By Stu Horvath

Innovation takes many forms within the gaming space, often beginning with insight and inspiration from a single person, be they a game developer, an engineer, a sociologist or anything else within the industry. That’s why we’re tracking down thought leaders: to give you a sneak peek of the digital arts future through their eyes.

In this installment, we talk to Michael Mateas, associate professor of computer science at University of California, Santa Cruz, about the intersection of artificial intelligence, art and design -- and its impact on the future of technology.

By Matt Ployhar

DRM was a response to piracy, just like free-to-play was a response to piracy. I’d like to cover some of the leading causes and reasons I’ve heard over the years for why people pirate, or make copies of, a game:

1. They don’t want to pay for the game outright, or they feel it’s too expensive.
2. The game isn’t available in their region.
3. They want a digital copy of the game that they legitimately purchased.
4. DRM game performance was invasive and/or degraded.
5. They bought the game, then lost or scratched the disk and didn’t want to repurchase it.
6. There wasn’t a demo available.
7. To be malicious; they don’t like the publisher.
8. The mafia, gray and black markets.
9. They cracked the game because it was a challenge.

Matt Ployhar

By Matt Ployhar

I recently read an article about one of the big console manufacturers’ finances. It reported quarterly revenue reaching more than a billion, but after all costs, it netted less profit than what some PC games will take home in a month. The math pointed to a roughly 2 percent margin of profit. And, based on its performance over the last decade, this was an awesome year for the manufacturer! Remember, it’s not always about how much revenue you generate, but what you take home that matters most.

This begs some deeper scrutiny. Are consoles really that profitable? When they are, who stands to gain the most? If we follow the money, I think the results would astound most people.

Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center. Photo courtesy of ETC website.

By Brian Taylor

Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center was founded in 1999 by drama and arts management professor Don Marinelli and the late Randy Pausch, professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design. An independent center housed in neither the School of Computer Science nor the College of Fine Arts, the Entertainment Technology Center is headquartered in a riverfront technology park along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, Penn., directly across from an old steel mill site that is now a mixed-use commercial-residential development designed to blend into the adjacent National Historic District. Its hallways are a pop-culture explosion (geek skewing sci-fi, where a life-size carbonite Han Solo statue leans next to Lara Palmer’s image hanging on a wall above a Blade Runner poster), the men’s room decorated in a Super Mario Brothers World 1-1 motif.

Screencap from Diablo III.

By Gus Mastrapa

Lead technical artist Julian Love is a nine-year Blizzard veteran. He’s been working on Diablo III almost as long as fans have been waiting for the game. We spoke to Love about the long-gestating project, Blizzard’s approach to making games and the role of the technical artist in development.

Whether 3D moves beyond a stylistic evolution and becomes a revolution, though, has yet to be seen. As some developers and players note, the unique visual effect of 3D -- with the initial disorientation of viewing a scene with an illusion of depth and then continuing to direct the action -- can take some getting used to. However, the PC games that have made the jump to 3D run the gamut, including StarCraft II, Call of Duty: Black Ops, World of Warcraft and Duke Nukem Forever.

PC developers need to spend much less time tweaking the rendering effects in their games, as opposed to more than several months to rewrite a console game engine from the ground up to support 3D. And Mick Hocking, a vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and the head of the company’s 3D initiative, says that while some of the technology used to produce high-quality 3D displays has existed for a long time, it’s only recently become available at a consumer price point.

Quite often, simple things that occur in the real world can become incredible technical problems for visual effects artists attempting to digitally recreate or adapt those occurrences for film. One such gremlin is liquid simulation.

Previously, we looked at how Gradient Effects used the Exocortex Technologies Slipstream tool to create the memory pool in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, a sequence that required mimicking the effect of ink dispersing in water -- in large volume and high detail. Slipstream allowed Gradient Effects to complete the sequence with far less processing power, with greater efficiency and in far less time than other solutions, thanks to real-time rendering and a specialized production pipeline.

But while rendering ink in water is impressive, the power and majesty of the deep blue sea is something else entirely.

By John Gaudiosi

Bethesda Softworks showcased the much-anticipated Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at Gamescom 2011 this summer in Cologne, Germany, allowing fans to check out the successor to the award-winning blockbuster hit Oblivion. Bethesda Game Studios has been hard at work on this new role-playing game (RPG), developing a brand-new game engine -- the Creation Engine -- for the open-world experience.

Longtime fans of the Harry Potter film franchise are familiar with the series’ ample visual effects (VFX), and this summer’s box office hit Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 -- the final adventure in the series -- ranks as one of the biggest VFX-driven Hollywood productions of 2011. Among the many emotive sequences in the Harry Potter film franchise is the memory pool sequence created by Gradient Effects. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at how Gradient Effects and Exocortex Technologies worked together to pull off this visually stunning special effect.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

By John Gaudiosi

Call of Duty is much more than a video game; it’s a cultural phenomenon.

Nowhere was that more evident than at Raleigh Studios in Playa Vista, Calif., where Activision threw a shindig unlike anything ever done in the game industry. For three days in early September, Call of Duty invaded the 12-acre compound Howard Hughes created, the Spruce Goose. Unlike the world’s largest plane, which failed miserably in flight, Call of Duty has soared to new heights with each successive game.