After a relatively quiet GDC 2011 (only four talks that year), the Dogs are hitting GDC 2012 full force. I know plenty of Dogs always look forward to GDC and it's definitely one of my favorite conferences each year. Actually, I think they're all my favorites. Regardless of your discipline in the industry, or if you're a student, if you pick the right sessions, GDC almost always manages to be informative and inspirational. Keep checking the GDC12 tag on this blog to get daily updates on the talks for that day and anything else that may happen which we don't know about right now! The full list of sessions, along with dates, times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them or print them out. Water Technology of UnchartedWednesday, March 7, 201211:00 AM - 12:00 PMRoom 2016, West Hall, 2nd Fl SpeakersCarlos Gonzalez-Ochoa (Naughty Read more...

We hope everyone has had a great first day of GDC 2011 and that some of you were able to attend the absolutely packed GDC Microtalks session yesterday. Today, we've got several sessions we recommend checking out if you're a Naughty Dog fan. The full list of sessions for today with times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them or print them out. Keep checking back on the GDC11 tag to stay up to date with the sessions and our goings on throughout GDC. Experimental Gameplay SessionsThursday, March 3, 20111:30 PM – 2:30 PMRoom 303, South Hall SpeakersAndy Schatz (Pocketwatch Games), Asher Vollmer (University of Southern California), Jason Rohrer (Independent), Hanford Lemoore (Independent), Michael Brough (Independent), Nicolai Troshinsky (Independent), Mihir Sheth (University of Southern California), Chris Read more...

We're just kicking off the first day of the main conference sessions here at GDC 2011. There's plenty of sessions during each time slot that promise to be interesting, compelling, educational or entertaining. I know it's been difficult for me to narrow down some of the sessions I've wanted to attend! Of course, one of Naughty Dog's own, Richard Lemarchand, is running a panel today that I've always enjoyed - and it's in it's third straight year at GDC! Titled GDC Microtalks 2011: One Hour, Ten Speakers, Hundreds of Fun New Ideas, the panel collects a diverse group of industry notables and gives them a highly constrained forum to discuss their thoughts on this years theme. I've copied the full session description below, so check it out for more details and I hope that some of you will attend! The full list of sessions, along with dates, times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if Read more...

Looking over the full list of sessions, it looks like GDC 2011 is going to be pretty cool conference this year, as the conference celebrates its 25th anniversary. For the occasion, the GDC Advisory Board has even scheduled a great series of Classic Game Postmortems, running the gamut from Pac-Man to Bejeweled, not to mention one on Marble Madness by one of our favorite industry luminaries, Mark Cerny. GDC 2011 is going to be a relatively quiet conference for Naughty Dog as everyone is back at the studio working on UNCHARTED 3 – we’ve only got 8 months left until release! Although we’re not hitting GDC full force like we did last year, there’s still a few sessions you should consider if you happen to be attending the conference. The full list of sessions, along with dates, times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them Read more...

Naughty Dog programmer John Hable presented a talk called "UNCHARTED 2: HDR Lighting" to close out GDC10 during the last timeslot of the final day. During his talk John referenced a two-part presentation by Pal-Kristian Engstad, our Lead Engine Programmer, which covers optimizing for the SPUs. We've linked each part of that presentation below for those who attended John's session and those who are following at home (or coming in via GDC Vault access). Introduction to SPU Optimizations - Part 1 Introduction to SPU Optimizations - Part 2 Read more...

If you're still in San Francisco this Saturday for GDC, and haven't already succumbed to the effects of all the GDC activities, feel free to drop by any one of our four sessions today. This is also your last day to drop by the Naughty Dog booth at the Career Pavilion to ask any and all questions you may have about seeking employment at Naughty Dog and our studio culture. In that vein, if you're looking to work in the game industry, or if you want some tips on how to make yourself a more attractive candidate, may I suggest you check out game designer Jacob Minkoff's session, "Getting Noticed: Why You Need an Online Portfolio and How to Make One." Saturday (March 13, 2010) 10:30am - 11:30am Uncharted 2 Character Pipeline: An In-depth Look at the Creation of U2's Characters Richard Diamant (Lead Character Artist, Naughty Dog Inc.), Judd Simantov (Lead Character Technical Director, Naughty Dog Inc) Room 135, North Hall Some of the topics covered will include how we used Read more...

There are three sessions today, Friday, March 12, at GDC10 which have participation by Naughty Dogs and/or is about UNCHARTED 2. As yesterday, if you're at GDC10 this week, we'd love to see you come by and attend! Don't forget to also stop by our booth at the GDC Career Pavilion where we are holding a business card raffle for great (and at least one item of relevant) merch. Friday (March 12, 2010) 9:00am - 10:00am GDC Microtalks 2010: Ten Speakers, 200 Slides, Limitless Ideas! Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog), Ian Bogost (Associate Professor, The Georgia Institute of Technology), Chaim Gingold (levity lab), Gary Penn (Guru, Denki), Sam Roberts (Festival Director, indiecade.com), Margaret Robertson (Consultant and writer, Lookspring), Kellee Santiago (President and Co Founder, thatgamecompany), Suzanne Seggerman (President, Games for Change), Jesse Schell (ETC Carnegie Mellon, Schell Games), Jane Pinckard (Business Development, Foundation 9 Entertainment) Read more...

After the first full day of main conference sessions, many of us -- and I think all the Dogs at GDC -- will head to attend the Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developer Choice Awards. We're especially excited for the GDCA as UNCHARTED 2 is nominated in seven categories: Game of the Year Best Writing Best Game Design Best Technology Best Visual Arts Innovation Award Best Audio The IGF Awards are significant and you shouldn't miss them either -- they recognize the best entries into the Independent Games Festival and can give a great glimpse into some of the awesome things that come from being small and passionate -- showcasing interesting game play innovations and game developers to watch. Best of all, both awards ceremonies will be streamed back-to-back LIVE from GameSpot's GDC hub at http://gdc.gamespot.com/. Be sure to head over there at 6:30 PM PST (what time is that in my city?) to watch the awards events -- and hopefully cheer us on. Our fingers are Read more...

Today, Thursday, March 11, is the first day of the GDC10 main conference and Naughty Dog figures prominently in three sessions today. If you're at GDC10 this week (and reading this instead of attending sessions), we'd love to see you come by. Thursday (March 11, 2010) 1:30pm - 2:30pm Among Friends - An Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Post-Mortem Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog) Room 134, North Hall Naughty Dog faced many entirely new challenges in the creation of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves - in expanding our gameplay through the use of new traversal, combat and AI technologies, introducing characters that shed new light on our hero Nathan Drake, and tackling our first foray into multiplayer in four years. Co-Lead Game Designer Richard Lemarchand will candidly describe how we tackled the problems that we faced, and how the studio's philosophy of collaboration, open communication and investment of responsibility in the people who create the game allowed Read more...

Many of us at Naughty Dog are up in San Francisco to attend GDC10 this week. The Dogs are participating in ten sessions this week, covering just about every aspect of the development of UNCHARTED 2, along with some hiring advice and the continuing run of the GDC Microtalks session. We're also attending this year's Game Developer Choice Awards on Thursday, March 11, as we hope to win some awards from the seven categories we've been nominated in Naughty Dog is also going have its own booth at the Career Pavilion -- more on that and why you would want to swing by tomorrow. We've got the full list of sessions we're participating in, along with links to descriptions below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them or print them out. Keep checking back via the GDC10 tag to stay up to date on GDC and what the Dogs are up to throughout the week! Thursday (March 11, 2010) 1:30pm - 2:30pm Among Read more...

The Game Developers Conference took over San Francisco again on February 18 – 22, 2008, and a bunch of the Dogs were there to give presentations on the methods and techniques they honed during the creation of Naughty Dog games like UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune. For those of you who couldn't make the conference, or are just curious about the state of the art in game development, we’ve made the presentation materials from GDC08 available for download below. GDC Session Descriptions (PDF, 20 KB) In depth Descriptions of the presentations delivered at GDC08 by members of team Naughty Dog Adventures in Data Compilation – UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune (PDF, 1.1 MB) Presented by Dan Liebgold Amazing Feats of Daring – A Postmortem for UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune (PDF, 18.3 MB) Presented by Richard Lemarchand Autodesk Mudbox: Integration and Use with Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya (PDF, 4.7 MB) Presented by Rich Diamant Creating a Character in Read more...