Week Twenty-Two

The GDC week, or how my tutors tried to make our entire class jealous of their trip to San Francisco (and managed, quite effectively.)

It is quite shocking to me, a non gamer, just how many of these sessions look really really interesting, even though I have no prior knowledge of the game that they're based around. The talk about art directing horror and immersion in DEAD SPACE for example, looks completely fascinating. I don't even watch horror films, and it looks interesting. However, I do think that despite being on wheels no one could have dragged me into the talk about NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM. I mean, one of the areas of focus is listed as secret techniques. Perhaps that means something other than that what I think it does, but still.

Lighting with a purpose. Now there's one that looks like a gem. That could be applied to any form of art, not just game art, even if that's where the practical demonstrations lay. So is it possible to glean advice from games lectures that could be applied to other areas of art? I think so. Especially if you're working on either extreme realism or extreme stylisation for something. Creative and unique stylisation seems to be becoming a big thing in gaming at the moment, and understanding the process from conceptualisation to realisation must surely be helpful for other areas of art and design.

So there. You don't have to be an avid gamer to find things of interest at gaming conferences. Getting a different perspective on something leads to greater creativity, so doing something completely different once in a while is good for those unique ideas.

http://www.gdconf.com/