This month we will follow our 3D design meetup with 3D programming:

You may have heard of and even checked out Microsoft’s XNA Framework, the managed game development framework built with .Net that let’s you write games for a Window PC, Windows Phone 7, and the Xbox 360.  Even for the experienced developer stepping into the world of 3D game development can be like Alice visiting Wonderland.  It can be hard to ask questions when you don’t even understand the terms used! This session focuses on fundamental 3D game programming concepts assuming one is new to game programming and XNA, but has a good background of general programming.

The talk is geared to C#/XNA developers, but also covers several base concepts in 3D programming.  As always we will start with a Show and Tell discussion.  Meeting starts at 2PM this Sunday at the Technology Cooperative.

Our next meeting will be held Sunday, Oct 14th from 2-5PM at the Technology Cooperative.  This is a week early due to a scheduling conflict.  In fact, given that we have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, I’m going to move the group to the second Sunday of the month.

The topic this month is how to create 3D graphics and objects for your game:

Josh Ferguson, lead artist of local indie game studio Chaosoft Games and an instructor in graphic design, game design, and 3D animation, will be demonstrating the process of developing 3D game assets using Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Adobe Photoshop.  A complete overview of the 3D asset pipeline will be shown, including modeling, UV unwrapping, texture creation, and preparing a model for export to a 3D game engine.  The modeling portion of the demo will focus on simple, easy-to-create objects, while texture creation will cover tileable textures, painting textures, and supplementary textures to enhance the appearance of a model.  A brief intro of the necessary tools and software UI will preface the main demo.  Attendees who wish to follow along on their own computers are encouraged to install the free trial versions of the aforementioned software.  The demo is expected to last between 60-90 minutes.

Last month’s “Show and Tell” was a great success, and will be a regular part of the meetings.   Come ready to show a bit of your in progress game, a favorite tool, a mechanic you love in another game, or anything you find helpful and want to share with the group.  Its not required to bring something to Show and Tell, but it’s a great way to share with the group!

Our next meeting will be held Sunday, Sept 16th from 2-5PM at the Technology Cooperative.

The topic this month is a retrospective on the release of Resistor:

This presentation will cover the lessons learned from Levi Smith after publishing his first XBox Live Indie game.  Learn the pitfalls to avoid and how to more effectively market a game launch using press reviews and social media.  An analysis and discussion of launch sales data will provide insight into the successes and failures of the game launch.

Levi resides in the Knoxville, Tennessee area, where he develops games in his spare time.  He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tennessee.

We will also try out a small change to our meeting format.  This month we will begin with a “Show and Tell” where everyone can show a bit of their in progress game, favorite tool, mechanic they love in another game, or anything they find helpful and want to share with the group.  Its not required to bring something to Show and Tell, but it’s a great way to share with the group!

Last bit of news, EvilQuest is on Greenlight!  Greenlight is Valve’s new community site for helping indie games release on steam.  If a game gets enough fan support it will be considered for release.  Here’s wishing best of luck to one of Knoxville’s own game studios Chaosoft!

For our next meeting the topic will be “What is Fun” presented by Michael C. Neel.  We will be back to normal this month and have an open discussion / lab time after the presentation.

Related news: Michael will also be giving a talk this Friday on Fundraising with Kickstarter.  The talk is not specific to video game Kickstarters, but Michael has been spending month watching video game projects on Kickstarter and will have some advice if there is interest.  If you are planning on attending, please RSVP here.

Sunday at the Technology Cooperative will be a Game Programming with Python session.  This is a introductory level group, no prior programing experience required.  The group will focus on basics and lead to running the games on a Raspberry PI.  Open to all, but if you know someone (of any age) that has been looking at getting started writing games this is the group for them.

What is Fun?

As game designers we spend a great deal of effort laying out levels, creating a consistent art style, and telling a story.  As game developers we focus on smooth gameplay, intuitive controls, and building tools.  We rely on play testing to tell us if the game is fun or not.  While play testing is essential, wouldn’t it be easier if we could design and develop fun?

Before we can create fun, we must understand what fun is.  What are the emotions experienced when the player has fun?  Why is something frustrating to one person fun to someone else?  Most importantly, can we as game designers and developers create fun on command?

This talk will look into the reasons we play games, and how we experience fun.  We will break down the components to fun and see how to use them in our game designs.  Finally, we will look at how players express fun, common complaints in games, and ways to address them.

Our next meeting will be Sunday May 20th at 2PM at the Technology Cooperative.

The topic will be an intro to UDK by Josh Ferguson:

“Intro to Unreal Development Kit (UDK) by Josh Ferguson, local game developer and game design instructor.  Overview of industry-leading game development software UDK covering topics including a look at the toolset, basic level design, implementing custom assets, and an intro to UnrealScript.”

Information, licencing, and download details on UDK can be found at udk.com