GDC Sessions - Saturday, March 13

If you're still in San Francisco this Saturday for GDC, and haven't already succumbed to the effects of all the GDC activities, feel free to drop by any one of our four sessions today. This is also your last day to drop by the Naughty Dog booth at the Career Pavilion to ask any and all questions you may have about seeking employment at Naughty Dog and our studio culture. In that vein, if you're looking to work in the game industry, or if you want some tips on how to make yourself a more attractive candidate, may I suggest you check out game designer Jacob Minkoff's session, "Getting Noticed: Why You Need an Online Portfolio and How to Make One."

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 10:30am - 11:30am
Uncharted 2 Character Pipeline: An In-depth Look at the Creation of U2's Characters
Richard Diamant (Lead Character Artist, Naughty Dog Inc.), Judd Simantov (Lead Character Technical Director, Naughty Dog Inc)
Room 135, North Hall
Some of the topics covered will include how we used our propriety modeling and UV tools to deal with output a variety of meshes in an efficient manner. How we use Maya referencing to allow us to maintain one skeleton for all the different outfits. Our facial rigging setup and how we are able to use one skeleton for both male and female characters. The process of sculpting our character, building our arbitrary meshes and sampling the hi-resolution detail down to this new mesh. Dealing with seams created by UV border. As well as all the other interesting challenges and solutions we encountered and solved during production.

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Animation and Player Control in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Travis McIntosh (Lead Programmer, Naughty Dog Inc.)
Room 135, North Hall
A look at the techniques used by UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune and UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves for implementing the player character's animation and control. Partial and additive animations, layering, remapping, flipping, performance and memory considerations are all examined in depth, as well as particular focus on the the player's core movement implementation. This is a look at what worked, and what didn't work, how we did what we did, how we're going to improve it in the future, and what non-standard animation features proved particularly valuable for the player's look and feel in the UNCHARTED series.

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Getting Noticed: Why You Need an Online Portfolio and How to Make One
Jacob Minkoff (Game Designer, Naughty Dog Inc)
Room 306, South Hall
Acquiring the right skills is only the first step to getting hired in the games industry; now those skills need to be displayed. A well-written cover-letter and resume are important but, in game development, the online portfolio is king. Using examples drawn from actual industry portfolios spanning multiple disciplines and laying out a step-by-step process for portfolio website and content generation, this talk will show you how to easily create a professional-quality portfolio website that will substantially increase your odds of being hired for a game development position no matter what your concentration or experience level.

Saturday (March 13, 2010) 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Uncharted 2: HDR Lighting
John Hable (Programmer, Naughty Dog)
Room 305, South Hall
This session talks about HDR Lighting in UNCHARTED 2. The main focus will be Gamma/Linear-Space Lighting, Filmic Tonemapping, and Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion. Throughout the session, we will talk about all the little details that no one tells you, like why our SSAO only affects ambient light, how our highlights avoid clamping, and if specular maps should be stored in linear or gamma space.