Event Details
Speakers
- Mark Baker (Disney, Black Rock Studio)
- Kristof Beets (Imagination Technologies)
- Simon Colton (Imperial College London)
- Fred Hasson (RedBedlam)
- Kerry Fraser Robinson (RedBedlam)
- Mark Morris (Introversion Software)
- Bruno Nicoletti (The Foundry)
- Murray Shanahan (Imperial College London)
- Chris Sweetman (Splash Damage)
- Dave Taylor (Imperial College London)
- Dave Taylor
- Robin Baumgarten
- Hakan Ozbay, Derek Chow, Andrew Lyle, Viral Shah and Samir Talwar
Mark Baker
Principal Programmer, Disney / Black Rock Studio
"Data, Dependencies and Distribution: How to build a better Game"
What is a 'build system' and why is it important for Game Development? This talk will introduce game build systems, look at their use in Black Rock Studio's hit racing game Pure and discuss future directions for improvement.
Mark is a games industry veteran of 11 years experience and an Imperial College alumnus, having completed MEng Computing in 1998 with first class honors. He has worked for many games companies in a variety of roles, often concentrating on tools and infrastructure. He has contributed to 3 published games with an average metacritic rating of 75.
Kristof Beets
Imagination Technologies
"Enabling the 3D Graphics revolution in the Mobile Phone Market"
Dr. Simon Colton
Senior Lecturer, Imperial College London
"Ludic Computing meets AI Research"
The notion of Ludic Computing embraces the fact that interacting with
computers can be a very enjoyable and immersive experience, and that this role for computers in society is ever expanding. This is most obviously the case with entertainment software such as video games, or with social networks, etc., but Ludic computing covers other areas such as generative art. Ludic computing has historically driven research in graphics and web technologies more so than in AI. Two ends of an axis in AI research are (i) using computational models to help us understand more about human intelligence and (ii) building autonomously intelligent systems. Hence a particular area of Ludic Computing, where intelligent systems produce artefacts (artworks, game content, music, etc.) specifically for the enjoyment of users provides a unique opportunity to research both ends of this axis at once, because human enjoyment/immersion must be taken into account in order to build intelligent systems for these tasks. I will highlight the potential for Ludic Computing to drive AI research by drawing on some projects currently underway in the Computational Creativity group here at Imperial. These projects cover video games, graphic design and visual arts applications. Please see www.doc.ic.ac.uk/ccg for further details.
Fred Hasson
Executive Director, RedBedlam
Kerry Fraser Robinson
Founder, RedBedlam
"The Games Merry-go-round"
25 years ago developers were at the centre of the value chain in the industry - then they got pushed to the periphery as the marketers of boxes and retail outlets took control of the value chain. However, the rise of broadband, digital distribution, virtual worlds and MMOGs gives developers new ways to market and more control once more. Fred Hasson ex CEO of Tiga now with Redbedlam, virtual world specialists and Kerry Fraser Robinson Founder of Redbedlam look at the rapidly evolving marketplace in the games industry.
Mark Morris
Managing Director, Introversion Software
"When Professors Play: How Imperial helped us make better games"
Mark Morris joined forces with Chris Delay and Thomas Arundel to found Introversion Software in 2001 after completing a Masters degree in Computer Science at Imperial College, London. Mark has used the experiences and management skills he gained from a period of work with the Ministry of Defence to ensure the smooth day-to-day running and operation of Introversion, in which he adopts the role of both project manager and arbiter between the commercial and development sides of the team. To date, Mark has been heavily involved in the successful online and retail launches of Introversion's titles, Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON and Multiwinia. He is currently working in the role of producer for Introversion's next title Darwinia+ (Xbox Live® Arcade) due out in the early Autumn 2009.
Bruno Nicoletti
Chief Technical Officer, The Foundry
"Visual Effects, a Guide for Geeks"
From it's analogue beginnings in film printing models and matte paintings, visual effects for film and television is now completely digital. Software drives it all, which places developers in key roles within the industry. This talk covers various roles developers can take on in the visual effect industry and goes on to discuss some of the areas of active research for visual effects developers.
Bruno has a B.Sc (Hons) from Sydney University and has worked in the visual effects industry sinced 1987. He started off developing bespoke software at various post production companies and working directly on productions. Later he moved to commercial software development at Animal Logic, Softimage (now part of Autodesk) and Discreet Logic (also part of Autodesk). He co-founded The Foundry in 1996, and is now the company's CTO and heads the HPC team there.
Professor Murray Shanahan
Professor in Cognitive Robotics, Imperial College London
"Is Gaming Technology Going to Give Us AI?"
In the science fiction near-futures of the mid 20th Century, robots with human-level intelligence were ubiquitous, the products, perhaps, of large government sponsored research projects similar to the Apollo programme. But the future has surprised us. At the close of the first decade of the 21st century, human-level artificial intelligence still seems a long way off. On the other hand, the technology needed to develop it may now be with us, not because of the success of a centrally driven research programme, but thanks to the potent market force that is the gaming community. This talk will present two ways in which gaming technology is powering our ongoing research in cognitive robotics. First, we are using GPUs to implement large networks of biologically realistic spiking neurons in real time, which in turn will be used to control a humanoid robot. Second, in a separate strand of research, we are deploying physics engines to endow a robot with the ability to model the dynamics of potential interactions with its environment, that is to say to rehearse the consequences of actions before risking their actual performance.
Chris Sweetman
Audio Director, Splash Damage
"Guns Have Wheels - What You Can Communicate to Players via Dynamic Sound Design"
There's more to action game audio than directories full of boom.wav - this session reveals the state of the art in creating and implementing dynamically-generated weapon sounds. Learn how granular playback and realtime processing keep every shot sounding fresh and full of information, and how well-designed audio can also drive the gameplay.
Chris Sweetman is the Audio Director at Splash Damage. With over seventeen years' experience in the film and video games industries he has worked on over 20 titles, including the award-winning Black and Burnout Paradise from EA Criterion, S.W.A.T Global Strike Team, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Malice, Furfighters & Hogs of War. His career began in the late 80's working with his father, a film industry veteran, at the Digital Sound House, providing post production facilities to Commercials, Documentaries and Feature Films.
Dave Taylor
Programme Lead, Virtual Worlds and Medical Media, Imperial College London
"Virtual Worlds applications in Healthcare"
Dave Taylor is Programme Lead for the Medical Media and Design Laboratory (MMDL) in the Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology at Imperial College London. This is a new research group whose mission is to develop ground-breaking applications for virtual worlds with a focus on the visualisation of future health care delivery models, product and service innovation and educational simulations using interactive clinical scenarios.
Dave has been active in the virtual world of Second Life since early 2006 and is one of the founders of the SciLands Science and Technology continent. He championed and managed production for all of the UK islands in the SciLands including Nanotechnology (National Physical Laboratory), the Government FutureFocus island and Imperial College’s builds for NHS London (Second Health) and "Medical School".
In previous lives Dave has been Vice President of Global Web for a leading multinational and managed Letraset's European Software business, working with Adobe Systems, Pixar and Apple Computer in the 80's and 90's.
Dave has a BSc in Mathematics and an MSc in Experimental Psychology.