Village Gamer

Vancouver/Montreal – VanArts is proud to present a 2-day Masterclass in Montreal with Story Artist Matt Luhn and Animator Andrew Gordon from Pixar Animation Studios! This is a one-time special event.

Andrew Gordon

These seminars are designed for animation industry professionals, students or enthusiasts. Skill sets covered are not software-specific, and all lectures are organized with visuals, live-action and animated clips. This rare opportunity gives you the tools needed to create your own stories and do feature quality animation.

DAY 1

Saturday June 13, 2009
9:00am – 4:00pm

Animation Masterclass with Andrew Gordon

Topics will include animation principles, staging, pose design, weight, dynamics, acting for animation, gestures, scene planning, blocking, facial expressions, and high level polish techniques.
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Burnaby – Future Shop is inviting all Canadians with a passion for photography to capture the spirit of their hometown and enter to win

First Prize

a Canon DSLR camera package worth $3,200. Take photos of your hometown that showcase what the community means and upload them to the Future Shop Community Forum.

The contest runs from May 1 through May 14 2009. To enter the contest, see full contest rules and information on Future Shop’s web site. There will also be ten secondary prizes of a Canon SD780 digital camera drawn randomly from the top twenty entries. The top twenty finalists will be judged by representatives from Future Shop.

Vancouver – The Vancouver chapter of Wired Woman is proud to present an evening seminar on the importance of data analysis in a variety of situations.

Recently, the volume of data produced by business operations has grown dramatically, primarily because of the increase in email and other computer information systems. When these business operations because the subject of litigation, arbitration or investigation, the process of gathering, analyzing and managing these potentially massive volumes of data presents a significant challenge. This can be extremely costly, time consuming and, if not done properly, can expose the organization to significant litigation (and reputation) risks. Understanding the technical aspects and strategies involved in eDiscovery can reduce a company’s financial risks and help protect their reputation.

This presentation will focus on:

What eDiscovery is, including the phases and challenges involved
Where electronic evidence can be found
The technical aspects of forensic data capturing
Best practices to keep in mind
The future of eDiscovery
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Vancouver – With two days of sessions, an expo, networking events, Future Play and the Game Career Seminar, GDC Canada is a must attend event for developers looking to learn, network and be inspired by their peers.

Download the GDC Canada preview guide and start planning your GDC experience now.

Events at GDC Canada

Passport to Prizes
Tuesday, May 12th, Starts at 10:30am & Drawing at 6:15pm
GDC Canada Expo
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Vancouver – Just a reminder to our readers – there is only one more day of voting left for the NMBC PopVox Awards, which will be presented next month during Vancouver Digital Week. Tickets for the PopVox Awards are still available through the PopVox web site. After a quick email verification process, members of the public can vote for their favourite entry in the following categories:

Best Student Project
Best Start Up
Best Do-Gooder (Social Change Initiative)
Best Company Use of Social Media
Best User Generated/Crowd-sourced Content Site
Best Mobile Application
Best Game (Handheld)
Best Social Media Application
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Toronto – Emanuel Rosen, author of “The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited”, will give a keynote presentation at Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto 2009. The largest search engine marketing conference in Canada, which will be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto June 8-10, 2009, also announced that it is adding “Monetizing Your Audience: Live Site Clinic” to the agenda.

Emanuel Rosen

Now in its sixth year, SES Toronto is considered the definitive digital event for marketers, corporate decision makers, webmasters and search engine marketers (SEMs), including pay per click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals. The event is organized and programmed in cooperation with the SES Advisory Board, Search Engine Watch and Andrew Goodman, the founder and president of Toronto-based Page Zero Media.
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Toronto – G4BOX Inc. a North American publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment media, announced today that it will host its first official PvP Arena Tournament for players of its popular MMORPG, Metin2. Players can go to the official Tournament Page for more information and to sign up.

Beginning April 30th at 4 PM EST, players from the FREE KINGDOM server can sign up for one of 16 spots for each level bracket. Opponents will be randomly chosen on the day of registrations and the chosen players will be revealed just 10 minutes before the start of the tournament!

Players are allowed only one entry per account in either the low level or high level category.

“Our players have enjoyed PvP play amongst themselves for awhile and we thought it was time we host an official tournament,” said Howard He, Chief Executive Officer of G4BOX. “We have some great prizes available and are looking forward to the excitement and energy of an arena tournament!”

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Tickets Go On Sale Today At Noon

Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH makes a big-screen splash to celebrate its sixth anniversary, presenting one of DreamWorks Animation’s bright lights, Director/Writer Eric Darnell, fresh from the success of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Start the evening in style mingling at the licensed industry mixer with free snacks and drinks. The first 50 through the door receive a free movie poster. Eric Darnell will be on hand at the mixer signing copies of the book for sale: The Art of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. At 7:30 pm get set for the main presentation and a screening of this visionary experimental director’s latest animated film.

6:30 pm – Book signing & industry mixer*
7:30 pm – Directing Madagascar w. Eric Darnell
8:30 pm – Q&A & door prizes
8:45 pm – Intermission
9:15 pm – Screening: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (free)

* All ticket holders are automatically registered to industry mixer and screening.
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Vancouver – On May 7th, AnnexPro invites you to come and learn how Autodesk Digital Entertainment Creation (DEC) tools accelerate the workflow of creative professionals in games development as well as animation and post.

Autodesk Technical Specialists Marcel deJong, Mark Schoennagel and Mark Noland will show you how real-world production challenges are solved using Autodesk tools that make you more proficient, productive and give you a competitive advantage, while providing excellent return on investment.

Common processes such as modeling characters and set extensions will be explored. In addition, character rigging and animation exchange will also be featured. Last but not least, rendering tools that culminate in the finishing of shots via Autodesk compositing solutions will be demonstrated.  Featured products include: Autodesk Mudbox 2009, Autodesk Motionbuilder 2009, Autodesk Toxik 2009, Autodesk Softimage 7.5, Autodesk Maya 2009 and Autodesk 3ds Max 2010.

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Vancouver – This past Saturday night we attended the best digital art event in town. Anomaly 2009 was held at the District 319 Theatre, and with attendance of well over 200, was an awesome night of networking and learning.

Daryl Mandryk

Attendees could watch live CG demonstrations given by such talented digital artists as Daryl Mandryk (Propaganda), David Tran (Smoking Gun), Jesse Turner (Threewave), Jeff Simpson (Big Sandwich Games), Peter Zoppi (Treyarch, Rythm & Hues, Luna Pictures) and Marco Menco (Image Engine), as well as interact with the artists, who were more than willing to talk about their techniques and share their knowledge. There were also two showcase exhibits set up featuring the beautiful work of Offload Studios and Avatar Sculpture Works.

The evening began with speed sketching, featuring Jesse Turner and live model Jenny Magenta. Accompanied by live music, everyone was encouraged to draw along with either traditional or digital tools.
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