MODO is Son's modeling weapon of choice - and, if you weren't online Nov 10 for the interview - check it out now.

Son has some great tips, not only for the MODO crowd - but for anyone charged with the difficult task of wrangling polygons into a character.

Along with the interview - Son has also posted a video tutorial covering UV mapping on the Animate This! tutorial challenge.

Thanks again, Son - and the Artist/Animator Community looks forward to more tips, tricks & tutorials to come!

- Pitz

To get answers I think you have to think outside “typical” PC gaming development. The opportunity is in how people use, work, and interact with these devices differently than say a traditional laptop or desktop systems. You don't have to stretch the imagination too far to understand the growth market and new gaming opportunities in the mobile space. Just look at the iPhone. Many of the most successful games on that platform are not your traditional polygon pushing games.

My last post looked at how casual games could be enhanced with “relax” modes; allowing gamers to have stress free casual gaming experiences. Similarly here, the message is good game play is not defined by to hardware specifications. Good games can be derived from the state of mind, tasks, & environment of gamers when using their device. As with the iPhone, Atom based devices are used in unique situations where there are unique gaming opportunities. If you consider how, when, where and why gamers use a companion PC device like a Netbook you can find new market opportunities for gaming.

Here’s my list of things developers should consider when creating new Atom based games:

• Quick and convenient game play:
  

  Zen Bound is a beautifully simplistic game for the iPhone that exploits how that device is used

  
  Your Atom based device is likely traveling with you, and the user will consider playing a game when they have down time between other activities while on the road. This doesn't mean games need to be short but they should accommodate gamers jumping in an out quickly
• Location aware:
  Because the gamer will be mobile, location aware features in games can add another dimension to games. There's a lot going on with augmented reality these days, and clever games can make use of locations and environments that mix with the game play to make interesting gaming experiences
• Focused tasked:
  Smaller screen sizes, can also lend to more focused tasks in games. Consider UI designs that are minimalized & focused over providing a swiss army knife of tools and tasks. Often focused game play can lead to stunning graphics and great gaming experiences. A great example of this is Zen Bound for the iPhone.
• Social play:
  Mobile computing devices are becoming popular because they allow you to easily stay connected with your network of friends. Beyond multi-user play, consider how to involve sharing and status updates with integration of email, Twitter & Facebook
• Asynchronous online play:
  With mobility being more connected, it may not mean always connected. Consider games that allow you play immediately then connect with the network between levels or games.

Additionally more than just creating new games, developing games for Atom provides these additional opportunities.

Mobile mini games could allow you to customize aspects of your PC games such as upgrading & modding vehicles, characters, & weapons

• Companion mini games of existing game titles:
  Often the same software will run your PC as will run on a gamer’s Intel based portable device. Consider levels, mini games, tasks, puzzles and vehicle configuration tools that a gamer can take on the road with them, then upload a status of their portable play to their PC game for experience points, level ups, weapons etc
• Component development:
  With Atom Developer Program, you can develop and sell game components for other developers to use. Many of the above items can be consider areas of component development. As well there will be many flavors in the hardware, some with multi-touch, some with webcams, etc. All opportunities to create components that will be valuable for developers

I’m sure there is much more to consider than my short list, especially when you look at various hardware options, but the point is we have an exciting time in front of us. If we focus on how people uniquely use Atom based devices we can find new opportunities to; create new exciting gaming experiences, extend the value of existing titles, and create gaming components that enable a marketplace of cool new game.

In other words Bring It!

Relevant Links

• Atom Developer Program
• Atom Developer SDK
• Follow Intel's Bob Duffy on Twitter

Today's show is a slightly different format. Steve Pitzel community manager for Artist/Animator and Media will talk with Son Kim, uber modeler and winner of Project Offset’s first User Created Content contest, Son Kim.

Download link to a high quality MP4 video file of the show (about 150MB)

Show notes:
• Where did you first learn about Project Offset?
• What got you get interested in building 3D CG characters?
• What tools do you like to use.
• Any tips and tricks that you want to share with our viewers.
• What are your future plans?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

Teresa Carrigan, a professor of Computer Science and game developer for Electrotank, authored an interesting article in Casual Connect’s recent 2009 Summer Magazine(PDF) titled. "Calm Down, Would You?" This article takes a look at how users would like to have options to play casual games in a relaxed mode.

I have to admit this topic resonates with me. If my day isn't already packed with meetings, clearing email, and social networks; rather than a welcome break, video games can often be a huge time suck or a crazy beat the clock stresser. Seriously, Modern Warfare 2 is sizing up to be a number of lost weekends. (arguably a good problem)

And casual games with countdown timers to beat, can be anything but relaxing. How many words can you get in Quordy on the iPhone in 60 seconds. I thought 30 was good until my wife told me she regularly gets 60. Remove the timer and I know I can beat her (well in my head anyway).

According to Teresa

Having to beat a timer can give some players a thrill. There’s that rush of adrenaline that comes with barely squeaking by in the last few seconds, and the joy of finally beating a difficult level after several attempts. This thrill appeals to many players, but by no means to all of them.

In her article Teresa reviewed feedback from casual gamers in online forums and found they are seeking more "relax" modes in their favorite games.

Many users are clamoring for options that allow them to tailor the games they purchase to suit their mood and style of play. Some of the most outspoken users are disabled and would be happy to buy twice as many games as they do now if only those games had a few easy-to-add options

Teresa believes developers can create alternative scoring methods to accommodate relax modes. Here is my shorthand on her tips:

• Practice mode: Set a mode without a timer, or timer off.
• Expert, Normal, Easy, Relaxed Mode: If the game doesn’t make sense with no timer, give it a large time limit such as four or eight times that of Expert.
• Gold, Silver, Blue, Green: Let the player finish or play outside of a target time. Gold goes to those who finish within the target time etc
• Counting Hints: Allow the gamer to take his time and gather as many hints or hidden objects as possible
• Counting Unused Power-ups:
• Counting Moves:
• Counting Customers (Time Management Games): In time management games that have a goal of earning a target amount of money within a time limit, the relaxed mode might instead require that you earn that sum within a certain number of customers.

I think these make great sense and lend themselves to a casual portable gaming experience. Relaxed mode scoring could also involve social gaming, i.e. send your result to a friend, have them beat you and so on. No timer needed, just one ups-man-ship. That’s how my daughter and I play I SPY; I found 8, I found 10, and so on.

I can also imagine save points and check points in some of these scenarios as a way to reduce long game play, when you're trying to have a quick break.

Teresa concludes

There is a growing pool of potential customers for games that are not fast-paced. In as much as it is quite easy to implement some type of relaxed mode without affecting the basic gameplay, doing so promises increased sales and profits for minimal investment

I have to agree. As games are developed for the convenience and portability of Netbooks, MIDs and handhelds, you have to consider games modes that aid a simple break away from the day, similar to getting off a quick Tweet or checking your Facebook status. As Teresa notes, these can be "relax" modes you adopt for standard games.

And for me, relax modes mean I don’t up my blood pressure while killing time in a doctors waiting room.. seriously I can't figure how she averages 60 words in 60 seconds.

Relavant Links

• Atom Developer Program
• Atom Developer SDK
• Casual Gaming Association
• Follow Intel's Bob Duffy on Twitter

The highlight of the event was the keynote by Ernest Adams, the founder and first Chairman of International Game Developers Association. In his keynote, he encouraged Indian developers to draw inspiration from India’s history and culture and design games that showcase to the world the richness of Indian culture.

The conference drew attention to the simultaneous growth witnessed across all gaming verticals in India over the past couple of years and how consumers today especially the youth is spending more on games. Currently PC & online games along with mobile games dominate the Indian gaming industry. MMORPG was projected as the natural next step to explore for gaming companies with successful PC game titles.

Udaysimha, Program Manager and Mark Kim, Engineering Manager, Intel Corporation, shared some key insights from Korean and other Asian markets on the MMORPG evolution and best practices that Indian developers can adopt. Mark and Uday had an interactive session on the technical and content considerations that game studios in India will need to keep in mind, while building online games. Many interesting conversations were triggered off and many gaming companies expressed an interest to partner with Intel. If you are a gaming ISV in India and would like to partner with us, please send us a note to software.india@intel.com

Udaysimha and Imran Khan, Vice President Technology, FX Labs in another session spoke about the recent success of Ghajini, a game title (based on a Bollywood flick) that performed very well and far exceeded sales expectation. Imran spoke extensively on the game production pipeline and shared key learnings. He focused on the need to understand the target market and the hardware they consume before progressing on the game concept and the investments to be made.  Also Imran spoke about his team’s collaboration with Intel to optimize the game. He stressed on the importance of incorporating the Quality Assurance (QA) function during the early stage of development where Intel was involved in helping his team put together a game QA lab which spanned three generations of PC platforms.

One of the other highlights was a panel discussion chaired by Dhruva Interactive's Rajesh Rao, which looked at the barriers and bottlenecks that are holding back the gaming industry in India.  The panel included Microsoft's Ashim Das Mathur, Games2win's Alok Kejriwal, Indiagames’ Samir Bangara and Sony Computer's Atindriya Bose. The discussion centered on the challenges of piracy, need to keep development costs low to ensure profitability and sell games at an affordable price tag, overcoming the negative parental mindset on gaming and the need to position game consoles as entertainment devices. Even the most promising segment of gaming on mobile phones has its own set of challenges. The addressable base is still quite small; with 60% of the mobiles phones not capable of downloading a game. Only 25% of the consumers are aware of the fact that they can download a game on their mobile phone while only 5% of them actually download games.

At the Intel booth, we gave delegates a chance to play the latest version of Resident Evil, for a taste of the Intel® Core^TM i7 gaming experience. Also showcased for the first time in India was NCSoft’s Aion, the leading MMORPG in Korea. Many gaming enthusiasts took a stab at the game and enjoyed the experience.  Overall it was a well organized event and my first brush with the gaming fraternity in India was quite exciting! The enthusiasm of the participating delegates was truly infectious!

In this project we are researching an increasingly popular trend -- stitching photos from standard digital cameras into 3D models. There is a lot of interesting work going on in this area. One you may have heard about is Microsoft's Photosynth, which is capable of searching the whole internet to find different people's photos of, say, the Roman Coliseum, and create a 3D model of it. Recent advances in computer vision algorithms to register and align 2D photos into a 3D space combined have made this possible, and more and more companies are creating tools based on this concept.

Our researchers at Intel Labs China are working to further advance this field. Why is Intel doing this? Two reasons, primarily. First, we need to understand emerging software algorithms in order to tune and adapt future Intel architectures to run them more efficiently and in a way that can be readily programmed. Second, because this lab is a center of expertise in computer vision research, and they have some ideas on how to make these algorithms run faster and with better visual results. Here's a demo of the work.

Why do we think this is an important capability? For one, in the labs we see the increasing popularity of online games like World of Warcraft and virtual worlds such as Second Life as the foreshadowing of a transition to a full 3D Internet. However, many barriers remain to making these experiences as appealing as, say, YouTube is today -- they need better graphics, more natural interfaces, and ways for people to create user-generated 3D content with the same facility that blogs are written and videos are edited.

Photo-based 3D content creation tools such as the one from Intel Labs China are one way to simplify content creation. Just snap some photos from different angles and you will be able to scan a real world object to put it into a virtual world. There are still some hurdles to overcome, such as reducing the polygon count (if you view the video you'll see the result is a very detailed mesh), animating the model, and neutralizing the real-world lighting present in the source photos. However, these appear to be tractable problems and a lot of institutions are working on them.

The result will be that, just as almost anyone can be a video editor today, almost anyone could become a 3D designer/animator in the future, using real world objects as a starting point and morphing them into cool avatars or simply pieces of 3D art. These tools are already becoming available for professional animators -- as they advance they will give these artists a new way of creating interesting, realistic visuals.

This is only one of the cool things happening in Intel Labs. I’ll blog about them regularly to share more new developments and how we think they could help to shape the future.

The event keynote will be delivered by Ernest Adams, the founder and first chairman of the International Game Developers' Association, who has authored various books on Game Design and often delivers sessions at GDC.

Many other companies seen as pioneers of gaming in India like FX Labs, Hyderabad, Dhruva Interactive, Bangalore, Indiagames, Mumbai, Immersive Games, Hyderabad, Ironcode Software and Interactive Media will be sharing their experiences and success stories.

Intel has been working closes with NASSCOM to energize the Indian Gaming Ecosystem and we kick started this effort with monthly webinars in June 2009. Since then we have conduct regular webinars for game developers with Industry experts and Intel Engineers on topics like Challenges of Cross Platform Game Development, Making 3D game production faster: Using scripting in 3D Studio Max, Crystal Ball Gazing into 3D Game Engine Technology and How to optimize games for PC graphics.

Continuing this association Udaysimha, Program Manager and Mark Kim, Engineering Manager, Intel Corporation will be sharing their experience and learning from the Korean and Asian markets. They will be delivering a session on Building a successful MMORPG - Technical decisions and best known methods.

Uday, Abarnaa and I will be at the Intel booth at the NAGFO Gaming and Animation Summit over the next two days and will bring you live updates. We are looking forward to spending two exciting days in Hyderabad, among Indian gaming stalwarts who will be driving the growth of the Indian gaming industry that is expected to reach USD830 million by 2012 growing at a CAGR of 53%, (according to the NASSCOM report). Stay tuned for more from the NAGFO Gaming and Animation Summit.

• Support for Windows 7 (32 and 64bit)
• Media Foundation samples
• Plugins: source code MFTs (Decode: H.264, MPEG-2, and VC-1) Encode: H.264
• Application (transcode/playback)
• Enchanced Video Pre-Processing
• Hardware accelerated re-sizing (scaling) and color conversion
• Simple frame rate conversion (1:2,1:3, 2:1,3:1)

If you'd like to provide feedback on this release in the Media SDK Forum - be sure and mention you're working with the 1.5 beta.

- Pitz

Hello and welcome to another episode of Visualize this!. My guest today is Patric Palm, CEO and co-founder of Hansoft. Patric will be speaking with us today on the need to for agile tools for game development teams.

Download link to a high quality MP4 video file of the show (about 150MB)

Community News :

--Mike Simpson from Creative Assembly started a blog on the Intel software network Visual computing community. You can read his blog here Encourage you to leave your comments as well and if you want Mike to share his thoughts on a particular subject. I am sure Mike will love to hear from you!
--Want to remind our audience about Idea zone - this is an area where we encourage our community members to submit their ideas on intel products and tools. There are various topics and each accepted idea is eligible to win a cash prize. So check out idea zone and enter your ideas!

Show Questions :

-- Tell us a bit about yourself and Hansoft?
-- Is there a difference between agile methods in traditional development shops vs visual computing teams?
-- Why is an agile/lean development tool needed for game /digital content creation companies?
-- How would you recommend implementing a tool?
-- what the the typical situations where teams have implemented a tool to manage their agile process
-- Is there an ideal team size where a tool for managing the project is recommended?
--How is Hansoft different from other agile products?

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at 2:30PM Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

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What I’d like to see are the key stakeholders in the gaming industry start by considering the problem from the Consumer’s viewpoint & wallet. Today if I’m a gamer-consumer I’m assaulted with an array of Game System choices. Unlike music or movies, in order to play the game I want I’m forced to make some hard choices. If I want to play the next Halo when it releases I have to buy an Xbox. If I want to play God of War I’ll likely have to buy a Playstation. If I want to play the next Zelda I’ll likely have to buy a Nintendo Wii. If I want to play World of Warcraft I’ll have to buy a PC or a Mac & so on it goes. The irony is that these same key stakeholders in wanting to ‘wall off their gardens’ are actually costing themselves and the consumers more money in the end. Everyone in this current ‘fail-boat’ scenario is a loser.

Enough! Am I the only person that thinks this is a bit crazy and unfair to consumers? Imagine if we were to extend this same business model out to include movies & or music? I’d have to buy three or more systems to play all my movies. I’d have to buy another three or more systems to play all my music. Imagine if this scenario extended broadly to certain broadcast networks (e.g. CBS, NBC, etc) and I then have to purchase separate TVs? In a word this is ‘nutty’. My living room would be stacked floor to ceiling with twenty or more media playback devices.

There is one platform device that has the ability to play all media (Games, Music, and Movies) very well so why not fix it? If I have to spell it out that would be a PC. In order to do this though there would need to be some sort of Hardware and Software standards in place; likely set at a certain agreed upon cadence with all the key stakeholders.

Let me briefly touch upon and preempt the naysayers on two big topics that are bound to be mentioned for the PC.
1) Piracy is killing PC gaming? Really? Do we ever hear about the impact of secondary sales on the Console? Ask yourself what is worse? I sold my old Console games on Craig’s list. (Cha-Ching!) None of that money went back to the Game Developer or Publisher. Both are very serious issues though that I’ll tackle in a later blog. Fundamentally though Game Developers will most likely have to shift the value propositions of their games to the cloud & or somehow stay tethered to the internet to combat Piracy. The Pirates only have themselves to thank for that one. We’re seeing Consoles jumping on that band wagon now. I’ve also mused about how the OEMs feel about Proprietary Gaming systems but I digress.
2) Ease of use? Again … nothing a PC can’t handle here either. Time to load a game, menus and so on. The bulk of these issues are so easy to solve by following some game design 101 basics. A game on any platform should always work and be easily accessible. Solutions here are really not that hard.

So there you have it. Someday I hope to retire; and when I do walk into my local retail or etail store, I hope to be able to simply pick up the game, or download it, and have it work. I for one will definitely be averse to having to continue mixing and matching devices to games. Hopefully by then the gaming industry I’m so fond of will have matured a little by then. While I’m bound to hear primarily from industry insiders who I’d like to hear from the most is actually the gaming-consumers. How do you feel about all this?

What do you think is most influential aspect of a game? The story, characters, game play,interface, options, console availability, interaction, the audio? What is it that draws you and makes you want to play that game?

GPA 2.2 has been released with a few major pieces of new functionality. First and foremost, GPA now supports DX10 across the entire tool suite. You can now analyze DX10 games with both the System Analyzer and Frame Analyzer. Secondly, GPA fully supports Windows7. Finally, System Analyzer now supports "frame based" metric counting. Metrics in System Analyzer are no longer displayed in charts based on time, they are now displayed simply per frame.

The major features within the GPA Frame Analyzer that have been extended to support DX10 are:
1) Erg Bar Chart: GS duration per draw call (along with VS and PS from DX9).
2) Erg Bar Chart: GS duration within the GPU Breakdown chart option - now supports VS, GS, and PS all at the same time.
3) Scene Overview Spreadsheet View: GS duration metrics along with VS and PS can be added as columns.
4) Details Tab: GS duration is displayed as a cumulative sum across all selected draw calls.
5) Shader Tab: Each GS is displayed and can be modified.
6) DX State Tab: All DX10 states are available for viewing and modification.

Remember, if you modify any resources in the GPA Frame Analyzer, the tool displays for you both the performance impact of your change (bar chart and scene overview) as well as the visual impact of your change (render target viewer).

Download GPA 2.2 today on the GPA webpage.

Remember that GPA is free!

PCs scale: Sure, it's a glass half-full or half-empty situation, because component upgrades often break your wallet. Question is, would you rather have a platform that can play nearly anything, past to present? Or be locked into a totalitarian managed plastic mold that's only changed out once every half-decade or so? Ok so really every 3-5 years...

Emulation: So a major point for the PC is that you can grab an emulator and play any old console titles, or Arcade hit. A stack of ROMS, or cool emulation software and some Mountain Dew, excellent!

The Laptop: so not like the old days when your PC was a frankenstien creation and the size of small child. You can take your PC anywhere and with the tech today play almost any title on the right gaming laptop! Although I do not suggest sitting it on your lap! =)

Keyboard and mouse nough said: not much more to say here nothing todate is as great for interface controls. The Wii is good but come on I have never hit myself in the head with a mouse before! Plus you can use an Xbox 360 game pad on your PC also.....

Consoles get blue err red rings of death also! Plus they patch and update and need more hard drive space to save your game. Soooooooooooooo, ok next point.

PC will never go away: The console could disappear eventually for any muber of reasons, the PC however is major part of our lives, from work, to casual interface to too many You tube videos being shared and you can still fire up WOW and any other number of games. Also with the advent of the Spawn device you can soon play your console on you PC.

So this can go on forever; however I have a couple more points in defense of the PC and PC gaming.

First anything a console can do or play a PC can do it better, second the PC is the life blood of gaming as almost all of your game development is done on the PC and all your creativty is started on the PC and then ported to a console. For example take all of your Physcis solutions!

Finally PC titles are cheaper to make and cost less to buy and the big daddy of the topics!

Piracy its not just for PC's anymore: Console piracy rates barely touch the PC's large numbers, yet that is. The more people playing console games, the more the console titles get pirated and disc swithcing, Xbox hacking, workarounds come about. So the whole piracy does not happen on the console is a myth, much like Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster and thinking your cool cause your mom told you that you are!

Just my thoughts, what do you think.....

Basically you have to thank Super Mario for providing the inspiration to Carmack to create a rapid side scrolling game for the PC. This of course led to Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake etc which also led to ID software and Romero licensed the engine technologies to other developers.

This of course led to several other break throughs in development in PC games (like the Unreal engine) which made so may great console games popular and possible...

My thoughts anyway, what do you think?

What's the most annoying part of modeling and animation? What do you hate doing the most? What's the part you look forward to?

What would you like to learn about modeling and animation that no one seems to talk about?

Jump on and join the conversation - and above all, be animated!

- Pitz