View, browse and sort the ever-growing list of sessions by pass type, track, and format. With this Session Viewer, you can view session and speaker details for the 2024 Game Developers Conference. New sessions are regularly added leading up to GDC, and all dates and times will be announced about 4 weeks before the event. Once live, you will be able to build your schedule with the GDC Mobile App.
Sessions do fill up and seating is first come, first serve, so arrive early to sessions that you would like to attend.
Eric Luhta (Principal Animator, Blackbird Interactive)
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass - Get your pass now!
Topic: Visual Arts
Format: Session
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
When Blackbird Interactive was given the opportunity to develop a genre-bending action strategy game set in the iconic Minecraft universe, it led to a fascinating problem: How do you make a distinct adaptation without inadvertently losing what made the original so beloved in the first place?
In this presentation, Game Studio Animation Director Eric Luhta examines that problem through the lens of animation. He explores Minecraft's distinctive (and very unique) approach to character animation and movement, and the enormous challenge he and his team undertook to find that core essence of Minecraft's animation style and adapt it to Minecraft Legends' host of brand-new characters and enemies. Alongside plenty of videos and screenshots, Eric provides concrete examples of his team's approach to bringing the world of Minecraft to an entirely new genre and at a level of detailed movement not seen by the IP before.
In doing so, Eric creates a loose framework that other developers (regardless of discipline) can apply when developing new games set in well-established IP. A philosophy that can help you identify the inalienable essence of that IP, what aspects of it can be modified or altered, and an iterative process for bridging those two elements together.
Attendees will learn how to find what makes an IP unique and preserve it, how to add new ideas while maintaining the IP's integrity, and how to animate characters from the inside out.
While the talk is given through the lens of animation, it's been structured so that the concepts can easily be incorporated into any discipline. If you are working on an established IP, the tools and principles explained will be helpful regardless of role.
