Digital Nationz gets ready to rock and roll
Digital Nationz is back in Auckland for another year - the show kicks off at Auckland's Vector Arena on Saturday, before running to the end of Sunday.
Here's a list of some of the highlights and speakers at the event:
What to see at DNZ 2014, some key highlights:
·
At the
Xbox stand – be the first in New Zealand to get your hands on Halo Master Chief
Collection, Sunset Overdrive, Forza Horizon 2, and many indie titles
·
At the
Fiveight stand experience Far Cry 4, Alien Isolation Dying light, Assassins
Creed Creed Rogue, LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, The Crew, Disney Infinity 2.0 and
Assassins Creed Unity (hands-off demo).
·
The PlayTech
stand – Overclocking workshop, drone obstacle course, and LoL workshop.
·
The
LG Stand – new ultra-wide gaming monitors, new 55” Curved OLED TV, Killer
Instinct and Season 2 battles.
·
The
Logitech stand – latest in gaming peripherals including the new “G” range
featuring the world’s fastest gaming mouse.
·
The
Homegrown area - 10 pods showcasing NZ’s homegrown developer talent and other
Kiwi technology talents.
·
Speaking
sessions – over 10 world-class speakers including Jason Sussman from Bungie
(Destiny). See the full list of speakers below.
·
The
Atrium exhibits and the upper floor exhibits featuring dozens of exciting
technology exhibitors.
·
LOGITECH
G LAN CHAMPIONSHIP - $30,000 prizes and cash up for grabs as players battle it
out in the finals of the championship after honing their skills in the BIGPIPE
BOOTCAMP LAN
David ‘DJ’
Johnson, Lead VFX Artist at Infinity Ward
David Johnson is the Lead Visual Effects Artist at
Activision/Blizzard’s Infinity Ward Studio as a hands-on artist as well as
supervisor/coordinator to multiple ATVI studios. David has 15 years of computer
graphics experience, of which 13 has been dedicated to video games. David has
shipped a remarkable 15+ video games and contributed on some of the largest
names in video game history including the Call of Duty and Halo franchises. The
combined revenue of games David has worked on exceeds 3 Billion Dollars, and
broken multiple records for units sold. David is an active VES member as a
Board of Directors alternate, and member of the education and membership
committees.
Jason
Sussman, Environment Artist at Bungie Studios
Jason Sussman, an Army veteran from Dallas in
Texas, brings 14 years of gaming industry experience to his role as Senior
Environment Artist on Destiny. Of those 14 years, eight years have been spent
at Bungie, creating single player and competitive multiplayer maps, and DLC
environments for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach. Currently, Jason
designs and creates destination environments for Destiny’s Mars location.
Destiny (PS4, Xbox One, Xbox360, PS3)
Halo: REACH DLC “Nobel Map Pack” (Xbox360)
Halo: REACH (Xbox360)
Halo: ODST (Xbox360)
Halo 3: DLC Heroic,Legendary,Mythic map packs
(Xbox360)
Halo 3 (Xbox360)
Jason will be found around the Big Pipe – Media
Design School stand to do more Q&A’s when he isn’t speaking and is coming
courtesy of Media Design School.
Josie
Nutter, Software Engineer and UX Specialist at Technical Illusions
Josie Nutter is a software engineer and UX specialist
with almost two decades of experience in the video games industry. She has a
B.S. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of
Washington, where she received the Undergraduate Award of Excellence for
demonstrating special strength in innovation. Coming from a background in
gameplay and tools programming at companies such as Crystal Dynamics, Snowblind
Studios, and PopCap Games, she is now working on the software side of castAR
(projected Augmented Reality) for Technical Illusions after helping launch a
successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $1M.]
Dr
Michelle Dickinson AKA Nano Girl, University of Auckland
Michelle has a talent of being able to break pretty
much anything put in front of her, which is lucky because it is her job. As the
director of New Zealand’s only Nanomechanical testing laboratory, Michelle gets
to make and break things on a daily basis.
With regular slots on national television and
radio, Michelle is passionate about explaining complex concepts in everyday
language and strives towards breaking down the barriers created by high walls
of scientific and technical jargon. Lots of
people collect things and Michelle likes to collect certificates, including one
that says PhD and a couple of other postgraduate qualifications. The desire to
keep learning and challenging herself never stops. With an internal compass
that seeks out adrenaline and adventure, Michelle is often found salinating her
skin while kitesurfing, exfoliating her fingertips on a rock climbing mission,
or creating tree bark skin impressions from a mountain-bike ride. Michelle
tries to break all the stereotypes that are traditionally associated with the
tech field, by bringing her high energy personality, an enthusiasm for gadgets
and a style of presenting that will make you want to join in too!
Dmitry
Selitsky, Founder and CEO, Thought-Wired
Dmitry founded Thought-Wired with the vision of
making the world accessible to everybody. On their journey to develop assistive
solutions based on direct brain interfaces and principles of user-centred
design, thought-wired gained invaluable knowledge and expertise for working
with the newest interfacing technologies. Now they want to share that knowledge
with you.
Fletcher
Dunn, Valve
Fletcher
has been making video games since 1995 and has around a dozen titles under his
belt across a variety of gaming platforms. He worked at Terminal Reality in
Dallas, where as principal programmer he was one of the architects of the
Infernal Engine and lead programmer on BloodRayne. He was a technical director
for The Walt Disney Company at Wideload Games in Chicago and the lead
programmer for Disney Guilty Party, IGN's E3 2010 Family Game of the Year. He
now works for Valve Software in Bellevue, Washington. Oh, but his biggest claim
to fame by *far* is as the namesake of Corporal Dunn from Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare 2. Fletcher Dunn will be found around the Big Pipe – Media Design
School stand to do more Q&A’s when he isn’t speaking and is coming courtesy
of Media Design School.
Simon Barlow, Design Director, Evolution Studios
Originally trained as a Level Designer on the
legendary Colin McRae Rally games, Simon has spent close to 15 years at the
forefront of game design. Having held the lofty position of Head of Design for
SCEE's North West Studio Group, Simon has been one of the driving forces behind
the WRC and MotorStorm series. When it came to work on DRIVECLUB the task was
simple: deliver a cutting edge user experience that draws inspiration from
social media, and redefines the console racing game experience. From coding the
user interface backend to directing the game's companion application, Simon has
left his mark on every aspect of DRIVECLUB's development.
Peter Beck, Rocket Lab
Peter Beck founded Rocket Lab in 2007 following
almost a decade and a half of propulsion research and market development in the
international space community. Peter has since established Rocket Lab, both in
New Zealand and the United States, as a premier institute for innovative space
systems. As comfortable on a CNC mill as he is in a board room, Peter is both
the head visionary and technical adviser for the Electron program. He is also
an acclaimed scientist and engineer, having been awarded a Meritorious Medal
from the Royal Aeronautical Society for service of an exceptional nature in New
Zealand aviation, and the Cooper Medal, presented by the Royal Society
bi-annually to those deemed to have published the best single account of
research in physics and engineering.
Brad Allen,
Artist, Respawn Entertainment
Made from PVC metal and silicon, Brad stands 67″ tall and comes equipped with accessories, such as
a sketchbook, magic ham and cheese sandwich ™,
Zombie/vampire repellent, Robot (Chop-o-matic) arm and a custom base for
display. Warning: Possible choking hazard. Do not take Brad internally…his wife
will get mad.
Past projects:
Titanfall
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
David Tremont,
Senior Model Maker , Weta WorkshopDavid Tremont, the senior model maker at Weta Workshop in Wellington,
has tonnes of experience in model construction and design which started when he
was a kid. Early TV shows, such as Doctor Who and Thunderbirds, inspired a
sense of wonder for making models in David and he started trying to replicate
what was on screen with cardboard and Lego. This set the foundation for David’s
career as he started as a professional model maker in the late 70’s working on
TV commercials, film and displays. The early 90’s saw an opportunity to set up
a workshop in Queensland, Australia at the film studios, where he spent ten
years working on back to back films before moving to Wellington in 2001 to work
on Lord of the Rings with Weta Workshops. These days David is involved to some
extent in just about every single collectible Weta Workshop produces and wants
to inspire future model makers.
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