The Growth mindset in videogames, iterative development and decision-making tools

John Nejady | Coconut Lizard

The Growth Mindset is a free tool that people can use every single day in order to help themselves, and their teams, improve.

Carol Dweck, the author of the book 'Mindset', has done talks at TED and Google on the subject, and here I aim to look into how it can be interpreted more specifically for individuals, teams, and companies looking to succeed in games.

A Story of CG Environments for VFX: An Elephant in the Room

Alonso Varela | Rocket Science VFX

VFX/CG Supervisor Alonso Varela will be discussing how the creation of CG environments has evolved along his career in the VFX industry. He will be giving examples from his previous work in Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2, War for the Planets of the Apes and The Jungle Book.

The End of the Disney Era — The Beginning of More Adult-Theme Animation

Ed Hooks |

Walt Disney made movies for children, and he charmed adults into seeing them also, on the grounds that “There is a child in all of us.” That is why, when you watch “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, you regress to about ten years old. This is why he called Disneyland “The Magic Kingdom”. Children are magical thinkers. The Disney Company was historically successful, as we all know, but animation as an art form was not developed as far as it might go, especially for grown-ups. Today, we are seeing more adult-theme animation, new forms of exhibition (Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc), less big-budget Hollywood-centric films and more international productions. After COVID restrictions, we are also seeing a surge in Virtual Animation Studios, with artists in different countries collaborating in cyberspace. Isao Takahata, back in 1988, pointed the way for today’s storytellers, with “Grave of the Fireflies”, from Studio Ghibli. In 2021, artists are poised for an entirely new and different creative universe.

A Place for Proceduralisim

John Moncrief | SideFX

In this presentation we will explore procedural workflows and learn how taking advantage of them can greatly enhance your creativity and productivity.

Character Design for Film Production - Three Hour Masterclass

Dave Paget | Sumo Digital

Character designers are sought after throughout the industry. In film, the designs need to be completed to a high quality finish in the quickest time possible. This workshop is designed to demonstrate the tools and tricks used to overcome the day-to-day challenges facing a character designer and create great looking results in the most efficient way possible.

Product lighting - mimicking the real world and where to break the rules - Advanced techniques

Daniel Sweeney | Northforge

When lighting products in a 3D environment you have all the benefits of being able to mimic traditional lighting setups from real world photography but also the complete flexibility to be able to break the rules and create setup which would be either very hard to achieve or not be possible in a physical shoot.

Real-time beyond games

Pablo Bravo |

Senior 3D Artist/Virtual Production - We are going to explore the use of game engines outside of the game production, how the same technology that runs our games can ignite other forms of creativity. From virtual production in films to visualization of any creative idea.