GDC 2015 Meetup?

Community
1

Hey all,

This year, TAO has been suspiciously quiet in terms of organizing anything around GDC 2015! Also suspicious is the lack of formal a schedule surrounding the annual Technical Artist Bootcamp. It’s my understanding this has been a historically “grassroots” sort of community and I know these things don’t happen without significant effort from certain leaders. At the very least, I wanted to raise the questions, “What’s happening this year at GDC for Tech Artists?” and additionally, “Are we going to try to organize a meetup Tuesday night after the bootcamp?” I may just be out of the loop on these things, and if so, please update me on the happenings! I’d be happy to help try & organize a tech art meetup for dinner and/or drinks sometime during the week if there’s interest from everyone.

2

[QUOTE=Mouthlessbobcat;26820]Hey all,

This year, TAO has been suspiciously quiet in terms of organizing anything around GDC 2015! Also suspicious is the lack of formal a schedule surrounding the annual Technical Artist Bootcamp. It’s my understanding this has been a historically “grassroots” sort of community and I know these things don’t happen without significant effort from certain leaders. At the very least, I wanted to raise the questions, “What’s happening this year at GDC for Tech Artists?” and additionally, “Are we going to try to organize a meetup Tuesday night after the bootcamp?” I may just be out of the loop on these things, and if so, please update me on the happenings! I’d be happy to help try & organize a tech art meetup for dinner and/or drinks sometime during the week if there’s interest from everyone.[/QUOTE]

If you would like to organize a meetup that would be awesome. The formal schedule for TABC 5.0 is on the GDC session builder site. I can repost it here if people would like me to.

3

Ah, for some reason, I couldn’t easily find the sessions when filtering by Tutorials & Bootcamps. Searching “Technical Artist” and scrolling a ways down yielded the results! It wouldn’t hurt to repost the schedule here anyways.

4

I plan to be present at all of the following. If someone wants to organize a meetup, I’ll be there too!

Bootcamp:
Location: Room 130, North Hall

Tuesday, March 3 | 10:00am - 11:00am
Technical Artist Bootcamp: Running the Halo Multiplayer Experience at 60fps: A Technical Art Perspective
Speaker: Bryan Moss (Certain Affinity)

Tuesday, March 3 | 11:15am - 12:15pm
Technical Artist Bootcamp: Proceduralism and Automation at Certain Affinity
Speaker: Luiz Kruel (Certain Affinity)

Tuesday, March 3 | 1:45pm - 2:45pm
Technical Artist Bootcamp: Tech Art in Tamriel: The Elder Scrolls Online’s Character Tools and Pipeline
Speaker: Richard Katz (Zenimax Online)

Tuesday, March 3 | 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Technical Artist Bootcamp: Defense Against the Dark Arts: Budgets and Budget Reporting
Speaker: Paul Vosper (Bungie)

Tuesday, March 3 | 4:30pm - 4:55pm
Technical Artist Bootcamp: Nasum Virtualis: A Simple Technique for Reducing Simulator Sickness in Head Mounted VR
Speaker: Dr. David Wittinghinll (Purdue University)

Tuesday, March 3 | 5:05pm - 5:30pm
Technical Artist Bootcamp: Panel Q&A
Speakers: Jeff Hanna (Deep Silver Volition), Bryan Moss (Certain Affinity), Luiz Kruel (Certain Affinity), Richard Katz (Zenimax Online), Paul Vosper (Bungie), Dr. David Wittinghinll (Purdue University)

Roundtables:
Technical Artist Roundtable: Day 1
Location: Room 125, North Hall
Date: Wednesday, March 4
Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm

Technical Artist Roundtable: Day 2
Location: Room 125, North Hall
Date: Thursday, March 5
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm

Technical Artist Roundtable: Day 3
Location: Room 125, North Hall
Date: Friday, March 6
Time: 3:00pm - 4:00pm

5

Because I assume almost every game company runs on coffee, and Technical Artists are surely no exception, here is a list of great coffee places in close proximity to the GDC:

SightGlass Coffee:
Short walk from the Moscone center down Folsom Street- not really many food options, but excellent coffee.
https://www.sightglasscoffee.com/our-company/locations

Special Extra:
Small coffee cart. The staff are all cool, once again not much in the way of food beyond muffins, but I rate the coffee as some of the best in the bay area. Its down the alley next to the MOMA (building under construction across the street from Yerba Buena park), so its about a five minute walk from the Moscone center.

Epicenter Cafe:
Good food (lunch, breakfast), beers and good coffee. Also has a batman board game that looks like its from the '70s. I’ve always wanted to play it, but have never had the chance…
http://www.epicentercafe.com/

Elite Audio:
Another blue bottle cafe- a little hit and miss, but on the balance usually good coffee. They have the same pastries that Sightglass gets, but not as expansive a selection. This is also a five minute walk from Moscone.
http://www.eliteaudiosf.com/menu/

Chrome Cafe:
This is a bit more of a walk, about on the same scale as Sightglass. Tiny cafe, but good, strong coffee. Serves four barrel coffee, which is pretty good.

There are a few others, but those are my go-tos. I’ve also got bars and places to eat if anyone wants suggestions.

Also, I’ll be at GDC again this year, so yeah, lets get some meetup happening!

6

Historically we’ve done some kind of dinner the evening after bootcamp, and it’s been at Bucca di Beppo or Lefty o’Doul’s in years past.

7

I’m all for a meetup. I’m not actually going to the bootcamps, but I’ll be in town Tuesday, so that works with me.

I can do the reservation call and stuff if no one else feels like doing it. Anyone have any major objections for Buca at 6 on Tuesday?

Here’s a sign-up sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FhaShyewnvcmw0916ykQaApC8vxdxdmOg4xiGvdk5lI/edit?usp=sharing

8

For folks at the show on Monday, I’ll be doing a talk on “technical art for art directors” at the Art Direction Bootcamp around 2:15

9

[QUOTE=Jeebuz;26862]Because I assume almost every game company runs on coffee, and Technical Artists are surely no exception, here is a list of great coffee places in close proximity to the GDC:

SightGlass Coffee:
Short walk from the Moscone center down Folsom Street- not really many food options, but excellent coffee.
https://www.sightglasscoffee.com/our-company/locations

Special Extra:
Small coffee cart. The staff are all cool, once again not much in the way of food beyond muffins, but I rate the coffee as some of the best in the bay area. Its down the alley next to the MOMA (building under construction across the street from Yerba Buena park), so its about a five minute walk from the Moscone center.

Epicenter Cafe:
Good food (lunch, breakfast), beers and good coffee. Also has a batman board game that looks like its from the '70s. I’ve always wanted to play it, but have never had the chance…
http://www.epicentercafe.com/

Elite Audio:
Another blue bottle cafe- a little hit and miss, but on the balance usually good coffee. They have the same pastries that Sightglass gets, but not as expansive a selection. This is also a five minute walk from Moscone.
http://www.eliteaudiosf.com/menu/

Chrome Cafe:
This is a bit more of a walk, about on the same scale as Sightglass. Tiny cafe, but good, strong coffee. Serves four barrel coffee, which is pretty good.

There are a few others, but those are my go-tos. I’ve also got bars and places to eat if anyone wants suggestions.

Also, I’ll be at GDC again this year, so yeah, lets get some meetup happening![/QUOTE]

Also want to add that Four Barrel Coffee Roasters on Valencia, while a little out of the way is excellent. The same goes for Ritual Roasters which has a few locations in SF.

Looking forward to the talks and get-togethers as well.

10

@nalzay - Thanks for putting this together! I was struggling to remember the meeting places from the previous 2 years.
@Theodox - Looking forward to it! I’ll be probably bouncing between the Ani and Art Direction bootcamps.

@Cawfee Tawlkers - So many good suggestions to beat the free conference coffee.

11

Not sure that I’ll be able to make it to the dinner, but I’ll be at the animation and tech-art bootcamps and wouldn’t mind grabbing coffee or brews with any of you fine folks.

12

No problem. Just wanted to see it happen. Can any admin out there throw the spreadsheet link on the front page?

13

@ noahmejohnson

Good call, those two are top notch too.

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OK. Made a reservation for 6:15 under “Noah Alzayer (Tech Artists)” for 16, so there’s still room for a couple more and I can edit if a more than a couple extras hop on. If anyone catches this all late, just reply here or shoot me an email.

15

For folks in town tonight (Monday) Robert White and I would be interested in getting dinner tonight around 7 pm. My cel is 206 605 4132 if you’re trying to reach us. Include a txt number in your reply so we can coordinate if you’re interested.

Dinner suggestions: I always hit http://www.eosanfrancisco.com/ when I’m in town – throwback to the old days in San Jose!

16

hey thanks nalzay, I will be coming to the dinner aswell.

-max giganti

17

Thanks for putting this together Noah. Great time had by all!

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