[Event] UCT Game Dev Day - 10th of May 2014

creative630

Hey everyone!

This is the official announcement that on the 10th of May 2014 we will be the second instalment of the MakeGamesSA-run game development day!
Once again it will be hosted at UCT in the computer science building and will be sponsored food/drink by Amazon. Last year we ran a successful workshop focusing on Unity3D and GameMaker with a fantastic turnout.



Venue
CS2A, on the second floor of the Computer Science building, UCT.
Here is the location on google maps.

Here is the map of UCT upper campus.

Times:
12:00 - 12:20: General introduction and what is MakeGamesSA - @LexAquillia
12:20 - 12:40: Getting the most out of your gamedev degree - @creative630
12:40 - 13:00: A short break (or talk)
13:00 - 13:30: The guide to running a game studio in SA, meeting your heroes and making cool stuff: The QCF Q&A - @dislekcia
13:30 - 14:00: CG oriented talk - @rumor
14:00 - 15:00: Lunch
16:00 - 17:00: Guided tutorial/workshop - @raxter



Requests:
I am still looking for additional talks for the day. If someone would like to do a tutorial/practical talk that would be amazing!
Otherwise if anyone would like to help me with my talk, maybe giving a self-taught opinion?

Would anyone artistically inclined be willing to help me make a poster?
Here is the Adobe Illustrator file for last years poster.

Would it be possible to get this thread stickied?

Update:
The facebook event is now live! Invite yourselves and your friends that would be interested in attending!

dislekcia

Might make sense to change the title of my talk/session to "The guide to running a game studio in SA, meeting your heroes and making cool stuff: The QCF Q&A"

creative630

Cool thanks, it has been changed :)

raxter

Always keen to do a demo/workshop thing or something like I did last time. Also good to do it in a pair so happy to team up with ppl and do something that'll be appropriate for the crowd (also I'm hellava busy atm so someone to pair up with would be ideal... otherwise challange_accepted.jpeg).

I have no ideas myself for what to talk on but happy to take suggestions! It's after lunch, workshop/guided tutorial for the keep beans, maybe?

creative630

@raxter Thanks dude! A workshop or guided tutorial would be rad :) I will ask Patrick if we may use the lab and pc's, otherwise I guess we can just put up the tutorial/example online beforehand and just run through it in the lecture theatre.

Squidcor

@raxter: I'm keen to help with the tuorial/workshop.

Mexicanopiumdog

Hey guys, Im only in for the sound side of games, can I come too?

creative630

@Mexicanopiumdog You are more than welcome to join :)

raxter

@Squidcor were you keen on just helping out on the day or you want to be involved in planning and setting it up? Lemme know what you are keen/have time for! In either case your involvement would be appreciated (also since I'm quite busy at the moment :p )

@creative630, does the workshop have a theme or an intent (or a target audience) I/we can start planning around?

creative630

I spoke to Patrick and he gave us permission to use the labs if we want. However, he said that getting logins to the pc's etc. would be difficult. Any ideas on what we could do to make it a more iteractive/learning experience without them actually touching a pc (unless they bring their own)?

Target audience would be new programmers, like the first/second year computer science students but also those just starting to get into vidoe gamedev. In terms of theme... I'm not too sure, maybe something similar to what you did last year? Though maybe more focused on a general intro to unity or game maker and scripting, very entry level stuff.

Squidcor

creative630 said:

Target audience would be new programmers, like the first/second year computer science students but also those just starting to get into vidoe gamedev.

We could also do a more advanced talk, something along the lines of a best practices / how to get the most out of Unity talk? Would there be enough community interest for something like that?

creative630

Hmm, possibly. The community might be keen for an advanced talk, but we mainly had students at the last one. Also most of those students were 1st and 2nd years who have not touched game engines before.

The advanced talk would cater really well to honours and 3rd year UCT CS gamedev students, but only one 3rd year attended last year...

raxter

*puts down multitude of juggling bombs, novelty throwing knives, and bunny in tophat*

... cool so we doing something a little more basic for this. Similar to last year! We can certainly refine that.

damn, didn't seek out too much feedback from last year on the talk then! Anything anyone would like to point out while we get a-plannin'?

dislekcia

raxter said:

damn, didn't seek out too much feedback from last year on the talk then! Anything anyone would like to point out while we get a-plannin'?

1. Have a plan of what you're going to build so that at the end of the demo, you've got something that holds together. It's always better to aim for basic interactivity first so that people can always play whatever the final result is, even if you get stuck on something along the way. The rocket that went up and had particle systems was interesting, but not nearly as interesting as a rocket that you had to steer and try to land/dodge things in/hit stuff with/etc.

2. Don't get stuck on something. If there's something someone asks you to do that you're not certain you can implement in a minute, pick another implementation that you CAN make happen... It's always possible to go "Okay, so exploding rabbits are cool and all, but first we're just going to make these boxes explode as rabbit-stand-ins and then we can find the rabbit meshes later..." and then move on to something else when people have forgotten about the rabbit part because explosions are cool. If you do get stuck, say you'll come back to it later and move on to a different thing - the worst thing you can do is go all problem-solvey and mutter to yourself for 15 minutes. This is entertainment and a bit of education, not a regular workday.

creative630

Here is the draft of the poster. Please let me know what you think!

Jwho303

This is looking very cool!
Is it possible to get an accompanying facebook event?

dislekcia

One crit on the poster - can you use colour to separate the individual talks a bit more? Like, alternate colour each line/talk or something? It looks very textwally with that font.

creative630

@dislekcia Thanks for the crit! I have added your suggestions as well as some other minor adjustments.

@Jwho303 I will try get something up and running!

creative630

The facebook event is now live! Invite yourselves and your friends that would be interested in attending!

Edit: fixed the link

Mac

Will there be something similar happening in JHB in the future?

Bensonance

@Mac No plans to currently. I'm not really sure what we'd have talks on, honestly? What would you like to hear about? If there is enough interest, I'm sure I can organise something similar at Wits or Microsoft in the future :).

Scratch17

Would we have to pre-load Unity, or would it be made available in an official capacity at the event?

creative630

Pre-loading would be best, otherwise I'll have the latest free version downloaded and available for everyone to use.

rumor

just looking again at the poster, there are 3 talks all going at the same time ? are there 3 rooms?

creative630

Thanks for catching that!
Copy paste mistakes, they are all happening one after another until 2pm when food happens. 3pm the tutorial starts.

addam

Thanks for the great event everyone! It was really enjoyable and extremely interesting and informative, a very good start of the period where I actually start making games :) Thanks to all the speakers and the organizers.

ShaneProcrastinates

Amazing event! You guys really inspired me to just go all out and do stuff!

Thanks a lot to the talkers for taking their time to do something like this, it really cleared up a few misconceptions for me about the size of the game industry and how to possibly enter it :)

Thanks again to everyone! The talk even made me sign up here on the forums lol, have a rocking time!

Kind Regards,
Shane.

creative630

Thanks for joining us @addam and @ShaneProcrastinates! Hope you stick around and join us making games :) Don't forget about the community meetups each month!

Edit: grammar and words

Squidcor

Great event and a great turnout to boot, I hope we see some of those new faces getting more involved in the community.

Big thanks to @creative630 for organising, much appreciated!