View, browse and sort the ever-growing list of sessions by day, pass type, topic, and format. With this Session Viewer, you can view GDC 2023 session details and speakers, and share your favorites via social media. You will be able to build your schedule and access it during the show via export or Mobile App, once live. Sessions do fill up and seating is first come, first serve, so arrive early to sessions that you would like to attend.
Squirrel Eiserloh (Professor of Practice, SMU Guildhall)
Location: Room 2001, West Hall
Date: Tuesday, March 21
Time: 9:30 am - 10:30 am
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Summits Pass
Topic: Programming
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: Video
Audience Level: All
Heat maps (scalar fields, spatial metadata) have myriad uses in game development, with obvious and non-obvious applications in gameplay, procedural generation, AI, physics, graphics, audio, game balance, systems design, and quality assurance.
In this talk, Squirrel Eiserloh, Professor of Practice at SMU Guildhall, will explore a variety of different types and applications of heat maps, including (signed) distance fields, flow fields, and several other types of spatial metadata (humidity, occupancy, danger, avoidance, obscurity, death, action, misuse, etc.). They'll also look at some operations on and between heat maps, yielding even more curious and useful results.
Attendees will leave with a broadened view and heightened appreciation for the usefulness of heat maps and related constructs, as well as a number of specific tips, tricks, and applications for applying heat maps and other spatial metadata during gameplay and throughout the game development process.
This is for game programmers and technical designers in all areas wanting to find better ways of analyzing and understanding their game worlds—or having their games understand themselves better—for content validation, player and NPC behavior, performance optimization, and general innovation.