Digital Painting: The Fundamentals of Environment Development - Morning Session

Dave Paget | Sumo Digital

Making Games with Game Maker

Shaun Spalding |

But is it Fun?

Alex Trowers | Independent Developer

Unity 101

Alan Thorn | Teesside University

Movement Analysis and Character Performance

Sarah Perry | Shapes in Motion

Photoreal by Teatime

Daffy | DAFFY London

DAFFY has been working in VFX for over 20 years, both in a supervisory role in major studios such as Framestore and The Mill and also within his own studio. This combination of high end and low rent has allowed him to sift through various processes, and cherry pick his own brew of CGI VFX development that is full proof, lightning fast yet gives world class results.

From prepping and buying the equipment for a shoot all the way to delivering comps in the correct colour space, DAFFY will go through every principle involved in VFX, giving quick demonstrations, and vital tips within each discipline. Using a recently completed real world project, he’ll also discuss his open honest sharing policy that he has with clients.

By showing the lowest cost equipment, isolating the key tools and plugins and using models downloaded from Turbosquid, he shows techniques which are accessible to anyone in a semi-professional capacity, and by the end of the day, he’ll have worked his way through the entire pipeline, and have renders and comps to show for it.

Although this is an overview of the whole process, and different people will choose alternative kit on their own production, DAFFY hopes to inform his audience about what things to be aiming to achieve and what to improve on from one production to the next.

Areas covered
- Prepping a shoot, equipment needed.
- Shoot checklist
- Creating HDRI’s
- Planning a pipeline
- Modelling do’s and dont’s
- The Rigging Road Test
- Usable Walk cycle in 20 minutes
- Fast texturing cheats
- An Arnold HDRI lighting setup
- Basic Render Passes
- Compositing in After Effects

Kit and software used.
- Mac Pro and Mac Book Pro
- Maya (with Arnold)
- Photoshop
- After Effects (with RSMB and Frischluft)
- Tracking software
- PhotoScan Regular
- PT GUI Pro
- Canon 5D mkIII
- Fish Eye Lens
- Tripod
- Wacom Pad
- Google Sheet
- Dropbox

One session (full day)
100 places £25
Lunch break 12.30pm - 1.30pm

Pitch club – The first rule is you DO talk about it

Gary Napper | Supermassive Games

You may have the best game design in the world, but if you can’t communicate what is great about it, you will find getting it out there a lot harder. In Pitch Club we focus on purely the method of delivery. The Message. How do you identify the best parts of your game? How do you talk about them? How should you approach pitching for funding? How should you approach being interviewed about your game? What should you concentrate on when given a chance to speak publicly about your game? This workshop breaks the process down and gives helpful advice and learnings on presenting, distilling your game into core components and how to pitch it in multiple environments.

One session (half day, Morning)
100 places £15

Human Anatomy for Animators

Elizabeth Rega | Western University of Health Sciences, California

This three hour session introduces anatomical topics of greatest utility to animators. More than just a list of parts, anatomy explores the relation of form with function which underlies successful character design and animation. Topics include human walking, running, facial expression and eye movement, with an emphasis on joint pivot locations, rotation limits and corresponding surface deformation. Practical demonstrations with participants will be integrated with visual examples to ensure that the subtleties so vital to believable motion are achieved. Students are encouraged to bring examples of their own work for critique.

One session (half day, Afternoon)
50 places £15