A Week of Visual Arts Lessons
Learn from leading artists with a wide variety of art styles and concepts, and explore the inspiration and process behind their work. Learn methods to create quality art and animations for all kinds of games under tight deadlines; from stellar concept art techniques to post-production best practices and everything in between.
One-Day Summit | Monday | March 18, 2024
The Animation Summit will go through all facets of animation expertise: 'traditional' focused talks on the animation process, technical achievements, bite-sized tips and tricks, insight into animation culture, and how to best apply all that knowledge to game development. Through a variety of tools and disciplines, the day will show how the unique demands of game creation require not just great animators, but great developers.
'Baldur's Gate 3': The Ceremorphosis of the Cinematic Animation Team
Leah Caldwell (Cinematic Animation Producer, Larian Studios)
Multiclassing Devs: Animation + Design
Frank Gordon (Expert TDiA, That's No Moon)
The Legends Behind Apex Animation
Sophie Shepherd (Animator, Respawn Entertainment)
Haydn Cooper (Animator, Respawn Entertainment)
Minor Gaytan (Principal Animator, Respawn Entertainment)
One-Day Summit | Tuesday | March 19, 2024
Hear leading artistic forces of the game industry share experiences about what really matters in art, and how to build or support a vision and make friends doing it at the Art Direction Summit. There will be a wealth of concentrated art-specific information from the top minds of the industry that should be interesting not just to newbies and students, but seasoned professionals who are concerned with pressing issues of the day and industry realities.
Deciphering Dogtown: How We Built the Last District of Night City
Kacper Niepokólczycki (Lead Environment Artist, CD PROJEKT RED)
Pawel Mielniczuk (Art Director, CD PROJEKT RED)
Nature's Language: Symbolism-Based Secrets of Dynamic Creatures
Michael V. Eppinette (Sr. Concept Artist, NetEase Games)
'Dead by Daylight': Saving Your Gameplay Feedback through Pre-production
Sarah Robinson (Associate Artistic Director, Behaviour Interactive)
One-Day Summit | Tuesday | March 19, 2024
Technical Art is an ever-evolving discipline, with TAs playing key roles in developing efficient pipelines, creating visually sophisticated content, and optimizing performance. The Technical Artist Summit aims to help TAs around the industry find the tools and skills they need to manage the turbulent waves of game development at their own studios or from their own homes. Speakers will present new tools, techniques, and turn our attention to the future of the Technical Art discipline.
Build Your Own Particle System
Ben Cloward (Senior Technical Artist, Unity)
H2O in H3LL: The Various Forms of Water in 'Diablo IV'
Aaron Aikman (Lead Technical Artist, Graphics, Blizzard Entertainment)
GPU based Foliage-Interaction for 'Ark: Survival Ascended'
Patrick Schuler (Tech Artist, Studio Wildcard)
Mark Mihelich (Senior Engine Programmer, Studio Wildcard)
One-Day Summit | Monday | March 18, 2024
Real-time visual effects (VFX) artists have a long list of skills they must implement to solve the wide range of tasks they face. VFX artists must think and iterate like a designer, have the timing and flair of a great performer, be masterful artists, and need knowledge of the code normally reserved for programmers. Join the Visual Effects (VFX) Summit for a day of sessions covering the development of real-time VFX for games and a wide range of skills which historically only came from being in the trenches as a VFX artist.
Creating the Blackwall VFX for 'Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty'
Mathieu Girard (Senior VFX Artist, CD PROJEKT RED)
Core Concepts Sessions: Visual Arts
Wednesday-Friday | March 20-22, 2024
The learning continues Wednesday through Friday with Core Concepts presentations. Check out session highlights below.
Creating Fully Upgradeable Fictional Weapons
Airam Hernandez (Senior Weapon Artist, Rocksteady Studios)
'Minecraft Legends': Creating a Unique Animation Style True to 'Minecraft'
Eric Luhta (Principal Animator, Blackbird Interactive)
The Devil is in the Details: Explore the Environmental Graphic Design at Naughty Dog Inc
Hailey Del Rio (Senior Graphic Designer, Naughty Dog Inc)
