GameX/Industry Summit - AWESOME!

So the consumer expo and industry summit that was held outside of Philly this past weekend, which was majorly sponsored by GameDev.net, turned out to be a pretty big success, if initial reports are to be believed. For some of the reaction, check out the #GXIS and #GameX twitter streams.

Besides being a major sponsor of the event, I personally was also one of the event founders and steering committee members, so from a strictly personal perspective I had a lot of stake in this event, and was actually spending half my time helping out with things onsite rather than being able to cover the entire thing. But that's okay, because everyone on the event team pulled together great in order to overcome any obstacles that hit us over the course of the weekend. This would be unlike VGeXpo, which wasn't very good at solving its problems during the course of the conference the last two years.

I also got to moderate a panel (image), which was my first conference speaking gig. And not just any panel either! Industry vet Rusel DeMaria, Mythic's Matt Shaw, former MS Veep Ed Fries, Alan Gershenfield and former IGDA Director Jason Della Rocca all sat at that table and the session fielded great questions from the audience. I didn't have to do a thing but introduce the panelists and then make sure everyone in the room got a chance to ask a question. It went great and both I and the panelists were told it was a great session.

Oh and I got to judge Rock Band 2 competitions all three days, which was awesome because at the end of each performance the three of us got to actually give our feedback, American Idol/Got Talent - style. I was totally Simon Cowell/Pierce Morgan.

Lissa and I were in attendance all weekend and had a blast hanging out with everyone who came out for the event. I'll be posting a full write-up hopefully by the end of this week. Click the image to access the full GameX gallery on Facebook

Engine-based articles

So we got some pretty good feedback from readers on the particle effects article that showed you how to create an explosion. The key here though is that, while the article explains the technique using a specific engine (in this case the Vicious 2 engine), the technique itself is actually widely applicable to any engine with a particle editor. I mean, that's simply how a particle explosion is created - not all engines will have the same parameters and emitters, but the basic technique is there.

I found this really cool, and we're working on capitalizing on it right now with more content for you all that explains various techniques using a certain engine/middleware technology for example, but also leaving it open for application with pretty much anything. It's a great win/win for readers, who get the knowledge, and product developers, who get to pimp their software.

So can't say who we're working with right now but stay tuned for some AI, more visual arts, and even some DirectX 11!

Intel's Visualize This! webcast

I was invited at AGDC by Intel to appear on their weekly webcast for game dev-related topics, and last week I finally got my time on the show. While there was supposed to be video, Intel had some trouble on their end - which was a shame considering I had worked to get my PS3 Eye camera up and running with my laptop (but that in itself is cool). So it was just audio. Still, I had received the questions ahead of time so I was able to prep my answers and only really got tripped up once mid-way through the interview. It was fun. If you'd like to check it out and hear my insights on game development trends and tech, you'll find the webcast here.

Downloads for the GDNet book collection

So it was brought to our attention that people were having trouble finding the companion site to the GDNet Collection books, and when we looked into it we found there really wasn't one - but the publisher did have the downloads on the individual book product pages. We'll be working on a fix to the Books resources page that'll solve this issue and hopefully make the downloads more accessible to people looking for them.