Preconference Summits
April 7th, 2020ECGC 2020 has a variety of Preconference Summits to choose from. These events take place over a day, providing detailed focus on each topic. Grab a seat, come listen and learn from some of the best and brightest in the game development industries.
Seating is limited. Register today to reserve your space!
2020 Preconference Summit Presenters
Jere Miles
Jere has been creating games since first learning BASIC on an Atari 800 back in the early 1980's. He has since earned degrees in Computer Science...
Randall McNeil
Randall has been a lover of video games as early as he can remember and his aspirations from that point have been to become a video game developer....
Databases, Unity, and You
Hosted by Jere Miles and Randall McNeil
Time: 9:00am – 3:00pm
Objective:
In this summit we are going to explore the data back end of a game and how to implement a database system as well as construction of designer tools for editing data within Unity. Attendees should bring a laptop with the latest version of Unity installed to work along with us on the project that will be providing as we move beyond XML and text files and into the world of the database.
9:00 – 9:20 Introductions and distribution of the project that we will be working with. During this time we will make sure that the project is working on everyone’s laptop and do a quick look through of the current system: how it works and what we want to add to it as we move forward.
9:20 – 10:00 Database concepts. We will explore the underlying concepts of a modern database and how an RDBMS functions.
10:00 – 10:30 MySQL Setup. We will walk through installing and configuring MySQL so that we have an RDBMS installed on everyone’s laptop to use going forward. We will also explore the default editing tools provided with MySQL by constructing some tables and entering some data.
10:30 – 12:00 Unity integration. We will get our Unity project working with the new database. The way that player characters are currently being stored and retrieved by the game will be modified to function with the database instead.
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 2:00 Designer Tools. It is now time to build tools that can be run by the game’s designers so that they can add to or edit information that is currently in the database.
2:00 – 3:00 Migrating from Local. Now that we have most aspects working, we are ready to consider the game beyond the local machine and will look at hosting options and the steps that may be needed to migrate from what we have to those systems.
This summit will also be presented with my partner Randall McNeil from Ashes Rise Entertainment and we are open to tweaks and suggestions to it prior to launch.
Simulation and Game Development Educational Summit
Hosted by Marc Tucker, Brad Swearingen, and more to come
Time: 9:00am – 3:00pm
Objective: Many Colleges across the nation already have, or are interested in creating, a curriculum program related to the Game Development industry. This full-day event will bring together Simulation and Game Development faculty and Industry Leaders to share their ideas, discuss issues, and examine what the future holds for education in the Entertainment Industry as it applies to Game Development. We will hold round table discussions with Faculty and Industry leaders, discuss classroom best practices, and feature workshops for faculty interested in ways to teach topics effectively in online, hybrid, and fully online courses. Course topics will include best practices for delivering effective content for 3D Modeling, Animation, Engineering, Narrative Design, Sound Engineering, and Game Design.