Hopping

Hopping around the conference this afternoon... first hop was into the Core Techniques with Shaders tutorial again, which led into a very math-intensive lecture about a normal/displacement mapping technique using heightfields. It's frustrating when a lecturer thinks that teaching a technique means formulas for every step in the algorithm must be examined in order for the technique to be properly explained. Conceptual discussion works just fine in most cases..

The second lecture was on the Tile Tree data structure, which is being sold as a replacement for 3D texture / cube mapping. It sounds promising and actually pretty simple in concept. And for once, a programming-centric lecture was informative and interesting. Check out CoreTechniques.info for the slides.

Now I'm awaiting the rest of the serious games summit lectures. The first one starting shortly is a discussion by two EA staffers on the usage of Madden and the Sims technologies to create educational games that have been used in the industry. Cool stuff.. Ben Sawyer just stepped up to the stage, so here we go..

Oh wait, the Madden guy didn't make it. But we have videos of EA's Play Action Simulator, which is the product they created using Madden's technology.

And it's almost exactly a product idea I had...