Double Buffered

Like last year, I’m headed off to GDC. I have my own conference pass this year (no more sleazy pass sharing!), so I’ll be hitting sessions all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. For some reason you can’t link directly to your conference schedule, but hey, I have a blog. Post session I’ll fill them in with notes. If the session is interesting I’ll write up a full post, but if the session is “interesting” I’ll just ignore it. Or possibly delete it off here so I can pretend I didn’t go. Oh, and there’s no 9AM sessions because there’s no way I’m driving up from the south bay at 6am. Here’s The Cool Places To Be (with updated notes in bold as I get them transcribed):

Thursday

• 10:30AM: Data is a Four-Letter Word: I like some data. “asset-asset reference digraph” sounds pretty hot. (Ended up going to and writing up notes for The AI of BioShock 2: Methods for Innovation and Iteration instead. Read them)
• 1:30PM: Design in Detail: Changing the Time Between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds for Halo 3: I’ve been doing some detail oriented gameplay iteration, so I’d be happy to pick up some specific tips. I hope it’s more than just “cause we said so” (Posted my frantically written notes)
• 3:00PM: Making a Standard (and Trying to Stick to it!): Blizzard Design Philosophies: Blizzard design talks tend to be pretty cool. (I made it to this one, but had to leave halfway through. It was a good overview of Blizzard’s design team, and here’s some notes from gamespot.)
• 4:30PM: Dynamic Navmesh – AI in the Dynamic Environment of Splinter Cell: Conviction: I keep saying I’ll get back into hardcore AI development. Seems like a good time to start. (Had to miss all the 4:30 sessions because something came up.)

Friday

• 10:30AM: I’m going to try and hit Sid Meier’s keynote. “Psychology of Game Design” sounds like basically the best thing ever. (I was there but didn’t take complete notes. Gamasutra has some nice notes.)
• 1:30PM: Unsure. I’m going to go for either Streaming Massive Environments from 0 to 200 MPH or The Nuovo Sessions depending on how “Nuovo” I feel. (Wrote up my notes for the Streaming talk, it was nice and technical)
• 3:00PM: Zero to Millions: Building an XLSP for Gears of War 2: After running into some horrible XLSP-related pain I’m curious what Epic did to solve various issues. (I ended up going to Procedural, There is Nothing Random About it instead. Here’s the notes I wrote)
  
• 4:30PM: I’m thinking of Development Telemetry in Video Games Projects largely because I need to get The German back for all those TF2 deaths, but I may go for Reading the Player’s Mind Through His Thumbs: Inferring Player Intent Through Controller Input. (Here’s some notes for the really-quite-good session on controller input)
  

Saturday

• 10:30AM: Modeling Individual Personalities in The Sims 3. I’m working on a side project involving personality modeling, so this is Relevant To My Interests. (I missed this, which was possibly related to me driving back from SF at 3AM the night before. Friend told me it was good.)
• 1:30PM: Animation and Player Control in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted II: Among Thieves. Game had some good animation. Yeah. (I missed the first 10 minutes so didn’t write any notes. I wish I had as I quite enjoyed the session and can’t find comprehensive notes online)
• 3:00PM: Single-Player, Multiplayer, MMOG: Design Psychologies for Different Social Contexts: Ernest Adams is always a good listen. Expect notes of this. (Posted my Notes)