Re: Panels, demos, training?

[renders]

I'll ask the guy who heads up the local Unity user's group....

On Monday, 9 July 2012 14:05:24 UTC-7, Seattle Indies Expo wrote:

We have had people express interest in panels, software demos and training. If there is enough interest in both hosting and attending then we'll need extra room for this.

If you have interest either in hosting a talk or have a user group (like how to secure a decent attorney, or using Unity3D for instance) or something similar, and would like to have time and space set aside for it, please post here.
Please include details like:

• some details about yourself or your group
• what you hope to host, like a talk or demonstration
• the time and space needed

[Brandon Wu]

Thanks Sean for reaching out.

I help organize the Unity3D user group and I can do an intro to Unity3D, or have a few small demos showing how to quickly make a game/prototype for the iPad with it. An hour should be plenty of time for this including some Q&A. 

Alternatively, if there's any interest in having a group of indie game devs talking about their experience starting their own studios on a panel, I can help out and talk about my experience with Studio Pepwuper. 

Thanks!

Brandon

[Charlie Patterson]

Hmm.  I'd like to see a talk on obtaining funding.  :P  As it turns out, writing a game takes a while.

As for what I could *give*, I'm assuming the audience will already be developers developing a game?  In that case, I don't know that a talk on Torque2D would help.  I could discuss how I exported Flash graphics although it is fairly involved.  Ugh.  (It's still labor intensive.)

Or I could talk about my experiments with "components" (Torque2D calls them "behaviors").

[Oscar Baechler]

I had mentioned on the Facebook group doing a Blender tutorial. Blender's free, open source license makes it a great alternative to Maya/Max for indie developers, and it can tackle most aspects of game art as good or better than commercial packages. Model, sculpt, texture, rig, animate, particles, physics, game engine, IDE, you name it! In fact, most of my indie game experience was using Blender as a tool to make 2D sprites. This would be similar to a talk I gave last week at OSCON, just less dumbed down. (No need to explain "what is modeling?" to a gamedev-savvy audience). It's 1 part overview of the Blender pipeline, and 1 part beginner's tutorial on UI, modeling, and possibly sculpting if I have time. 

The presentation materials are here on my blog:  http://ogbog.net/2012/07/17/oscon-materials/ 

Prerequisites: people who want to follow the live demo should have the following.

1. Computer, preferably with a numberpad

2. 3 Button Mouse

3. A recent Blender build. Official builds are at www.blender.org, but some experimental builds are available at www.graphicall.org

4. VGA cable to hook up my laptop

I'm unfamiliar with Digipen, and I'm getting on board a little bit last-minute, but if the organizers have room for me I'd love to come talk!

[Paul Schreiber]

Hey Oscar!

I think there would be lots of folks interested in a Blender tutorial. If you're willing to organize your schedule and find listeners, we should be able to find a space if you need it. There is nothing to stop you from roaming either, which has not been unheard of at SIX. To be effective you'd probably want to mingle to collect an audience and give the talk to them at a scheduled time. Currently the event leans toward the casual side of things, so this - or a similar approach - might be easiest for you and your listeners. Posting here is a great start :)

If you're reading this and you're interested in Blender, make sure you let Oscar know!

-p

[Charlie Patterson]

The artist I work with is coming and expressed some interest.  We currently work in 2D for the record. He doesn't belong to this group though.  I sent him your post.

[Oscar Baechler]

Cool. I used Blender for a 2D sprite pipeline for my previous job, 3.5 years at an indie game studio. I'll bring some demo files to show my old setup. 

[Paul Schreiber]

If you're planning on giving any kind of talk or demo, feel free to arrive between 9am and 10am with the exhibitors. Find me if you can and we can start coordinating from there. I'll be the most confused and terrified looking one.

-p