Author: sick skills

Giant Squid Studios’ 2016 underwater exploration game Abzu was, if nothing else, visually resplendent.

At GDC 2017, Giant Squid’s Matt Nava gave a behind-the-scenes look at the processes he and the Abzu team developed to create it.

According to Nava, the game’s vibrant underwater setting presented many technical and artistic challenges uncommon in most games, such as animating vast amounts of fish, simulating huge dynamic kelp forests, and modeling undersea lighting and atmospherics.

Additionally, the team needed to devise a method of creating artistically authored terrains that were visually integrated with the variety of objects in a given scene, yet pliable enough for near constant large scale revision.

His talk was interesting because he explained the solutions/tricks he and the team devised to tackle these problems, sharing examples of from various stages of development.

Now, you can watch Nava’s full talk for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas

VR has many practical uses outside the sphere games and entertainment. The multiple applications where the technology can be utilized leaves a lot of room for innovation. With that, it comes as no surprise that VR has been used by researchers interested in using the tech to gain insight into human cognition.

During VRDC 2017 in San Francisco today, head of virtual reality and game design at IBM Research Aldis Sipolins lead a discussion about what VR means for human research, and how game design overlaps with experimental design.

When Sipolins experienced VR for the first time, it was with an Oculus DK1 and two motion controllers velcro’d onto the side of his head. With a little work he was able access Minecraft. Being able to peer around a cube in 3D space was a game changer and from then on, he knew VR was going to be invaluable for his work going forward. “I can’t overstate how important this is.” He said. 

For Sipolins, testing behavior and studying human cognition in VR is a no brainer. “We bring people into the lab and test them using pen and paper. But it makes sense to test things in 3D because we live in 3D.” Scientifically speaking, VR accurately mimics how we see. 

“Binocular disparity is the difference between what your eyes see.” He said, hand outstretched in front of his face. He described what his left eye could see, and what features his right eye could distinguish. We can’t get this same experience from a 2D screen, and a lot of that has to do with presence. 

“VR is good for science because of presence.” explains Sipolins. “Your brain’s an idiot and VR fools it.” Presence in VR is a game-changer for human research, and is used in tandem with machine learning by researchers to get a window into human cognition. He goes on to define the concept of ecological validity, which is how much of the artificial reality you create in the lab translates to the real world.

A great example of this in VR are those who tend to hurt themselves in immersive experiences because the line between what’s real and what’s not has become blurred. VR has the power to illicit this behavior. Sipolins gives an example of how behavioral studies that seek to study the brain often use rudimentary or clunky techniques. He mentions the struggle of asking a patient to press buttons inside of an MRI machine, and how VR solves the largely solves this issue of presence.  

VR gives you presence, which gives you ecological validity and this is good for research. “You can break presence in a million ways, but the most tragic is when you go to do something and it won’t let you. This is the difference between pressing B to jump and just jumping.” He said when mentioning input and output in games.

“If you want to change what someone sees, you can add and remove visual input in VR which means you can create entirely new behaviors. VR enables behavior that would be impossible in real life.” 

It’s easy to see why Sipolins has a positive outlook on the future of VR, especially when it comes to using the technology for research. “VR gives us a better way to understand the human condition, it can be whatever you want. It doesn’t matter if it’s game design or level design. Good design is good business. Whatever you’re doing, just do good.”

Nels Anderson, formerly of Campo Santo, announced that he has opened up his own game development studio to develop a yet unannounced “sweet video game.” 

The studio itself is called Caledonia and, beyond that, details are scarce. But Anderson notes that he has already assembled a squad of developers to join him on the project, though he hasn’t disclosed who will be joining him on his new team quite yet. 

Anderson himself was one of the first members of Firewatch dev Campo Santo, and served as a designer for that project. Prior to his days at Campo Santo, Anderson spent time at Klei Entertainment, first as a programmer in 2008 and later as the lead designer on Mark of the Ninja in 2010. 

“Ok, things are real enough to say I’ve started a cool team of people to make a sweet video game. We’re Caledonia,” Anderson announced over Twitter. “Will be talking about the team and game soon-ish, but mostly this is just because I know there are all kinds of things I don’t know, so I’ll be picking the brains of you very smart people about things, and now you’ll have some idea of what I’m nattering on about!”

Update: An earlier version of this story branded Anderson a cofounder of Campo Santo. Anderson later contacted Gamasutra to say that Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin are technically the only cofounders. “Founder? More like flounder!” Anderson told Gamasutra, referring to the well-known species of flatfish.

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Los Angeles, California

The Big Picture

Mindshow is PC-based virtual reality software that lets you make animated movies in VR with your body and voice. Become 3D cartoon characters, act out a show, and share it with your friends. Come take a look at what we’re building: http://store.steampowered.com/app/382000

We’re looking for top software engineers to help us lead the charge. The ideal candidate has real-world experience developing AAA game titles, solid knowledge in the fundamentals of engineering and computer science, and a passion for virtual reality. You love learning new technologies and quickly applying them to practice. If this sounds like you, then you’ll love it here… we’ve got some cool stuff for you to work on. Send us your resume.

The Everyday View

• Implement the Mindshow virtual reality application for the Vive and Oculus on the PC, and for emerging mobile VR platforms
• Develop high-quality, modular code that is well engineered and architected to support long-term development and product evolution
• Collaborate with designers and artists to develop new features, characters, environments, and props, and contribute original ideas towards all aspects of production and development
• Work with QA (in addition to testing your own code and performing peer reviews of other people’s code) to ensure the application is rock solid
• Analyze code performance and architect optimizations
• Keep up to date with technological developments and advancements in virtual reality

The Kind of Person We’re Looking For

• Hands-on experience developing AAA-quality game titles for the PC or game consoles using leading 3D game creation engines
• Formal training and experience in software engineering and computer science
• Excellent software design and programming skills using C# or C++
• Highly skilled in developing software for 3D computer graphics, math, motion capture, animation, gameplay, 3D user interfaces, physics, and networking
• 3+ years’ work experience (outside of college) within agile Scrum engineering teams

Plusses The Get You Noticed

• Portfolio of prior AAA game titles
• Real-world experience with software architectures and design principals used for large-scale engineering projects, such as inversion of control, separation of concerns, and MVC, and knowledge on how to apply them within a game object / component engine
• Experience with virtual reality (Vive, Oculus, PSVR) and VR SDKs (SteamVR plugin for Unity, Unity VR API, OpenVR)
• Experience developing shaders in HLSL
• Experience developing multi-user systems, real-time networking, digital content distribution, and social network integration

Interested? Apply now. 

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

Nintendo has now joined the ranks of game companies that allow players to add an additional layer of security to their online accounts. 

The company has added two-step verification as an optional feature for Nintendo Accounts through the Google Authenticator app.

Going forward, players that choose to enable the feature will need to enter an additional six-digit code generated by the Google app when logging into their Nintendo Account.

In essence, two-step verification prevents would-be troublemakers from accessing an account with just a stolen password since they’d also need access to the account owner’s smartphone to log in.

PlayStation notably introduced two-step verification to PlayStation Network accounts just over a year ago, though Sony’s security offering sends codes via text message rather than through its own or a third-party app. Games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI and XIV have also made use of the security feature in the past, providing verification codes via physical authenticators prior to the rise of smartphones.

The 2018 Game Developers Conference has opened a call for submissions to ALT.CTRL.GDC, that popular on-site special exhibit which highlights unique control methods for playing games.

The perennially popular ALT.CTRL.GDC showcase will take place from March 21 to March 23, 2018 at the Game Developers Conference 2018. The deadline for submissions to the showcase is December 1st, and organizers welcome all indie-centric one-of-a-kind game peripherals, contraptions, and novelties which enhance game experiences and challenge traditional forms of input.

To get your cranial and actual circuits buzzing, consider that last year ALT.CTRL.GDC visitors played a game of give-and-take with a re-purposed printer motor in Doggy-Tug-of-War, touched colorfully-tinted tummies to make mix and match colors in U.F.O. Bellies, crawled for their lives by pulling on a carpeted treadmill in Zombie Crawler, and revisited their childhood imaginations while titling and shooting in a cardboard box in Space Box.

The ALT.CTRL.GDC 2017 Award winner, Fear Sphere, was a spine-tingling inflatable escape-room that players stepped inside and illuminated with a flashlight that doubled as a portable video projector, while another player stood outside to help guide the sphere-engulfed player to safety.

Teams for each chosen submission will be asked to showcase their games to GDC attendees at the ALT.CTRL.GDC exhibit area. They’ll also receive a pair of All-Access Passes and a pair of Expo Passes, for a total of four free passes to GDC 2018.

For the second year in a row, one of the games selected to be part of the GDC 2018 ALT.CTRL.GDC showcase will win the ALT.CTRL.GDC Award ($3,000) at the IGF ceremony during GDC, with judging taking place on-site.

In exchange for the passes and free exhibit space, teams will be responsible for their own travel and the delivery of their exhibit submission to GDC in San Francisco. Those interested in participating in ALT.CTRL.GDC should fill out this online form in its entirety. Any questions about the form or the exhibit should be directed to ALT.CTRL.GDC’s organizer, John Polson.

This will be the fifth year that ALT.CTRL.GDC appears at GDC, and organizers are looking forward to the remarkable outpouring of creativity and ingenuity that has become a hallmark of the interactive exhibit. Organizers are also preparing a host of other exciting interactive exhibits for the upcoming GDC which will be announced in the coming months.

GDC 2018 will itself take place Monday, March 19 to Friday, March 23, 2018 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. More information about Game Developers Conference 2018 is available via its official website.

GDC and Gamasutra are sibling organizations under parent company UBM Americas