provides numerous production examples that demonstrate the real value of this product in a production environment and also highlights some of its key features, such as surface transfer, ambient occlusion, and polynomial texture maps.
Strategies for Coping with the Demand of High-Definition Art Speaker: Evan Hirsch, FASA, Microsoft Game Studios
The native high-definition display requirements of Xbox 360 have brought a whole new series of challenges to how studios approach content creation. Some studios are outsourcing, some are simply hiring many more traditional game artists, while others are hiring people from film and other industries. This presentation examines the challenges and some of the unexpected impacts, both good and bad, that result from each of these content creation strategies. This talk applies to both Xbox 360 and Windows. Abstract Symbols:
|
||||||
|
© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement
|
