Meta-Information: Presentations

1. Meta-Information: Presentations Giving a talk Writing a game proposal Game History Game Genres IAT 410

2. Giving a Talk • What to say and How to say it • Getting through to the audience • Visual and Aural aids • Question Time IAT 410

3. What to say & How to say it • Communicate Key ideas • Don’t get bogged down in details • Structure your talk • Use a Top-Down Approach IAT 410

4. The Introduction • Define the problem / issue / thingy • Motivate the audience • Introduce terminology • Discuss earlier work • Emphasize your new work contributions • Provide a road-map • For very short presentations, economize on this section IAT 410

5. The Body • General • Abstract the major results / thoughts / plans • Explain the significance of the results • Technicalities • Talk about the vital details that make the general points true • Conclusion • Hindsight is clearer than foresight IAT 410

6. Know your audience • Who are they-- • The Public? • Scientists? • Computer Scientists? • Computer Scientists in your area? • Classmates? • The more expert or familiar the audience, the more you can focus on details IAT 410

7. Getting Through • Use repetition • Remind the audience • Don’t Over-Run! • Maintain eye contact • Control your voice • Be well-groomed! • Avoid anxiety by Practice! IAT 410

8. Visual & Audio Aids • PowerPoint slides • Don’t overload them • Don’t write sentences • Allow 1-2 minutes per slide • Don’t cover slides • No special fonts!!! • Don’t animate text! • It’s irritating!! • You waste time waiting for the text to show up IAT 410

9. Visual & Audio Aids • Use pictures! • Show a picture as soon as possible! • Use overlays for stop-frame animation of algorithms IAT 410

10. Visual & Audio Aids • Use pictures! • Show a picture as soon as possible! • Use overlays for stop-frame animation of algorithms • Use animation if appropriate IAT 410

11. Visual & Audio Aids • Beware the microphone • Don’t beat your chest! • Try turning it off while you are putting it on or taking it off • Test your video • Cue it up • Be ready to switch from source to source • Be ready to adjust sound IAT 410

12. Question Time • Request for Information • Implied request for adulation • Come up with a complimentary answer • Malicious question • Be prepared • Be ready to take them off-line • “I don’t know” IAT 410

13. IAT 410

14. How to write a Game Proposal • Today’s games have a production team • Artists • Designers • Musicians • Programmers • 20-100 experienced people IAT 410

15. How to write a Game Proposal • Think Small IAT 410

16. Think Small • Really, I mean it IAT 410

17. Do One Thing Well • Make the game stand out in one way • Don’t do a mediocre job in all things • Do NOT to lots of levels in the game • One level will do nicely IAT 410

18. Do One Thing Well • Possible areas • Great graphics • Witty sounds • Clever puzzles • Compact concept IAT 410

19. Understand your Tools • The various tools have strengths & weaknesses • Don’t fight the tool • Understand what the tool is good for and tailor your project for that tool • Also.. Don’t fight your team’s skills IAT 410

20. Plan in Layers • Detailed development schedule: • Functional Minimum • Your Low target • Your Desirable target • Your High target • Your Extras • Maybe do these after the term is done IAT 410

21. The Proposal • The game description • 5 pages of text • 1-3 pages of sketches/ mocked-up screens • Layered Development Schedule • As on previous slide • Also state whois responsible for what • Assessment • What One Thing will be cool about your game IAT 410

22. The Presentation • 7 minutes In class • Describe your game • Argue for the One Cool Thing • State what your primary development environment will be and why • Show your development schedule • Indicate why you think it’s do-able • Practice your talk! IAT 410

23. IAT 410

24. Game History, Genres Space Invaders… Pong… Grand Theft Auto… Action, Adventure, Puzzle, etc IAT 410

25. History • Spacewar 1962 • PDP-1 • 2 Ships controlled by 4 buttons each: • Rotate left, right, thrust, fire • http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/spacewar/ • Adventure 1967 • Text-based adventure • “You are in a maze of twisty little passages” IAT 410

26. History • Pong 1972 • First arcade hit • Home version of Pong 1974 • Fairchild Channel F 1976 • Cartridges! • Hardware “Crash” 1977 • Millions of Pong clones saturate the market IAT 410

27. Some examples IAT 410

28. History • Space Invaders 1978 • Activision 1979 • First software house makes Atari 2600 Cartridges • Asteroids 1979 • Record score: 100,000,000 • Two guys played it for a week in 1982 IAT 410

29. Asteroids (Clone) IAT 410

30. Arcade Games 1980 • Defender • Missile Command • Battezone • Tempest • Popular with Men AND Women: • Pac-Man • Frogger • Centipede IAT 410

31. Defender / Stargate IAT 410

32. Missile Command IAT 410

33. Centipede IAT 410

34. Arcade Games 1981-83 • Donkey Kong • Q*Bert • Tron • Zaxxon • Joust • Pole Position • Punch-Out IAT 410

35. Joust IAT 410

36. Pole Position IAT 410

37. Home Games Late 70s Early 80s • Atari 2600 • 1.18MHz 6507, 128 bytes RAM, 4KB ROM • Atari 5200 (incompatible cartridge with 2600) • 1.8MHz 6502, 16KB RAM • Colecovision • Mattel Intellivision • Bally Astrocade IAT 410

38. Software Crash of 1983-84 • Market of 1982: $3 billion • Market of 1985: $100 million • Millions of clones and lousy cartridges • No rating system • No licensing system • Consumer confusion! IAT 410

39. Mid 80s • 8-bit Home Games: • Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) • 1.8MHz 6502 256x240 pixels • Released 1986 • Most popular toy of 1988 • Mario Bros. • Sega Master System • Released 1986 IAT 410

40. Late 80s • 16-bit Home Games • Sega Genesis • 7.8MHz 68000 + 4MHz Z80, 1MB Rom, 64KB Ram • Released 1989 • NEC TurboGrafx-16 • 16MHz 65802 • Game Boy • Tetris IAT 410

41. Early 90s • Super NES (16 bit), 1990 • 3.58Mhz 65C816, 128KB Ram • Game Gear • Software • Street Fighter 2 • First decent fighting game • Super Mario Bros. 3 • Sonic the Hedgehog • Mortal Kombat 1992 IAT 410

42. Mid 90s • Sega CD (1992) • PC CDROM (1994) • Software • NBA Jam (1993) • Earned $1 billion in arcades • First franchise • Virtua Fighter (1995) IAT 410

43. Mid 90s • Playstation (1995) • 33 MHz R3900 32bit CPU • 24 bit framebuffer • Sega Saturn (1995) • Two 28.8MHz 32bit Hitachi SH2s • 24 bit framebuffer • Hardware textures • Nintendo 64 (1996) • 93MHz R4300 64bit CPU IAT 410

44. Mid 90s • Networked Games • Ultima Online, Everquest, etc IAT 410

45. Late 90s • Sega Dreamcast (1999) • 200MHz 128bit NEC PowerVR • Playstation2 (2000) • 294MHz R12000 CPU, • 3.2GB/sec memory b/w, 6.2GFlops peak • XBox (2001) • 733MHz Celeron • nVidia GeForce4 • 6.4GB/sec memory b/w, maybe 1TFlops peak • GameCube (2001) • 485MHz PowerPC • Flipper (ATI) Graphics (on-chip DRAM) IAT 410

46. Late 90s • Software • Very strong 3D! • Decent sports games • Soul Caliber, Shenmue, Grand Theft Auto … • PC Software • Graphics no longer 100% of the challenge • Consumer demand for 3D causes cheap 3D graphics! IAT 410

47. 2000’s • Cell phone games • DoCoMo phones 2001 • Java J2ME, BREW 2002 IAT 410

48. 2000s • Xbox 2 (360) (2005) • 3 Cores @ 3200MHz : • 2 scalar CPUS • 1 VMX 128 Vector Unit w/ 128 registers • 9 billion dot products/sec (36 billion mults+27 billion adds/sec) • 500 million triangles per second • 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA • 500MB 700MHz DDR memory • Playstation3 (2006) • PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz • 7 x scalar @3.2GHz • 7 x 128b 128 SIMD Registers • total FP performance: 218 GFLOPS • GPU : 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance IAT 410

49. Game Genres • Name some! IAT 410

50. Action 1st Person Shooter Adventure Fighting Puzzle Racing Role-Playing Simulations Sports Strategy Music Dance Artificial Life Quiz Show Genres IAT 410