GDC 2013 Animation EXTRAVAGANZA

GDC 2013 is only 2 weeks away! This year, animators attending will find a buffet of animation offerings! Tasty morsels of information and conversation! How else can I get this to sound like food!

FEED YOUR CREATIVE BEAST!

There we go.

Animation Bootcamp

Leading off the week will be the first annual Animation Bootcamp! We have a ton of great speakers and topics during this full-day event.

Here's a link to the bootcamp on the GDC website:

http://schedule2013.gdconf.com/session-id/822362

And the currently planned schedule:

Monday, March 25
10 - 10:15 - Intro - Mike Jungbluth, Tim Borrelli and Nate Walpole
10:15 - Making an Audience Believe - Jalil Sadool (Dreamworks)
11:15 - It's Alive! Developing Animal/Creature Movement - Amy Drobeck (WB Games)
12:15 - 1:30 - Lunch
1:30 - How to Get the Most Out of Your Mocap - Simon Unger (IO Interactive)
2:30 - Animating the 3rd Assassin - Jonathan Cooper (Ubisoft)
3:30 - Giving Purpose to 1st Person Animation - Ryan Duffin (Danger Close)
4:30 - Break
4:45 - Designing A Performance - Ed Hooks & Mike Jungbluth
5:45 - 6:15 - Q & A Roundtable - Tim Borrelli (5th Cell)

In addition to Ed Hooks' talk at the Animation Bootcamp, he'll be giving another during the main conference:

http://schedule2013.gdconf.com/session-id/824127

It's on Wednesday, at 3:30 PM.

But that's not all!

Animation and Character Performance Roundtable

This year will be the inaugural year of the Animation and Character Performance Roundtable! After three years of hosting the Tech Animation Roundtable, I noticed that more and more of the conversations involved discussing how game development teams can work better, and facilitate meaningful dialogue with designers, animators, modelers, writers, and AI programmers. Unfortunately, many of those people were not in the room! The Animation and Character Performance Roundtable aims to correct this. This roundtable will focus on the entire process of a character's performance in-game, including the initial design spec, concept phase, modeling for animation, rigging, creation of animations for proper player input or AI controls, use of motion performance capture, creation of state machines and blend trees, voice recording, implementation in the game engine, and finally, the end-user experience.

Here are the links to the roundtable sessions on the GDC website:

http://schedule2013.gdconf.com/session-id/822399
http://schedule2013.gdconf.com/session-id/824296
http://schedule2013.gdconf.com/session-id/824297

And the currently planned schedule:

Wednesday 2:00 PM
Thursday 10:00 AM
Friday 4:00 PM (last session of GDC! Last year I had a great turnout, so let's beat that this time guys and gals!)

If you are an animator, character artist, concept artist, designer, writer, AI or animation programmer, or just interested in animation and characters in games, come by! Get involved in the discussion on everything that goes into character performance- from concept, to model, to rigging, to animation, and into game.

So spread the word! And be sure to come and participate in what are bound to be lively discussions!

See you all at the buffet table in two weeks!