Animated Travels

This wonderful building becomes like Everest after three days.

written by Johannes Wolters

Okay, there is one minor flaw in fmx. I had to go through three days of fmx09, but then I found it. Or better it found me. The house of commerce, this big old wonderful building, where fmx is placed is a truly great place for all the things going on. But the event has now conquered four floors of the place and every floor has very high walls. So if you want to run downstairs and upstairs to catch your next meeting, to get to your next discussion, whatever, you climbed in the end all together the Everest. Or at least your legs begin to revolt. So on the last day of fmx you notice more and more people (and not only the elderly ones), who take the elevators, a little bit hidden and a little bit slow. But that’s the only flaw I have found on this years edition of fmx. I have to admit this stairs-sport is also very healthy. May be not, with all the coffee you need to drain every piece of information from this awesome conference. Again the creators of the fmx, Renata and Thomas Haegele topped the event from last year and again the numbers of attendees increased. Again more and internationally renowned speakers came to Stuttgart, again for four days the sunny town became animator’s land And that in those dark and gloomy times of worldwide economic crisis. And I did not discover one unhappy face during all those days. Must be heaven!
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Patrick Davenport explains mo-cap advances at fmx.

written by Johannes Wolters

You know what´s interesting about the fmx?. You stay there in the foyer, in the halls, you have this big accessibility to each and everyone. So I found myself talking to one of the big visual effects designers of this planet.

Kevin Tod Haugs worked on “Quantum of Solace,” “The Kite Runner,” “Finding Neverland,” “Panic Room” and many more. An his opinion about the stereoscopic films is a technical one:  “I just find it heartbreaking, that after years and years and years of dealing with resolution, we are finally getting to the point, where its 2k or 4k, we could make choices, its all gonna be fine, we get digital cameras, we get rid of scanning, its all gonna be fine and then we have to make it twice as complicated. Just, when its gonna be easy, we have to make it hard.”
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Richard Edlund was a superstar at fmx.

written by Johannes Wolters

Where to begin? Information overload. Day 2. Fmx09.

The fmx may not be as big as SIGGRAPH, but like an American professional stated, it is superbly organized, which makes it a truly wonderful event throughout the world of Visual Effects, Animation, Games and Digital Media. Steffen Wild presented the work and the developments inside the beloved World of Jim Henson Muppets today. The famous creature shop made it bold steps into the digital realm, carefully keeping the original muppet touch alive. Like Jim Henson told his staff “Have an Idea? We try it out. Never be afraid of failure”. The successful use of digital puppeteering was successful used on the TV-show “Sid the Science Kid”. 40 episodes, together 20 hours had to be put together within only one year. Key to the success: strong characters, the excellent collaboration between the puppeteers, the use of live action disciplines, the clever utilization of new technology and a perfect real-world-compatibility. Just doing digital puppets the muppet way. On the live stage up to six characters can now be handled at the same time datawise. All to create webisodes, commercials, Television shows and direct-to-dvd material at the moment. And of course at some point in the future creating a feature film with a hybrid approach.
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Bringing Hollywood to Germany

written by Johannes Wolters

Cloudy, sometimes rainy. Stuttgart, the capital of the German federal state of Baden Wüerrttemberg is once again for the next four days the global center of animation. The 14. International Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Digital Media opened its gates to the huge crowds of professionals, students, journalists and all enthusiasts, who are interested in the latest technologies, brilliant developments and in meeting and talking to the leading women and men behind the magic of animation. “The fmx09 has become Europe´s most significant animation get together” stated the Minister for Media, Professor Dr. Wolfgang Reinhart. And the Conference is still growing strongly. At the opening press conference, Prof. Thomas Haegele thanked all the partners of the event, especially the Visual Effects Society (VES) and the Academy of Arts & Sciences (AIAS) The new kid on the block is the 5D Conference, becoming a cooperation partner of the fmx for the first time this year. Main partners again are Autodesk, Deutsche Telekom, Pixar Animation Studios and Sony Pictures Imageworks. And every year, more and more floors of the gigantic old Palais, now called Haus der Wirtschaft/House of Commerce become occupied with all the highly interesting events of the fmx. That means, if you choose one event, you miss 10 other.  So either you have to be Doctor Manhattan and split up, or you have to suffer through those difficult decisions, where to go, what to attend. Thinking all the time, what you are missing.

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MIPTV is always a draw, but how has the economy affected this marketplace?

written by Heather Kenyon

Wow, was it easier to get from meeting to meeting this past MIPTV.  Considerably smaller in scale both booth wise and in attendance, it was a noticeably quieter MIPTV. “Yeah, well, this is what it looks like when several trillion dollars disappears overnight…” a seasoned market-goer told me.  While there is no denying that the world is in the midst of a major fiscal re-order, a lot of the people at MIP weren’t necessarily crying the panicked, frantic song they were at last fall’s MIPCOM.  The sky is no longer falling, business is just slow…really slow.  “I am only here for a few days and only meeting with the people that I might actually do business with,” I heard over and over.  I also heard, across the board, in every meeting, the words, “new media” and “diversify.”  New media is the given, with not only producers unveiling elaborate cross-platform ideas with every pitch, but also a number of new players coming to the event and starting some interesting, brain-bending conversations.  And “diversify” came into play as players scramble to have as many arrows in their quivers as possible to stay afloat.  An animation producer with a new board game?  An animation company plunging into live-action?  A television producer suddenly pitching a feature?  An animation production house moving into online world creation?  ‘Why not!’ is the attitude right now.  When times are slow, you have to start thinking of other places to sell.

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Origins returns BioWare to its roots.

written by Evan Goncalo

There’s no better way to start a day off, then with a panel of well-known press members presenting with attitude!  My first stop was “Burned by Friendly Fire: Game Critics Rant.”  The ideas represented by the press members in attendance were both refreshing and thoughtful.  N’Gai Croal, formerly of Newsweek, opened up with a presentation on the term “Hardcore Gamer” and noted that we had to stop using it and other words like “Casual” to describe styles of play.  The reason being, the game industry’s audience adapts to changes in the industry rapidly, and we as developers, journalists, and consultants need to do the same.

Stephen Totillo of MTV News encouraged gaming press to write better articles, and went over the four words that must be banned from game journalism – compelling, visceral, very, and “adverbs.”  Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra followed suit with a plea for better communication between the gaming trinity – press, developers, and fans.  Two guest speakers followed, writer from Wall Street Journal Jamin Brophy-Warren and head of IGDA, Jason Della Rocca. Brophy-Warren asked for developers to create more racially diverse characters for their titles and Della Rocca asked IGDA members to get more involved in the organization.
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David Crane (l) and Steve Cartwright.

Written by Evan Goncalo

I was off to an early start this morning – the good news being the hearty breakfast I wolfed down when I learned more about Adobe’s new Director 11.5 release.  Dr. Allen Patridge of Adobe ran the presentation, and he went over some of the things users can expect from the new Director software.  He approached this from three angles: Dominate, Accelerate, and Impress.”

The first item refers to Adobe’s high user and penetration numbers; Shockwave’s penetration is currently around 60% of all web users.  Accelerate is related to the “drag and drop ease” of the engine, and unified authoring across multiple platforms.  Lastly, the way Director impresses is with a rich feature list, including true 5.1 surround sound, flash media streaming video, Google SketchUp import/translation, and PhysX support.

After my breakfast with Adobe I got a chance to sit and speak with two game developer legends, David Crane and Steve Cartwright.  I asked some things to benefit the new aspiring artists out there, as well as some “just for fun” questions.
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Diner Dash's Flo is on the go to consoles.

written by Evan Goncalo

The first thing on today’s agenda was to head over to the W Hotel to meet with Hudson Entertainment.  I got hands on with “Military Madness”, “Diner Dash”, “Water Warfare”, “Help Wanted”, and some other new titles in their portable library.  All titles besides “Military Madness” are meant for anyone to play, both hardcore gamers, and families alike.

“Military Madness” is a full 3D remake of its TurboGrafx-16 predecessor but also adds new features like multiplayer (up to 4 players local and online) as well as a new upgradeable unit called the “commander.”  They are also bringing PC favorite, “Diner Dash,” to the console trio, also now fully in 3D.  The new “Diner Dash” played as easily as the original, and with the addition of multiplayer, now allows for endless fun with friends.

“Water Warfare” manages to bring the fun of a traditional FPS into the family living room arena without violence.  You play as a fully customizable playground kid, armed to the teeth with water gun weapons in the mold of machine guns and sniper rifles.  I learned along the way to be wary of committing “soakicide” while using the water launcher.  Water Warfare is also playable online with up to 8 players, and can make for some competitive game-play.

Last but not least of the console-based titles is “Help Wanted” – a light-hearted, comical, and simple game built around mini-games in the form of wacky jobs.  The game’s art style looks is very “anime” but also have a hint of “Mii” styling.
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GDC gets serious about Serious Games.

written by Chris Harz, Ed.D.

The Game Developers Conference 2009 featured several specialty categories of videogames with strong potential for new types of creative expression and careers (read: “jobs for animators”). The GDC’s Serious Games Summit was an object lesson on how many areas of the world can be affected by games—and how effective Serious Games can be in teaching, affecting opinion, motivating exercise, and medical healing, to name but a few. A Serious Game is one where entertainment is not the primary objective—though the game still needs to be entertaining, as many developers pointed out, else no one will use it.

The Serious Game segment continues to grow; it was estimated at about $2 billion in 2008. It is still a very new industry, based mostly in the US, which is not surprising, since the US government was and continues to be a major sponsor. The number of government agencies using games has grown since last year—if you want to work for the CIA, DIA, FBI, DHS or other “alphabet soup” agencies, this is a great way to do it (in fact, the CIA has supported many game companies through its investment arm, In-Q-Tel). The demand for medical games is expanding, and the business training market is becoming solid. Surprisingly, the one market segment where teaching games would seem to make the most sense—schools—has still not taken off yet; there are a few successful games for schools, but they are mostly bought by parents for use after school, not by the schools themselves. Teachers are still puzzling over how to use gaming technology in the classroom, and many of them seem afraid to use anything that their students would probably understand much better than they do, so the poor kids are still stuck with dry and hard to understand textbooks.

Some other trends are emerging. Whereas early Serious Games were often extensive 3D projects, more of them are now simple games, so they overlap two other categories—Casual Games (games that are simple to learn) and Mobile Games (for handhelds). This makes it easier for new companies to enter this area—instead of having to pitch an expensive 3D game to a client, creative developers can offer content that could be delivered via iPhones, where the content might be simple, but the total effect could be dramatic because of its outreach to an entire work force, and the ability to add and update content continually.

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Another busy day at GDC.

written by Evan Goncalo

Today was off to a good start with Khronos’ three press releases this morning during their “Developer University.”  They talked briefly about the all-new OpenGL 3.1 with a new streamlined API, and also covered their new OpenSL ES 1.0 API, which is coming close to completely converging with OpenGL – something that would enable a subset that could run anywhere, either on desktop or mobile.  They also unveiled their initiative to bring accelerated 3D content to the web.  Mozilla spearheads this effort with the support of Google.  The goal of the movement is to not only enhance current web applications, but to enable new innovations in web 3d created by any developer.  A call-to-arms was made for industry personnel to support and work towards this goal.

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