IGDA's Open Mic Night

The Mighty shower curtain in Bar 244's basement

At Thursday April 14 2011 @ 7:30 PM there was the IGDA's Open Mic night. I know this post is kind of late but rest assured it won't happen again. It was held at bar 244 in the basement. We walked down the stairs to find a projector set up beaming at a shower curtain. It was uprising how effective it actually was.

Ryan Henson Creighton opening with the traditional devil horns hand sign...rock on.

The festivities start as Ryan announces the start of the event and also a grand prize for best ranter. A golden squeegee. Now who ever didn't want it was a loser already. Also it came with a pair of tickets to Video game live. Then came our host for the night.

Mathew Kumar really likes nuts...coconuts that is.

Mathew Kumar. He opened and opened hard with a great insight to why we all love video games. The reason is coconuts. Anyways after all this talk about the white and juicy substance our first speaker out of 11 was up.

And I thought he was your average treasure seeking, henchmen killing, sarcastic pretty boy. Nope he is a monster.

Craig D. Adams and his crimes against Nathan Drake.

Craig Adams made some great points on Mr Nathan Drake. For example The bad Russian shoots his henchmen and he is labeled a devious monster whereas Drake has killed dozens of henchmen to get a fucking piece of treasure and he is still our witty charming hero.

cake?

Yes that is David Gallant wearing a dress to win a copy of fat princess. He is a hero.

David Gallant without the dress...damn.

Yes. I get to be a game enthusiast who writes about games because I can and no one can stop me.

We went out of our momma's basement to end up in Bar 244's basement.

A friend of mine decided to rant about all the wrong things all us students are doing. That is shoving business cards and resumes everywhere. We should out to make connections and prove to everyone that we are in fact awesome and also do awesome work.

Rant mode engage. Activate Rage Lasers.

Don't be a socially awkward penguin. Come out and meet people. It does your career a whole lot then staying home and playing games.

So I can haz video game job cause I play lots of games right?

Higher!

Randy was all about setting this bar even higher. By making games worthwhile for the player.

Randy Orenstein is angry because he couldn't raise his time bar.

However Randy was cut off mid sentence before his last paragraph and was music cued of the stage.

Jon Remedios...Not getting a dollar from me because he has no title slide.

Jon expressing his love for the app store because everybody is making air hockey games. He actually was expressing how the problem with the app store was that all games have been universally accepted as 1 dollar regardless of quality. That sucks.

I think the word shit was said at least 23 times in this rant...awesome.

Kris explaining the design process of games and the endless cycles of shits and fucks.

The lone beer agreeing with Kris.

Making games is hard. You rarely get to play games anymore. whoever said games design is easy or you just play games all day should be impaled with a power glove. It is worth it though.

Hey you got education in my video game. You got video games in my education.

Damian here was ranting about how educational games can be just as good as AAA titles. However most companies won't do them because the general public only wants to do a few things. shoot stuff and things along those lines. Damn it general public.

War never changes but games can.

If snakes says that, it must be true right? right...?

Schools that teach game design that is crazy.

Also being in a game design school this one was a more home hitting topic. Game design programs should have teacher's that are in the game's industry or at least have been in there. That makes sense right? Luckily for us at Hernando Vasquez school of the digitally inclined do have those teachers but after hearing Adams rant I guess we got lucky. Take that everyone else.

I wish my school taught game design...oh wait it does. Awwwwww yeaaaaa.

Let`s hope the never escape from that corner. We would be overrun with creativity.

Steger discussed the pros and cons of the XBLA indie market. The problem is all in the marketability

Daniel Steger the man behind the game that launches babies.

Forever alone...

Eric talked about standing out in the world of indie video game development.

Eric Roberts is he forever alone?

Indie game developers are the heroes this city needs but not the one it wants.

Then came Ben. Ranting about how Indies are the ones to elevate our state of video games because everyone else to too lazy to do it.

Benjamin Rivers makes me feel like a "dirty man child whore."

Shit just got real. "real video games" versus Indie games.

After all the rants our winner was chosen. The loudest cheer went towards Kris and he was crowned our champion. After that we all flooded to the top floor to bother the "normals" and hear the results of a lottery. Apparently just for showing up we all had a chance to win a pair of video game live tickets. I didn't win of course because that would be unfair to everyone. I am already too awesome.

GBC's Anime Vortex Brawl Competition

So I've been super busy to do any updates but I will now dump everything I have on you. A few weeks ago Bon's club at GBC hosted a Super Smash Brothers Brawl Tournament. As it happened to be 4 way and smash balls I took the most strategic approach. Stay away and let everyone kill each other then I would grab the smash ball for the win. It worked. I won a very nice Rei Wall-scroll fro 1st place.

Rango: A Talk by Doug Sutton

A decent seat to the side. Now to conquer the fear of the dark.

On Thursday March 31st we were able to attend another talk by CASO (Computer Animation Studios of Ontario). This time it was by Doug Sutton a technical director for the feature film Rango. This talk was located in the Scotia Bank Theater and yup you guessed it. It was in a theater. The best part about just showing up was receiving a brown bag lunch. Filled with snakes. Kidding it was filled with delicious sandwiches and baked goods. This is how you bribe a student. Food and talk about their profession.

BTW that is the corner of Arthur's head from The Indies Guys podcast. God damn it Arthur.

The theater was a little dark so I was surprised I could get decent photos. Well Doug Sutton appeared and the talk began.

Lot of cool concepts. I really like their "ugly character" style.

He went over the concepts for Rango and described the difficulties of having "ugly characters" to relate with. The solution? make them have cute attributes and character traits. Making a "ugly character" do cute things certainly makes them seem more "real." mobsters running a store for abandoned baby pets...wins my heart any day.

awwwwwwwww yeeeeaaaaaaa. Schoolgirl Mouse. Sorry something is wrong with me.

Going over models, animations and concepts.

I wish math was always like this.

An interesting and effective way of making animal based characters. Math.

Whose eyes are those eyes? Hahahaha...I'm scared now.

He discussed the importance of eyes and how animated/3D/CG eyes always produced the same unrealistic effect. A lot of emotion does begin in the eyes and how eyes are genuinely different with varied layers.

Guy: " ummm anyone going to put out that fire?"

Then started to talk about the cast and animation teams. Some excellent points for aspiring animators. That would be to actually get up from your seat and act out your scene. It may be embarrassing but is highly effective for figuring out which bones and muscles move. Also the cast for Rango acted the scenes together instead of separately which probably gave it more of a "natural" effect.

This tail is the best tail.

Being a technical director he went into great detail about Lighting and the production pipeline and how to make it more effective. The Ideal animation pipeline is linear but there is no ideal pipeline and then discussed how continuity is awesome and how it makes a huge difference in animated films. Then finally talked about the convergence of technologies how they will change in the future. Such as shader unification, file type unification, and renderer unification. Pretty interesting stuff.

Ever feel the urge to jump? Good neither do I.

So that was all there was time for. He headed out with our heads constantly saying "watch Rango NOW!" and full stomachs. I actually debated going to watch Rango right there in the theater. So we left and proceeded down the stairs of Scotia Bank Theater only to ascend the stairs of our profession. Man I say some good things sometimes. I am awesome.

GBC's Game Developers Club Event: James Chang and the EA story

Last Friday the 25Th the George Brown College's Game Developers Club presented Mr. James Chang to deliver a fascinating talk. What about you ask? Well it happen to be about kittens. No, it really was about what it would be like to work at Electronic Arts. Former Project Manager James Chang decided to do this a different way however.

Mr. James Chang "The Destroyer." That is actually not his alias. Sorry.

Mr. James "Change" decided to present the talk as if it was a mock employee orientation. It was definitely interesting. For the reasons that no one else had done that yet and he was too good at it. I was convinced I worked at EA and I was taking pictures.

Giving the low-down of EA.

Man good thing I'm not in any of those streams. Oh, wait...Animation.

After we got seated and orientated that we actually got the fake jobs. Mr. James Chang went through the whole list. Benefits, work areas, sections, Pipelines, etc. Pretty much everything. I mean everything and yes even the meaning of life. I will reveal that at the bottom.

Man Look at the GBCers and their fancy chairs.

The definite highlight at the end was Mr. James Chang showing off his Junk. By junk I mean this below.

He is sad that it is not encrusted in marshmallows.

That was his framed FIFA 06. He let us all look at the shiny object and in fact. We were all in awe. Look at these students awing.

Look at this young fellow with huge potential.

Not this guy though.

It is now mine Mhahahaha. Pretty cool.

That concludes on the event. There will be many more to come from these aspiring young lads from George Brown College. By the way the meaning of life is games. Come on you really thought I would say anything else?

The “Toronto Indie Guys” Podcast Episode 6

I had the chance to guest star in the infamous “Toronto Indie Guys” podcast with Arthur and Max Yesterday. I hear the episode itself will be out around this weekend. Check out my Links page to go straight to their page or the link on the bottom.

Arthur's fancy recording device above

We covered topics that spanned over some Hand Eye Society events and we glazed over the most recent IGDA event. We also made use of the the word "meat" and "fire" over and over in the podcast.

Arthur and Max with their "ladies face"

Their faces every time I said meat or fire.

I also guest starred with another fellow student. Mr. Jon Burton in the middle. Overall it was fun and hopefully they will bring me back with all my antics.

Their link I Love Big Meat!

Digital-Tutors Review: Introduction to Maya Animation: Walk Cycle

As an aspiring animator walk cycles should be a part of my repertoire of skills. So when I found this tutorial on digital tutors I was ecstatic. This tutorial is practical essential to any aspiring animators and I highly recommend you check it out right now. Well if your busy I understand...NO, Do it right now.

The tutorial highlights many important aspects such as: using the graph editor to fix F curves, what should move during a walk, and even how to modify this walk for females.

Check Out how Mine Turned out in the Animations Section after I upload them.

10 out of 10 Stars. Essential as an animator in training.

Intro and MTAC - Sunday

So this the very first post on my revived Blog. It also so happens to be MTAC which is the March Toronto Anime Convention. Or at least I believe it to be, If I am wrong...well too bad it is now. Anyways this will be the first of many of my convention visits and it will be my absolute duty to provide you my pictures to these wonderful events. For this one my loyal and trusting follower accompanied me to brave the vast world of an Anime...what a loser. It is his first time to a con like that. Anyways here it is.

The Entrance to MTAC. Where we stood in awe.

We entered the event to find people lining up to get in. Some were in cosplay while most weren't. Since I only could go on the Sunday, We didn't see that many people since we went on the less popular day of the event.

The fabled Dealer`s room. Many have fallen to its allure.

We ventured to the dealer's room only to find it to be kinda small. Well not a big deal at all. We wandered for a bit to find all these booths.

SO Many Buttons. They speak to me.

I Returned to these like 6 times when I was here. Their spell was strong.


War never changes. Neither do dealer rooms though.


More Figures. METAL GEAR!


The Guys at A & C Games were Ice Cold. (Haha get it cause Batman? Yea, Sorry)

I encountered some familiar faces such as the guys from A & C games on Spadina. With body suit and all. When I approached Punch out was set up and I threatened to punch out gar. See what I did there.

My name is Flip and I like Popsicles . Kaito Pillow is amazing.


My Name is Dave and I like Bananas. Len Pillow is also awesome.


The view leaving center. So pretty.

Well after 2 hours or so we decided to leave and restore our endurance with yummy Vietnamese food. All the events were too far off (time wise) to really attend so we decided to just watch Archer and Adventure Time at home.

Look at the stuff I found.

I stayed within my budget so no problems there. There was a Sucker Punch promotion which I picked up a poster and a Lollipop. I guess I am a sucker for suckers...punch. Yea, sorry about that.

The Black Rock Shooter that I got for 50% off.


Long cat is Loooooooooong. Best item of the event.

Overall it was OK. The dealer's room was kinda small and there wasn't many events but I did go on the less active day so I can't really complain. However this was a good intro for my friend for Anime North in May.