Of course, the sensible thing would be to use an existing game engine, but after a certain point, there is some curiosity if learning and fighting yet another game engine is really quicker that just writing something from scratch.
The Australian Effects & Animation Festival is on in Melbourne during May 12-13, and they've snagged someone pretty special to do a presentation...
"Heading the line up will be Jim Rygiel, Visual Effects Supervisor on Peter Jackson's acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rygiel will be flying direct from New Zealand to speak at AEAF Melbourne on the digital creation of The Two Towers, the second installment in Jackson's film epic...
In his presentation at AEAF Melbourne, Rygiel will give…
I had thought Infogrames Melbourne House's Grand Prix Challenge was finished and released yonks ago, but Gamespy has a 'preview' of it, with a release date of March 4. Some compliments on the amount of cars on track, horizon distance, and general aesthetics, but thumbs down on the vehicle crashes!
"If Infogrames can significantly tweak the realism of the crashes, add Murray Walker as the commentator (there's no one narrating the action at the moment), insert a pit crew when you pull in for a…
"BigWorld Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Micro Fort? today announced it is now the official licensing agent for the BigWorld massively multiplayer technology.
The BigWorld Technology? took over three years and $8 million to develop. The technology offers the world's most scalable, fault-tolerant, and customisable MMOG middleware available.
Microsoft has recently backed The BigWorld Technology? by using it in the development of a future Xbox release of a Micro Fort? MMOG game title.
The…
I can't praise this program enough! If you're a modeller/skinner, you absolutely have to download it. It's called Deep Exploration (previously called 3D Exploration), and it's created by New Zealand's, Right Hemisphere. I'm currently skinning my male model, and I'm using Photoshop to do the 2d work, while viewing the model in Deep Exploration, and I absolutely love it.
It supports PSD files, so you just save your texture in PS, and when you click in DE, it'll update the texture on your model…
Another overseas developer has opened up a studio in Queensland.
"Game developer THQ has started building a game development studio in Australia as part of a global re-organisation of its production facilities.
The new facility, under construction in Brisbane, is expected to employ 35 to 50 staff within the next two to three years. It will support and manage THQ's game development activities throughout the Asia-Pacific region."
Make sure you keep an eye on THQ for job openings! Details at…
Gameindustrybiz has an interesting look at Nokia's handheld games console, N-Gage, and all does not look good. Buttons are badly positioned, memory cards are flimsy and expensive (inserted ala sim-card style where you have to pull apart the battery), and it's current selection of games are less than impressive. The biggest cross against the N-Gage would be that it could cost TWICE as much as a PS2 or an Xbox. Read all about it here.
Remember that new console by Infinium Labs that was revealed a few months back? We discussed about it here. Well, there's an article up at Heraldtribune.com that reveals a bit more on it. It's going to cost twice as much as a Playstation 2 with a broadband adapter.
"When players buy the Phantom, they buy into a whole new system for delivery of a large variety of games through a broadband-Internet connection. Once they are automatically logged into the network, Phantom-equipped players will be…
Xbox Gamezone has an interview with Shane Stevens, Lead Programmer at Blue Tongue Software on Jurassic Park Operation Genesis..
" I would like to say that I am extremely impressed and proud of our team. We overcame some amazing challenges in building Jurassic Park. The fact that we built an original game that we are all very happy with from nothing to done on three different skus in multiple languages in under two years is quite an achievement. Our artists have achieved a wonderful sense of…
I got this from John Passfield's (Director of Development and co-owner of Krome Studios) cartoon site, and I thought it's a pretty nice story to post. It's about Ty, the Tasmanian Tiger..
"Having really enjoyed the time I've spent watching and occasionally helping with Ty the Tasmanian Tiger to date, I feel like my friend's daughter is not the only one who's learned something from the experience. Sure, without me, she might never have made it past the sharks or reached the top of the mountain…
