Blizzard to discuss next-gen photorealism at GDC

Blizzard is to discuss photorealism, high-quality shading and game rigs at the Game Developers Conference in March.

Led by Activision Blizzard real-time graphics researcher Jorge Jimenez, the presentation will cover the company’s techniques toward subsurface scattering, eye shading, anti-aliasing, depth of field and film grain, as well as looking at the integration issues being solved for its game studios.

During the talk, Jimenez will also present the publisher’s computer vision techniques for character asset capture from video, and fitting the dense captured and tracked data to game rigs via energy minimisation, with such techniques used to help stop developers from falling into the uncanny valley.

GDC has also announced a presentation from The Creative Assembly lead designed James Russell entitled Designing Grand Strategy: Making the Mechanics of Total War.

The session will explore the studio’s approach to the design of game mechanics and will also look at the perspectives and debates on design problems such as realism, simulation versus game rules, mystery versus clarity, decisions and counterpoint, gameplay depth versus micromanagement and gameplay system dynamics.

GDC 2013 will take place between March 25th and 29th at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco.

Develop will be out in force at the event to cover all the latest and breaking stories as they happen. The March issue of Develop will also be available throughout the conference.

If you would like to get in contact with us at the event for a meeting, please contact Develop editor Will Freeman at Will.Freeman@intentmedia.co.uk or Develop editor-in-chief Michael French at Michael.French@intentmedia.co.uk.

Image credit: iryoku.com.