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 visions 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 the real 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.

You can also automatically receive new show episodes as the become available. Subscribe to the Intel Software Network TV feed in your favorite aggregator (iTunes users, click here), or sign up to get an email when new episodes are posted.

Follow @isntv on Twitter to get notified when a live show or event is about to happen on Intel Software Network TV. Don’t miss out!

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

The method I show in this tutorial is only one of many ways of modeling musculature. Rather than model an entire character out of a single subdivided cube, this technique involves connecting many muscle-shaped loaves within a torso template or outline to achieve the same goal.

Why try it this way? It can help overcome three painful muscle modeling problems:

1) It forces you to really think about anatomical landmarks of the body and how they interconnect (helpful both in modeling and animation).

2) The muscles will automatically have well-defined edges (these can be smoothed out and hidden as needed).

3) The muscles will have a natural flow in their most common direction of deformation or movement.

Do I admire the folks who can just sit there and model some fantastical character out of a single cube? Absolutely!!! But we've all seen those tutorials, and a lot of folks, like me, hit at least one point where we say, "how the heck did they get from there to here???"

Try building your character out of meatloaf just once - I think you'll actually find it's a fairly intuitive process.

And...as an added bonus... you can download the torso model to use as a torso primitive for your own work. All that I ask is that you upload your improvements to the model or show us what you've done with it so the entire community can share!

As always - please feel free to offer any additions or alternate methods by commenting on this Blog, commenting on the tutorial itself, or by submitting your tips, tricks and tutorials to the Animate This! Tutorial Challenge (http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/animatethis/contests.php)! You'll win points toward our Black Belt program - and the 5 best tips, tricks and tutorials each month receive $100 in vouchers at www.gnomonology.com !

- Pitz

My guest today is Drew Sikora executive producer at Gamedev.net. Drew will speak about the trends and challenges in game development

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

Community News :
--I had recently spoken with Ganesh Rao and Kath Knobe about Concurrent Collections for C++. New version .4 of intel concurrent collections for c++ is available at
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-concurrent-collections-for-cc/

--We have some new articles published on the site.
--Total War: The Return of Operation Flashpoint*: hptp://software.intel.com/sites/billboard/game-gallery/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising.php#/featured-article
--Resident Evil* 5 Takes Full Advantage of Intel® Core™ i7 Processors: http://software.intel.com/sites/billboard/game-gallery/resident-evil-5.php#/featured-article
--Wolfenstein: Rebuilt From the Ground Up for Today’s Hardware: http://software.intel.com/sites/billboard/game-gallery/wolfenstein.php#/featured-article

--The Intel Partner Program has a new campaign called Succeed. Now through Dec 31st each project completion report is eligible to win. There is also a graphics category for our visual computing audience. Check out more details here

Questions :
1) Tell us about yourself and gamedev.net (you can touch upon your role and some background on gamedev.net)
2) You talk to a variety of game developers. What direction do you see game development heading in terms of genre, hardware, game engines, etc.?
3) Cross platform game development is becoming increasingly important as we move games to handhelds. We at Intel have a vested interest on higher end gaming platforms, what are your thoughts/view on the lower end platforms like Wii, iPhone, netbooks?
4) What are the biggest challenges that game developers have today?
5) How might Intel help solve any of those challenges with tools, sample code, trainings, etc.?
6) Intel runs an annual game contest like LevelUp 2009, are there any suggestions you have on changes to this contest or how it compares to other contests?
7) What drives/attracts today’s game developer?
8) On the Intel Visual computing community we are always striving to provide interesting game sample code or tools. Do you have any thoughts on what developers are looking for?
9) You run a successful game development portal. What has been the key areas that make it so attractive to game developers?

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.

You can also automatically receive new show episodes as the become available. Subscribe to the Intel Software Network TV feed in your favorite aggregator (iTunes users, click here), or sign up to get an email when new episodes are posted.

Follow @isntv on Twitter to get notified when

Performance per Watt is pretty straight forward when you first look at it. Then you begin to sink in the quicksand you’ve blithely walked into. The panic sets in as you sink lower and lower. Eventually you decide to ignore the whole complicated mess and go back to saying to yourself how straight forward it is. Of course, deep within your heart of hearts, you know that it’s not.

For most of us, performance per Watt is nothing more than how much our computer can get done on a given battery charge.

Let’s dissect this a little further and try to get down to something a little more concrete. The real problem with the above very general description is that it makes intuitive sense but not engineering sense. We need to take it apart and put it in more engineering terms.

A Watt is how much energy you’re using per second. It’s the rate of energy consumption. Why is this important? Well, are we asking about how much our computer can get done given so much energy (Joules)? Or are we asking how much our computer can get done when fed energy at a certain rate (Watts)? What’s the difference? The first is easier to understand. Let’s say we’re using a laptop. Then the first asks how much can we get done for a certain battery size.

So what’s wrong with the second? It’s a rate. You might say that to get performance per Watt, all we have to do is to divide the number of cycles executed over the life of our battery with the energy in the battery. Even neglecting the fact that we haven’t quantified what “performance” is, we run into a problem. Rates are good when considering steady state situations, but typical client usage – servers are different – is anything but steady state. This means that performance per Watt is dependent upon a whole lot of factors. These are things like the type of user / application suite you typically run, the OS you use and its power policy, your processor architecture, the peripherals you have, etc. It gets messy fast.

And we haven’t even tried to figure out what “performance” means in the context of power.

So what’s the conclusion? Do we forget performance per rate of energy usage (Watt) and just go with how much we can get done given so much energy (e.g. how big of a battery you have)? Unfortunately not. If we can quantify the rate of energy consumption then we can theoretically calculate the energy consumed by a whole host of different users, e.g. business vs home users, nerd vs coffee shop users, etc.

Next: A high-level look at performance

This next series of articles is a case in point. I’m going to talk about performance per Watt. Why? Because I’m thinking about it. And I’m working on setting up some experiments. And I want to exploit…uh, I mean take advantage…of all you wonderful people out there to figure out what the heck I’m doing.

In this first article, I’m going to provide motivation on why performance per Watt, or something equivalent, is important. And I’m going to write it even if many (or most) of you think it’s obvious.

This brings up the flip side of blogging. A big advantage of being a blog reader is that you don’t have to listen to me repeat the apparently obvious or the boring.

So let’s have at it.

Check out Yeong-hao's interview in the Featured Artist area of the Artist/Animator site (http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/artist-animator/) to learn what it takes to be a professional concept artist and level designer from a real pro.

You'll also come away with some insights into the Offset Editor - one of the tools created by the magicians at PO that give this project its unique look and feel.

For you mega-fan's and artists -send your modeling, texturing, lighting and animation tips to the Animate This! Tutorial challenge (which will also add to your Intel Blackbelt points btw)!

- Pitz