Dodo Blog » Travel

Annecy 09 / AIgamedev

Ninja Dodo — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:16:08 +0000

Just came back from the excellent Annecy 09 animation festival, and a short stop in Paris for the AIgamedev conference, the latter marking my first attempt at public speaking as a game developer.

I was invited to participate in a panel on how animation combines with AI to create interesting character behaviour, which has been a pet-subject of mine for a long time…

I think it went well.

At Annecy, I saw Coraline (which was amazing) and a loooot of short films. Also met a bunch of cool people, both there and in Paris.

Back

Ninja Dodo — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:36:54 +0000

BOOM! It’s been an eventful winter.

I went to Sweden for the holidays and I spent six weeks in Paris (pictures) where I helped with some animation at Darkworks. Now I’m back in Lyon. We’ll see what 2009 brings…

Odds, Ends

Ninja Dodo — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:52:34 +0000

Some pictures from my recent trip to Paris: ate the food, saw the museums… the touristy thing.

Finally finished watching all the Warren Spector lectures and interviews mentioned earlier. For me the highlights were the intro with Spector himself, Harvey Smith, Marc LeBlanc, Seamus Blackley and Richard Hilleman, but really every single one made fascinating viewing. I hope they keep doing these.

Also I came across this hilarious webcomic…

Short film update #3

Ninja Dodo — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:39:46 +0000

Clearly, when I say weeks, I mean months. Between work and other things my short film has not progressed as much as I intended, but progress there is. I really need to sort out that third shot and there’s plenty to refine across the rest, but I’m getting somewhere. I re-worked the character being held at gunpoint by the soldier as this was something that was unclear to a lot of people and I fixed a bunch of other things.

In other news, I’ve been – oh shock – playing some games. Okami on the PS2 is a lot of fun. Coming to the Wii as well now apparently, a platform more obviously suited to the game’s magical calligraphy. While in many ways it is a traditional action-adventure dressed in water-colours, it’s this painting that makes it unique. You use your celestial brush to slash through rock, make trees bloom again, turn night to day and otherwise bend the forces of nature to your will.

You are the sun-godess Amaterasu walking the earth in the form of a white wolf tasked with restoring the world to its natural beauty after a horrible darkness has swept over it. It’s a very beautiful game. And long, also. I’m not even halfway into it, much left still to be discovered…

The Orange Box is another game worth a mention, or three mentions. It continues the fine story of Half Life 2 in Episode 2, completely re-imagines the multiplayer classic Team Fortress and contains one of the most surprisingly excellent gems in years: Portal… and cake.

As you can see from the banner I also managed to get out of the city for a bit and explore the countryside. Unplug!

Arkane

Ninja Dodo — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:46:03 +0000

I suppose it’s fitting that I should start a new blog… tomorrow is my official first day at Arkane Studios in Lyon, France. Needless to say this is somewhat of a new thing for me. The second interview was my first time visiting the city and the last time I made any effort to speak French was in high school. Still, I seem to be making some progress. They speak English at the studio though, so that helps.

So far I’m loving the city. It’s a wonderful blend of food, culture and architecture, with its old town, Roman ruins, and peninsula… and they do show movies without French dubbing here as well. You just have to sorta look for them. Trust me, you do not want to know what Johnny Depp sounds like in French.

Now on to the animating!