BAF Games - Wednesday Overview

James Busby (Ten24) was the first talk of Day 2 of BAF Games. He discussed 3D scanning (something his company specialises in), specifically the 3 types of scanning. These were Laser, Structured Light and Optical/ Photogrammetry.
Laser, one of the oldest form of 3D scanning is still used but is problematique due to it's expense and speed. Despite sounding quick, 30 seconds is too long to scan a model (a human example won't stay fully still) creating inconsistencies in the scan.
Structured Light is accurate, using reference cameras but still isn't fast enough (despite being 1-2 seconds) - it uses lines projected on the model to create the 3D image.
Optical/ Photogrammetry, this seems to be the most successful type of scanning, producing Photo-real characters instantaneously, and are quicker than sculpting from scratch. 
He also briefly discussed facial capture software - (4D scanning), the hope being for the future this would become 'Full body 4D scanners'.
Ten24 modelled the bodies for DeadIsland, helping create the trailer, with 3D scanning and adding zombie textures etc. I love this trailer so think it's worth showing:

Nick Adams from Blitz Games then spoke about the development of the 'Kinect' game 'Puss in Boots', describing the way the Kinect works as 'Magic', and the importance of the player feeling connected to the game. This was interesting as it illustrated how much thought is put behind character design, for example causing the character to mimic the exact movements of the player, made it lose his personality, so instead, a range of animations were created triggered by movement instead, then timed to successfully flow and engage the player. Pre-emptive gesture detection helped this. The importance of testing was also highlighted in this talk, as flaws in the game were picked out. It's interesting to see a one-player story-based game for the Kinect, as due to the nature of the software the Kinect is usually a more social experience, however I personally think to be fully immersed into a game you have to be without distraction, and moving about etc is distracting. Given the market for ' Puss in Boots' however, (younger children) this does seem like an exciting and playable game.

Brendan McNamarah (Team Bondi) discussed at length the facial capture software used in L.A.Noire, I was really excited to learn about this, as I'd already researched a little into it, so intend to write about it (along with Faceware software) in a separate blog, where I can go into more detail. 

Our last talk of the day was regarding the revamped Goldeneye game, Goldeneye Reloaded, where Tony Wills (Eurocom Developments www.eurocom.co.uk/mocap) gave us an insight into the world of motion capture, showing us behind the scenes footage of his studio - where motion capture cameras are set up to track the movement of reflective markers. What I found most interesting was the concept of 'Virtual cameras' which, using a shoulder mounted rig and motion balls, acts as a marker for camera angles and the camera view point. The handheld 'first person' effect this gives only caught on once Hollywood popularised it, with films such as Cloverfield etc.

The use of virtual glasses too, allows the actor to 'see' what is being created in the scene allowing better performances as well as extra characters to join a scene convincingly later on in production.

I found BAF - Games to be incredibly interesting and exciting, causing me to look forward to studying Games in depth later in the year.