New Art Toy

While at GDC we had a booth behind us from the guys and gals at 3D Connexion, a company that sells some nifty little offhand mice that basicly allow you to utilize your camera controls in an app like Max or Maya without needing to touch the keyboard. I took a bit of time at the show to try out the demos that they had going and was impressed enough to spend $60 on a show special model of the Explorer PE.

I haven't had too much time to use it since I came home but its treated me well so far.

GDC Day 3

The final day of GDC was finally upon us, I awoke better but still very very sore. I ended up skipping breakfast and heading to the show floor to do my stuff at the Kiosk. Luckily I didn't work at the kiosk too much and had a chance to explore the demo floor.

It was somewhat fun to explore the expo as everyone was so frazzled by the week thus far the sales mode was gone and it was just a casual chat mode. Some of the cooler things I experianced was the offhand mouse technology that 3D Conexion offered (I ended up buy a show special version for $60) and some really cool mocap technology that NaturalPoint was developing with a $5000 pricetag. Justin Mette and I were pretty interested in this technology for possible use in a few upcoming projects MGT and 21-6 are working on together. Unfortunately the technology isn't available just yet but they might be doing some early adapter programs that we can get into.

After the show was done everyone at the Multiverse booth headed across the street to the local theatre to check out the 300 in Imax! This movie is pretty frigging good, with some great camera movement that's well timed and goes with the visuals.

GDC Day 2

Awoke this day wondering why the hell there weren't more hours to sleep, I was pretty sore still from the night before (not from drinking but from all the walking and talking). We ended up at the Moscone center after another quick breakfast at Mels Drive In.

Day 2 was a real challenge for me as Adrian and Ed ended up in various meetings that they had setup as well as were introduced to thanks to the fine folks at Multiverse. So my entire day was spent on my feet talking to people who stopped by the booth, which oddly enough were a lot of developers who happend to be walking by and liked what we were doing (which included an executive VP of a larger gaming company whose specialty was making MMO games). I also got to meet a lot of additional press guys and more investory type people.

By about 4pm though my body had had enough, my legs were hurting and my back was in enough pain that I actually paid attention to it. Thankfully I was relieved from the kiosk by the return of Adrian and Ed from meetings, so I sat my ass down at the nearby meeting area in the expo and just tried to veg out.

Once the show was done we headed out for another meal, this time with Justin, who was feeling alot better, in tow. After a quick meal we got a rather impromptu invite (aka cute girl on the street corner) to a private party that was taking place around the corner for an up and coming MMO game called Fallen Earth. I didn't get all the information, but from what I gather the guys are making their own MMO and MMO tech about a post apocalytpic, Road Warrior type world that looks not too bad. I kind of wish I paid more tech by my body was pretty hurt by this point from all the standing and combined with the exhaustion I just vegged out.

Once that event was done Ed dragged us down to the White Wolf party that was some ungodly distance away from the Moscone at an a wierd Industrial Metal bar. By this point I wasnt too eager to be at the place, combined with the fact it was shoulder to shoulder with people with a crappy Vampire theme going and some boring go go dancers in those elevated cages. I wasnt too pleased with people bumping into me so I headed back for the hotel. Thus ending my crappy day.

GDC Day 1

Wednesday arrived for us with a real hurry. I have to admit that we were all pretty curious exactly how the show would go for us since we will be guests at a booth and running a tech demo based on our stuff done with Multiverse.

We arrived at the show floor to see Judd already there confirming that the server and the connections were rocking and rolling. Also there were various Multiverse staff members as well as members from other demo teams such as Force of Arms (mech mmo), Ardent (Shakespear online), Mermaids and Tim Holtt. Here we got some extra instructions of what to and not to say and some positive words of encouragement.

With that said the show started with a nice easy curve, the doors opened and various people began to flood into the expo hall floor. During the rest of the day Corey Bridges from Multiverse did a great job entertaining and doing a live demostration of the technology to groups of people. For us we got a great reception from people who stopped and loved the work that we had done to the engine, to make things even better throughout the day Bill Turpin introduced us to various movers and shakers looking to invest in some MMO games.

One of the more interesting things that I go to do on Wednesday was a TV interview with MMORPG.com, I was a bit nervous but I think the interview went pretty well as they asked various questions about what we had done here at GDC with Dark Horizons Universe and what our long term goals and plans were for the game in the future.

After the show was done for the day we headed out for some food at Jillians with a few of the Multiverse guys and then headed out to some parties. First up was the Minna Mangle event, which honestly sucked ass. For a casual mixer event the thing failed, it was over crowded and so dammed noisy that you couldn't even hear yourself speak (it also didn't help that there was a lack of bartenders to support the 300+ people that were there). I took a quick look around for the GarageGames employees that were supposed to be at the event, but none where in sight (which was unfortunate since I wanted to talk to some of the programmers from there to get some good information that their PR guys were unable or unwilling to share with me). As such we left that event after a few minutes and then headed off to go see Justin Mette.

Justin was feeling rather under the weather and had come in late this afternoon to the show, so he wasn't able to join us this evening but it was good to catch up and say hello.

Our next stop was going to be the Onling Gaming SIG party, but seeing how freakish the Minna Mangle event was for people we figured we would just head out and find a little bar near the Moscone to have a nightcap before heading to bed for the evening. After such a long day we were all pretty happy to sit our ass down and rest for the remainder of the night.

GDC Day 0.5

This is a belated post for Tuesday's GDC events. On this particular day the Max Gaming crew took things a bit easy, waking up late and spending some time tweaking various settings in our Multiverse demo world on this very unreliable hotel wireless connection that we have access to here.

Once that was completed we made our way down to the Moscone to see what was going on at the Multiverse booth. Using our exhibitor passes we got early access into the expo hall and snooped around. This place was a made hive of busy union workers, some working, some not, setting up various booths. I was amazed the size and complexity of some of the booths that are here at the show, a lot of them have a big fancy E3 style to them, while others are a lot more subdued and typical GDC.

During this time we got an opportunity to test out our tech demo on the kiosk machines at the Multiverse booth where we are stationed during the show. Thankfully the game runs pretty smooth on these machines and there were no issues. Corey Bridges from Multiverse took this time to setup his space in the booth to do his presentations, giving us both a quick run down of the talk he is planning on doing and making us laugh our asses off in the process.

Once everything was wrapped up at the Moscone, we all went down to a nice italian restaurant named Umbria, here the guys at Multiverse (thanks Bill Turpin) purchased a great dinner for his multiverse team and all the demo teams such as our that were present at the show. We all had a great time here spending a number of hours eating some fantastic food as well as chatting with everyone around us about the multiverse technology and game development.

GDC 07 - Day 0

As some of you may or may not know, I am attending GDC this year, but not as as an attendee to view sessions and leech as much information that I can, but as an exhibitor. That's right MGT will be on the show floor, all thanks to our good friends at Multiverse. Who have not only been an incredible technology partner to work with but have also graciously given us a few GDC passes and a permament kiosk in their booth at GDC to show our work on!

Note: I am also writing this from within Multiveres offices, who by the way are in middle of San Jose's tech hub of Google and Mozilla to name but a few.

For the past two months we have been working our assess off with a lot of long nights of building a great little tech demo from scratch with the current beta build of the Multiverse tools. Unfortunatley we had to keep this news confidential until now, so expect a bunch of updates from me during the week with a demo video and screenshots as well as show news and updates.

I am hoping that I have a chance to catch up with a lot of my peers such as Justin Mette (from 21-6 productions) and some buddies from GarageGames. I am also looking foward to seeing the latest and greatest and software and hardware technologies demoed here at the show. Hopefully we will get some new partnerships from it that will continue to help us to move ahead.

Lastly, as for my arrival here in San Fran, the flight was easy and I think I have adopted to the fact that I have skipped ahead two seasons here. Its the start of summer here in California while we were at the ass end of winter up in Edmonton.