MAAC is GAME are YOU?
Saturday 28th August 2010 was witness to the best event on gaming ever. It was a powerful interactive session with Vijayaraghavan- Asst. Art Director: Gameshastra, Matthew Jeffery-Head of Global Talent Brand EA (Electronic Arts) and Anurag Yadav, Asst. Director, R&D MAAC. With such an enthused line up of speakers nothing less than an energy packed day was expected and the audience got it, maybe more!
The perfect day to announce MAAC's new course in Game Development…MAAC a pioneer in Animation, VFX and now gaming education has released THE DIPLOMA IN GAME DESIGN & INTEGRATION.
Receiving an excellent reception from the Delhi crowd the day before, the speakers were encouraged by the applause coming from the Mumbai crowd. The Bhaidas Auditorium, Vile Parle, quite a mammoth space was filled with over 800 students. The organizers were grateful and credited Online Media Partner GX Gaming Xpress, On-Line community partners CGTantra and Technology Partners NVIDIA.
Matthew Jeffery, Vijayaraghavan, Ram Warrier Business Head MAAC and Sanjiv Waeerkar CCO MAAC, Lighted the Lamp. And then the audience was ready for the action world.
Vijayaraghavan was the one to introduce the audience into the gaming mode. Vijayaraghavan is focused in creating and maintaining more seamless operation of all the aspects of art production at Gameshastra. He works across all discipline/domains and maintains efficiency in the production. Before joining Gameshastra, he was with the Game Development studio "Carbonon-tech" based out of Chennai, as a 3D Artist, having completed his Advance Diploma in Multimedia. He specializes in creating game environments, level editing/designing and has broad experience with game art pipeline and methodologies for various platforms. He enjoys training/mentoring fellow Artist, researching on game and game related technologies, working on UDK(unreal development kit)and sharing knowledge. Being a passionate gamer, he loves console and competitive gaming. He is currently heading a team of 50 artists across multiple domains and on multiple platforms.
Vijayaraghavan threw light on the Indian Gaming Scenario. He spoke a little bit about the history of Indian Gaming, (it doesn't go down many years), he spoke of where Indians stood a few years back, taking small steps with Hanuman as a game and then breaking into a run, developing games like Desi Adda. Today they are in their initial years of developing the industry, the major players being FX Labs, Dhruva, Gameshastra. Gameshastra covering most of the platforms namely iPhone/Android, PS2/PSP/PS3/PSPGo, PC Macintosh, Wii/DS/DSi…has developed Desi Adda, Great Pyramid, Nocturnal etc. With Desi Adda they have catered to a sector of audience that is not touched, the non-hard core gamers. Desi Adda also is more ethnic and more Indian as the name suggests.
He also spoke of the hurdles that they face during game development, the deadlines (sprints), the technology and at the end of the day: meeting production value. The major hurdle being Piracy, they work towards bringing the prices down making it affordable.
Gameshastra a thousand seater facility, they are on a hiring spree and one can definitely write at hr@gameshastra.com. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Before that Vijayaraghavan spoke of what is required in a student's portfolio. He specified that they do not want frills and fancy effects in the portfolio, the topology, and the UV texture layouts should be perfect. He also suggested that Modding is a great way to learn and path to get into game development. "Cry Engine 3 would be a popular tool!"
Forums and game-art communities are a great way to share your artwork. He stressed that "please do not shy away from posting because it helps identify flaws at an earlier stage, from a professional". To put it in a nutshell, the gaming industry wants students with passion, dedication, willingness to learn, team work and collaboration.
Vijayaraghavan created a good start, with students now aware of what was required the next session was taken over by A nu rag Davao, Asst. Director, R&D MAAC. He gave the audience a complete insight into the course MAAC is offering to aspiring game developers. A widespread course, it extends over 6 months. After a lot of planning of 8 to 10 months MAAC is here to give complete driving force to students who want to make it big in Gaming.
A nu rag Davao showed many varied clippings of how gaming is spreading wide and far since a large number of consumers/target audience is untapped. The course as usual begins with Basics or art, game theory, game development pipeline understanding, game concept art and gradually moves towards environment modeling, Next-gen character modeling, Game engine Asset Integration and once the student is completely ready, the last level or shall we say the first level into the industry would be his or her Portfolio development.
The career opportunities being galore, students can diversify their talents by taking up 3d Game design, simulator graphics, web 3d graphics, interactive product demos, interactive architectural walkthroughs and game testing jobs.
The tempo built up, the audience was eagerly waiting for Matthew Jeffery to speak. The audience went into frenzy when he spoke. "Interactive" is the apt word for the session that he took. He was in the audience explaining the intricacies of the industry.
Matthew Jeffery is the Global Director of Talent Brand for Electronic Arts, the leading developer & publisher of interactive entertainment. Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EATM, EA SPORTSTM, EA Mobility and POGOTM. In fiscal 2010, EA had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies, and five titles that each sold more than four million copies, including FIFA 10, Madden NFL 10, Need for Speed SHIFT, The SIMS 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
The EA Games Label portfolio includes several established franchises such as Need for Speed, Battlefield, Mass Effect, and Medal of Honor. In addition, the EA Games Label has launched new franchises including Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Army of Two, and has additional titles in development.
EA SPORTS games range from simulated sports titles with lifelike graphics based on real-world sports leagues, players, events and venues, to more casual games with arcade-style game play and graphics. EA SPORTS franchises include FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL Football, Fight Night, NBA Elite, NBA Jam, NCAA Football, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, EA SPORTS MMA, NHL Hockey, and EA SPORTS Active.
The EA Play Label includes The Sims Studio, My Sims, EA's Harbor, Maxis and Casual Studios. The Label creates games based on original IP and licensed IP, with titles such as Harry Potter, BOOM BLOX, and many more. In August 2007, EA entered into a strategic relationship with Harbor through which EA can create games based on a significant number of Harbor's classic board games and toys, including MONOPOLY, SCRABBLE (North America only), YAHTZEE, TRIVIAL PURSUIT, NERF, G.I. JOE, and LITTLEST PET SHOP.
EA Interactive represents EA's business in the emerging areas of online and mobile games. EA Mobile is the world's leading wireless entertainment publisher – including the #1 apt developer on Apple's Apt Store -- with award-winning games such as Titers, Scrabble, Bejeweled, The Sims, and Need For Speed. Pygidium is one of the leading casual gaming destinations on the Internet, with more than 1.9 million paying subscribers each month. EA Interactive is also home to EA's growing business in the social gaming sector. Led by Play fish, which EA acquired in 2009, gamers of all ages enjoy titles like Pet Society, Hotel City and Restaurant City on social platforms like Facebook and others.
Matthew is well known for innovation in recruiting and for his passionate oratory and his inspirational presentation style. Matthew was recently voted 'Recruitment Personality of the Year 2010' at the Recruiter Awards.
Maintaining his style of passionate oratory his presentation was excellent to convince a non-gamer take interest into gaming. Matthew had the audience enraptured with the EA's reel. Beginning with the evolution of gaming from Pitman to Need for Speed took us through the time machine of gaming.
The presentation on Need For Speed made the audience gasp for more, and surely they got it with the new hyper real Need For Speed presentation. The reality of the World is transferred into the games. Enriching the gaming experience, the look of gaming models matches so much so to the real world that a boy from the audience fumbled deciding which car model was CG or a gaming model or real. On PS3 the environment, the feel of a rugby field comes across so strongly, the lighting high defined the texturing tooth sweat and mud on the player, the boxer's tiredness the emotions are felt through.
Talking of the emotions, Matthew presented The Star Wars The Old Republic trailer, you have to see it to believe the story and emotions flowing and most of all play the game. Matthew believes that more than watching movies gaming is fun and more interactive. Whilst playing a game you are involved in the game, your reflexes are at work, its good mind exercise too. You are not controlled by the director's point of view and in a game you make your own story.
Moving ahead with the gaming technology, (the technology that will go to the extent to understand what the gamer is thinking) we viewed the ingenious EA Sports Active. Matthew suggested to all those aspiring gamers to show this particular clip of EA Sports Active when Fathers say games are only about violence.
For mothers who think daughters can't get into game development Matthew had an answer ready. There are women in this business and they are great game developers. Gaming is fun and it was clearly visible in the Play Fish video and testimonials from all the gamers there.
After all that who wouldn't wish to work in this field and so the questions from the audience began, How to get into Gaming? Matthew suggested that students could learn from MAAC of course. The career options being that of animators, modelers, technical artists, texture artists , game designers, creating artificial intelligence (something most challenging), physics. One has to have very strong paths skills and very strong logic, those aspiring to get into programming need to have knowledge of C++, and Java.
Now even a noob can talk about gaming after this event. The fun of gaming didn't end there; this was followed by a quiz conducted by RK Chand of CGTantra. 10 players, the ones who answered right got the chance to compete with Matthew in a 10 minute Crysis game. The Gameplay was organised by Maximum Gaming Company Mumbai, thanks to them the audience got to watch a live challenge. The highlight of the entire event was this phase, it was exciting and exhilarating with the audience cheering from their seats. The winners received NVIDIA's Card and EA Game Title.
Now all those who aspire to become game developers it is GAME ON!
To know more about the MAAC's state of the art gaming curriculum "The Diploma in Game Design and Integration " log on to www.maacindia.com |
