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Jonathan Smith
(Development Director - TT Games Publishing Ltd)
We Need You!
Why it's so important that brilliant people like you make video games, and how you can contribute to the future of this most exciting medium.
A former games journalist and editor at Future Publishing, Jonathan Smith is development director at TT Games, where he was responsible for the production of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game. Previously, Jonathan held the position of Head of External Development at Codemasters.
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Stefan Rueger
(Reader in Multimedia and Information Systems - Department of Computing, Imperial College London)
New Paradigms in Media Access
The talk will highlight a few new audio-visual methods of accessing media repositories, for example "search by example" and novel modes of browsing. We will look at some of the scientific challenges in this area and also at commercial applications
Stefan Rueger is a Reader in Multimedia and Information Systems at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London.
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Simon Protheroe
(New Media & IT Director - Eidos)
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should
This talk will emphasize the point that gameplay has to remain paramount and technology should be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.
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Peter Molyneux
(Chief Executive Officer - Lionhead Studios)
Next Generation Technology and Design
We are delighted to welcome back to GaME one of the best-known names in the international world of computer games. Peter Molyneux co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987 and created a new genre of computer games, "the God game" with the release of Populous. In 1997, Peter left Bullfrog Productions to form a new games development company: Lionhead Studios (developers of Black & White and Fable). Peter is recognised as one of the computer games industry's most articulate and eloquent speakers on the subject of the development of computer games. He has recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Abertay and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. He was made an OBE in the 2004 New Year Honours List for services to the computer games industry.
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Maja Pantic
(Visual Information Processing Group - Department of Computing, Imperial College London)
Face for InterFace
Machine understanding of facial expressions could revolutionize human-machine interaction and ambient intelligence technologies and fields as diverse as security, behavioral science, medicine, and education. In security contexts, facial expressions play a crucial role in establishing or detracting from credibility. In medicine, facial expressions are the direct means to identify when specific mental processes are occurring. In education, pupils' facial expressions inform the teacher of the need to adjust the instructional message. As far as natural interfaces between humans and computers (PCs / robots / machines) are concerned, facial expressions provide a way to communicate basic information about needs and demands to the machine.
Where the user is looking (i.e., gaze tracking) can be effectively used to free computer users from the classic keyboard and mouse. Also, certain facial signals (e.g., a wink) can be associated with certain commands (e.g., a mouse click) offering an alternative to traditional keyboard and mouse commands.
The human ability to read emotions from someone's facial expressions is the basis of facial effect processing that can lead to expanding interfaces with emotional communication and, in turn, to obtaining a more flexible, adaptable, and natural interaction between humans and machines. Three systems for fully automatic recognition of facial muscle actions (i.e., atomic facial gestures) in face video will be presented in this talk.
A case-based reasoning system capable of classifying facial expressions (given in terms of facial muscle actions) into the emotion categories learned from the user will be presented as well. An overview of how this technology can be applied in the game industry will conclude the talk.
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Jan Kautz
(Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics Group - University College London)
Achieving Realism in Real-Time
The creation of images which are indistinguishable from photographs is a
longstanding problem in computer graphics. There are several existing
techniques to create photorealistic images such as radiosity
and ray tracing. Unfortunately, these methods can take minutes or
possibly hours to produce a single image. In contrast to these methods, I will present Precomputed Radiance Transfer, a technique which enables the rendering of objects with natural lighting, producing realistic soft shadows and
interreflections - all rendered in real-time.
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Mark Morris and Chris Delay
(Introversion)
Inside Introversion
This talk will cover two main elements - one part will be a critique of creativity in the games industry, with the other half exploring the methodology and inspiration behind Introversion's games.
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Mario D'Onofrio
(Electronic Arts)
Battlefield Xbox 360 : A Case Study
Mario will present an overview of some of the key graphical techniques used in developing a first-generation game for a next-generation platform as well as the motivations behind them and a brief look at future directions.
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Dave Poston
(IdeaWorks 3D)
Bringing Console Quality To Mobile
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Jeff Magee
(Head of Department - Imperial College London)
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John Cass
(Business Development Manager for Creative Industries - Imperial College London)
John leads the development of engagement and research collaboration with the Creative Industries. He has worked for IBM Research and Eidos Technologies in the UK, Philips Electronics in the Netherlands and he has taught at Master’s level in the International Design School in Seoul, Korea. John’s primary interest is to enable innovation by bringing together technical research, creative ambition and business potential.
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Panel
Game technology research
How can university research strengthen the games software industry? What are the key technology areas for long-term research? What can be done to develop the relationship between universities, the industry, and research funding agencies? This short session will be driven by questions and comments from the audience and speakers, and participants are encouraged to join in.
The panel will be chaired by John Cass (Imperial College London) and will include Jonathan Sapsed (Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London), Fred Hasson (TIGA), Vince Osgood (EPSRC), Jonathan Smith (TT Games Publishing), Jan Kautz (University College London) and Alex Ward (EA)
If you have any enquiries, please contact Karen Osmond or Steve Ingram (
game@doc.ic.ac.uk)