Plan for John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)

IGC 2004 only wrapped up last weekend and already I'm looking forward to next year's conference. For those people who didn't go I've put together the reasons I recommend going next year as well as some ways to cut down the costs.

Hopefully after reading this, going to IGC will seem economically feasible, and well worth the investment for your company, project, and/or career. Personally I feel IGC makes one hell of a vacation - not only was I away from my day job and my game development (that's right, leave your source code at home and enjoy the weekend!), but I had the opportunity to meet many cool new people. I can't express how important it is to personally know people with similar interests, experiences, and backgrounds, especially people you interact with in the community anyway. Knowing these people through the community is just not the same as meeting them in person, having a few laughs (or in most cases an entire weekend of laughs :), and working together on common ideas and problems.


Reasons I recommend going to IGC next year

As I mentioned above you can't imagine the importance of meeting and personally knowing members of the community until you do it. Even I didn't realize how much I would enjoy seeing and meeting everyone, but this weekend I've met many people that I now consider friends.

Most of the people at IGC are either hardcore game developers and artists, or people who are on their way to becoming hardcore, which means the background noise we sometimes get around here is not at IGC, everyone is very friendly and professional. This is an optimal environment for team-building, swapping ideas, and working on solutions to common problems.

Both Garage Games and most of the indie companies that create products for our community are available at IGC to answer questions and listen to your feedback. These people are experts on their products, very community oriented, accessible, and easy going.

Many of the technology announcements made at IGC are slowly presented to the community as releases and products are nearing completion. By attending IGC you're getting the inside scoop on upcoming technology, and if you're crafty enough to approach developers at IGC and inquire about what's coming up you'll often receive information that wasn't even announced at IGC. I personally mentioned a few Synapse Gaming projects during private conversation that I didn't officially announce. :)

The speakers and sessions were top-notch, and provided a ton of excellent industry, business, development, and artistic advice. Although there was always something interesting going on, the conference didn't feel overly structured or sterile - I was amazed that a conference consisting of two hundred people and totally packed with information felt so personal and laid back.


Going to IGC without going broke

I understand that going to IGC can be expensive and isn't in everyone's budget, however I have some helpful hints to make the trip a lot cheaper. While reading these hints remember that going to IGC is an investment in you future - the skills you learn and the people you meet can only benefit you in the future. If that's not enough to get you to IGC then call the trip a vacation, make room in your budget for alcohol, and prepare to have a blast. :)

-Plan your IGC trip now by going out to a travel site, don't actually reserve anything, but get the basic costs and use this to start saving for next year.

-See if flying into Portland is cheaper than flying into Eugene. Several people told me that they saved a lot of money by flying into Portland and making the two hour drive to Eugene.

-Check the IndieGamesCon site for hotel discounts!

-Make your reservations at least two months in advance, plane tickets are always more expensive the closer they're booked to the actual flight date.

-Reserve a small car (in Eugene the average drive time to anywhere is two minutes - no I'm not joking, so don't worry about comfort, go for cost) and try to carpool with other people.

-If it's necessary to shave a few more dollars off of the trip consider going for two days, that will eliminate one extra day of hotel and car rental. Refer to the IGC schedule to decide which two days you'll want to pop in for.

-Start finding IGC buddies now. You can fit five people into a car and at least two into a hotel room - this makes for a tremendous savings.


Synapse Gaming announcements

As an example of the announcements you don't want to miss next year here are a few of the Lighting Pack announcements made this year.

Lighting Pack 1.2 for TGE

Synapse Gaming is proud to announce development on version 1.2 of the Lighting Pack for TGE, which simplifies integration, adds TGE 1.3 and full DirectX support, and introduces new lighting tools for rapid and efficient level design. The powerful new tools allow faster mission re-lighting when tweaking light properties by creating advanced light groups and adding flexible interior light map options.

Lighting Pack for TSE Tech Demo

Harnessing the power of TSE's shader engine, the Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack for TSE adds realtime per-light dynamic lighting and shadows, true volumetric lighting and fog, and the new Lighting Pack Shader Library for fast and easy development of custom lighting shaders. The Lighting Pack for TSE incorporates the latest in next-generation technology and builds on the current Lighting Pack's visually dynamic lighting models, powerful modeling tools, and high performance rendering.




Some of the Awesome Games and Products using the Lighting Pack

Today's cutting edge indie games and products are developed with the Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack. By providing powerful and innovative new tools, the Lighting Pack puts the resources necessary to succeed in your hands.

Many of the games and products on display at IGC use the Lighting Pack, such as GravRally, Lore, Extreme Dodge Ball, MicroWarrior, Kill All Robots, Tim Aste's Interior Packs, and Looking Glass, to name a few.




Personally I'm very proud of the games displayed at IGC using the Lighting Pack, although the games obviously represent a lot of work for the teams that created them, I feel I've contributed to these games in some way.

One more quick comment on IGC; next year make sure your community nickname is on your name tag! I missed out on talking to a few people whose names I didn't recognize (sorry guys!).

Wow, at this point I've created a plan that Davis would be proud of. :) Anyway I hope you've made it this far and I look forward to seeing you at IGC next year!



Edit: Lighting Pack for TSE Tech Demo Videos

I'm posting a few Lighting Pack for TSE Tech Demo videos. This is a tech demo, so it's very rough, dirty, and highly unoptimized, however it does a very good job of showing the direction the Lighting Pack technology is heading. Enjoy!

Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack for TSE video1 (5M)
Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack for TSE video2 (2M)
Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack for TSE video3 (7.6M)



John Kabus
Synapse Gaming