A special Holiday Gift ...this months' presentation will be by Ken Tannenbaum, Director New Business for Infogrames

Topic - The Publisher's View of Game Development.

Infogrames is one of the Largest publishers of Entertainment Software in the world.More info here: http://www.infogrames.com/

View Photos of this event here

Alain Chesnais:Blurring the barriers between 3D and 2D

Alain Chesnais will talk on the theme of bridging the gap between 3D and 2D computer graphics and how he has merged both technologies throughout his career. The topics he will discuss include:

• work done with Apple France when the first version of QuickTime was released to demonstrate a derivative of what was later to become QuickTime VR with anaglyph technology to project full color stereoscopic manipulatable images using low cost readily available projection tools.
  
• work done in developing IPR (Interactive Photorealistic Rendering) at TDI for Explore, then later at Alias|wavefront for Maya, and explaining how what appears to be a pseudo real time 3D rendering tool is in fact nothing more than a very efficient 2D compositing tool with a fast visibility precalculation.
  
• work done at his current company: TrueSpectra, to develop web based spin technology allowing full fast interactive pan and zoom capabilities over the internet, with no loss of quality, based on dynamic imaging, DHTML and Flash.
  

Speakers Biography:

Alain Chesnais is TrueSpectra's Vice President of Engineering where he develops technology that expands the graphic capabilities of existing web servers through the use of dynamic imaging. He is responsible for managing TrueSpectra's team of developers, programmers, and quality assurance professionals and for leading the company's highly successful research and development in leading server-based technologies. He has more than 30 years of programming experience, and a strong background in digital imaging, networking, and internet infrastructure, rendering technologies, and managing research and development. Prior to TrueSpectra, he was the Director of Engineering and Business Manager for design visualization solutions at Alias/Wavefront. A recognized leader in his field, Chesnais was recently elected president of ACM SIGGRAPH.



° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
Alain Chesnais
VP, Engineering
· TrueSpectra Inc.
· 4950 Yonge Street, Suite 800
· Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M2N 6K1
· 416 224.0076 ext 8213 | 416 224.0309 fx

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °
Visit us at http://www.truespectra.com/
Networking the Image™

Our first meeting after SIGGRAPH will be a joint meeting with the IGDA on August 28th starting at 6 P.M. First we will watch this year's SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater and at 7:30 we will have a presentation on the Havok's Physics Engine.

We will also raffle off great goodies we brought back from SIGGRAPH, so be there !

All the Best,

-Fran McAfee

I hope those who attended made it back from SIGGRAPH in one piece. From what I heard it was one great show!

We have secured our talent for the August Meeting on Wed, Aug 28th. We will be hosting a 90 minute presentation of the awesome HAVOK physics engine!!

WTF is HAVOK you may ask?

Here's a snippet from the HAVOK Marketing Team:

The Havok Game Dynamics SDK gives you all the features and tools you need to inject spectacular physics into your game, whatever the genre. The Havok engine can easily be integrated with all third party and in-house rendering engines and is optimized for all the leading development platforms, including PlayStation2, Xbox, GameCube and the PC. Havok technology has already been included in over 10 released games, including titles from Acclaim, Infogrames and Microids. Core Design, Cyan, Ion Storm, Valve, NetDevil, Nihilistic and Team 17 are just a few of the game companies using Havok to enhance gameplay in their upcoming titles. Havok is the rigid body physics system in Shockwave from Macromedia and the dynamics driving "Reactor" from Discreet. For more information and demonstrations, visit www.havok.com

Tom Buscaglia
Chapter Coordinator
IGDA Miami/South Florida

View Photos of this event here

There's lots of topics on the agenda starting with a sneak preview of SIGGRAPH 2002, a short tape that will start at 7PM.

And The Main Event: We have the honor of having the Premere South Florida Independent Game Developer as our speaker this month - Derek Smart of 3000ad the creator of the BattleCruiser series of Games. Learn about Derek and his game here: http://www.bc3000ad.com/

And more..Vic DeLeon, of Digitalo Games, will share some E3 goodies along with several copies of Duke Nukem Manhattan Project for door prizes as well.

All the Best,

-Fran McAfee

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the record short notice announcement, but there will be an
IGDA/SIGGRAPH meeting tonight at CEC at 7 PM. The topic is on
Final Fantasy and there will be a mixer after at Ole Ole.

Next Wednesday, May 1st , you may come back and see the CEC/FAU Master
of Fine Arts Show at 7 PM if you like.

All the Best,

-Fran McAfee

Fort Lauderdale ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter in conjunction with DISCREET Users Group , EDITOPIA the South Florida Chapter of IGDA will host Kelcey Privett, Discreet's Demo Artist. Kelcey is an ex game artist with more than 10 years experience. There will be some Postersand GMax T-shirts for door prizes.We'll also be having nametag drawings for the following wonderful goodies from GDC2002:

2 GDC XBox Expo Bags
These are filled with all kinds of goodies like Expo Proceedings,
commercial videogame demos, T-shirts, mini radios and assorted
keychains, glowsticks, and chotchkies from the show.

drumroll.....
And ONE special GameBoy Advance Prize from Konami-
Includes a special edition of Konami's hit GBA game "Jurassic Park- Park
Builder" along with a limited edition Suede GBA carrying case.

We'll also be giving away 2 free subscriptions to Game Developer
Magazine!

Bring your friends, we'll see you there!!!

Also some food and beverages (outside the Lab only).
Don't forget the usual. After the meeting there will be an informal
wrap session at Ole, Ole. On Los Olas Blvd.

February 27th: 7:30 P.M.: Fort Lauderdale ACM SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter Meeting at the
FAU Center for Electronic Communications:

TAKEAWAY:

All work makes Jack a dull boy, and sometimes a trip outside the box can do wonders for your imagination. So, take a break from all of the technical and business presentations to expand your consciousness with a little adventure into the metaphysics of games.

DESCRIPTION:

If games are art, a better understanding of the aesthetic experience can
expand our idea of our tasks as developers. In this roundtable, we'll
discuss the phenomenology of interactive entertainment and explore the
attributes of the interactive aesthetic experience. The starting point are
an explanation of the metaphysics of phenomenon, phenomenology. The group discusses the transient nature of the aesthetic experience. Starting with music and art, we see how the perceptive experience is limited by both the senses and to the moment of perception. Some art is universally viewed as great art; why is this? The simple fact is that many different people have the same positive experience from some artists but not others. We explore this issue and then analyze how this applies to games. Of course, the interactive element of the game experience differs from that of listening to music or viewing a painting in that game players are participants, not mere spectators. Still, some games seem to have that transcendental quality conveyed by a great singer or painter, and some don't. The group discusses the possibility that it is the quality of the communication of the designer's primal imaginative vision through common conventions that gives the players the superior experience. Great games, like great art, succeed at least in part because the immersive experience of the player most closely emulates the internal interactive experience of the creating artist.