What better way to kick off the new Press Start blog than with the grand daddy of all game conferences, E3. Although, if you attended any of the past two E3’s then you probably wouldn’t have used the phrase “grand daddy”; the last two E3s were more like the “annoying cousin with bad social skills” of all game conferences.

 

By John Moore

 Mobile emulators and simulators can help developers test their apps on different devices without having to actually have them on hand. The testing tools can make testing easier, particularly where there are lots of variations in device types, screen sizes and operating systems. But they also face some limitations.

While New Yorkers may have to put up with cacophonous and disjointed announcements on their subway systems– where the voice seems to be screaming at them– the British tube has long been understood to be a more civilized system. The tube was made famous thanks in part to its soothing, silver-voiced announcement to please Mind the Gap.

sort of like going back to Junior Highschool - It's not always about the film.

What if you couldn’t trust your own thoughts? Curtis begins to believe this might be the case. He is starting to have dreams so vivid that he doesn’t know what is real and what was just in his head. Mental illness runs in his family. He seeks help, but is it enough to make him aware of the line between reality and his delusions?

The actor who plays Curtis is the go to actor for mentally off roles   Michael Shannon. Unlike his Oscar nominated role in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD or the horror flick BUG, he is fighting against and even trying to hide his possible problems. The reason is because he has a lot to lose. He is married to Samantha (Jessica Chastain, THE TREE OF LIFE) and their daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) needs a surgery to repair her damaged hearing. If his work finds out he is mentally off, will they still let him work his construction job? If he loses his job he loses his health insurance.

In May 1999, JoongAng Ilbo launched JoongAng Broadcasting Corporation after taking over Q Channel (now Q-TV), a cable TV station that airs non-fiction programs 24-hours a day through contracts with some of the world's top documentary program producers. Quality cultural programs and current event programs made by JoongAng Media also provide viewers with a new perspective of the world.

The VIEW Conference 2009 [http://www.viewconference.it/] is the 10th International Computer Graphics Conference, which started on November 4^th and will last until the 7^th of November 2009. It's held in the beautiful city of Turin, in the north of Italy, where I had the pleasure of attending this event, now for the fourth time.

Previously I have had the opportunity to tell the wonderful series of events happening at the Torino Incontra Conference Center to a magazine, a blog, and a CG portal. This year I have the great honour to talk to Animation World Network's readers.

The sparkling energy behind VIEW is Maria Elena Gutierrez who is driving a group of partner institutions, private and public sector, in investing in innovation and knowledge-sharing in the field of Technology and Creativity.

By John Moore

Construct 2 is an HTML5 game engine and the product of Scirra, a London-based software firm launched in June 2011. The software provides a boost to beginning game-makers, as the engine does not require programming experience. But the company says Construct 2 has sufficient power to “let experts work even quicker than by coding.” We recently talked to Ashley Gullen, a director at Scirra, who provided a few tips on working with Construct 2.

Where to begin? Information overload. Day 2. Fmx09.

The fmx may not be as big as SIGGRAPH, but like an American professional stated, it is superbly organized, which makes it a truly wonderful event throughout the world of Visual Effects, Animation, Games and Digital Media. Steffen Wild presented the work and the developments inside the beloved World of Jim Henson Muppets today. The famous creature shop made it bold steps into the digital realm, carefully keeping the original muppet touch alive. Like Jim Henson told his staff “Have an Idea? We try it out. Never be afraid of failure”. The successful use of digital puppeteering was successful used on the TV-show “Sid the Science Kid”. 40 episodes, together 20 hours had to be put together within only one year. Key to the success: strong characters, the excellent collaboration between the puppeteers, the use of live action disciplines, the clever utilization of new technology and a perfect real-world-compatibility. Just doing digital puppets the muppet way. On the live stage up to six characters can now be handled at the same time datawise. All to create webisodes, commercials, Television shows and direct-to-dvd material at the moment. And of course at some point in the future creating a feature film with a hybrid approach.

In a surprise addition to an already powerful roster of speakers lined up for the VIEW Conference, October 25 to 28, overall visual effects supervisor Erik Nash from Digital Domain has chosen to give the world’s first presentation of that studio’s work at VIEW Conference. A virtual production workflow designed by Digital Domain and Nash allowed director Shawn Levy to see CG characters as if they were actually present on set - in the boxing rings where background plates were shot - just as he would shoot any other scene with human actors.“We are thrilled that Erik Nash will share these important techniques with our attendees at the VIEW conference,” says conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “It is exciting to watch computer graphics characters move from post production up the pipeline and into production.”