Village Gamer

Toronto – Interactive Ontario (IO) is pleased to welcome Darko Milivojevic as Vice President, Industry Development, to its growing team. In this new role, Darko will be responsible for representing Ontario industry stakeholders’ interests, and increasing their visibility, on a national and international level.

“We are tremendously excited to have Darko join our team at IO,” said Ian Kelso, President and CEO, Interactive Ontario. “We know he will bring a wealth of industry expertise to the position that will create opportunities for Ontario Digital Media companies.”

Darko brings an expert understanding of interactive digital media and video game industry businesses with twelve years experience in Digital Media, nine of it in the video game sector. In addition to Digital Media, Darko previously worked in Film, TV/Broadcast, Technology, Casual Games and mobile games industries at Sympatico, AOL Time Warner, CHUM, CTV, Fight Network and Electric Playground. Darko has also partnered with some of the major players in the industry including: Xbox, Sony, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Warner, Rogers, Bell, Omniture, My Thum, QuickPlay, FeedRoom and Marblemedia to name a few.

“Joining Interactive Ontario allows me not only to champion the Ontario interactive digital content industry, but to work with the best in order to make Ontario the example to follow for the rest of the world,” says Darko Milivojevic, Vice President, Industry Development for IO.
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I missed this news due to a death in the family, and I know that several other sites have already reported this development, but I feel that it would be remiss of me if I didn’t at least mention that Electronic Arts has restructured their MMORPG games development process, uniting but not merging Mythic Entertainment and BioWare Corp. under one umbrella. BioWare’s co-founders take over the leading roles, with Ray Muzyka as the Group General Manager and Greg Zeschuk as the Group Creative Officer. There will be no changes at BioWare, however Mythic’s co-founder and General Manager, Mark Jacobs parted ways with EA on June 23rd. Rob Denton, Mythic’s other co-founder and former Chief Operating Officer, has become General Manager of Mythic Entertainment, and he will report to Ray Muzyka. As a Mass Effect fan, I will be very interested to see what developments emerge from this meeting of the minds responsible for such other great titles as Dragon Age: Origins, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur’s Gate, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online.

Victoria – The TCS Bootcamp, being held on Tuesday September 15, is a full day event being offered by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service in partnership with VIATeC.  This event starts with a morning seminar that first teaches you what California investors are looking for, then helps you to polish your pitch.  The morning session is open to any individual who wants to learn how to access investors. The seminar will be held at the Vancouver Island Technology Park Conference Centre in Victoria, BC

In the afternoon you will pitch your company to a panel of California investors and local judges.  You will receive instant feedback from the panel on your product and presentation.  All ICT (Information and Communication Technology) emerging tech companies are eligible to apply for the limited number of presenter spots available. Applicants will be juried before the event.

After the presentations in the afternoon, the 6-8 Vancouver Island ICT companies who stand the best chance of success in California will be invited to the next round of presentations in Silicon Valley and San Diego.
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Ottawa – Media Awareness Network (MNet), Canada’s leading not-for-profit media literacy organization, is pleased to announce the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has joined the organization’s team of supporters as a Silver Sponsor.

“We are honoured that CIRA recognizes the importance of media literacy in the lives of children and youth,” said Cathy Wing, MNet’s Co-Executive Director. “These funds will help MNet to continue to develop high quality media literacy programs and resources that support the healthy development of young Canadians.”

“As the Internet becomes more integrated in our daily lives, it is now more important than ever to ensure young people are equipped to make safe decisions when using the Internet,” says Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA.  “The Media Awareness Network provides an important and necessary service to educators and parents and as the steward of Canada’s domain and Internet space, CIRA is proud to be a sponsor of MNet’s vital programs.”
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Toronto – Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning has been awarded a $2.3 million grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada’s College and Community Innovation Program to establish a unique new research centre for screen-based industries. NSERC’s funding follows an initial $300,000 grant from the Ontario government’s Ontario Media Development Corporation.

The Digital Media Centre for Real-time Production takes a revolutionary approach to research, technology development, education and innovation, and will be located in the heart of the filmmaking industry in Toronto.

The Centre’s mission is to conduct world-class research into film, digital cinema and high definition imaging technologies in a wide variety of areas from capture to delivery and archiving. It was conceived and launched by Sheridan and will operate in partnership with creative industries and three levels of government.
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Vancouver – A team of four students at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Advanced Wood Processing has just released an innovative educational “video game” on the basics of CNC technology and tooling. The application allows users to explore a virtual machine shop to learn about topics related to the electrical and mechanical components of CNC machines, as well as tool design, physics, and metallurgy.

While many websites provide technical overviews of CNC technology, it is often difficult to obtain accurate and objective information, and the presentation is typically text-heavy. This video game takes a different approach by using an interactive 3D environment to teach 3D concepts such as tooling angles. The educational content is supported by pictures, graphics, videos, 2D animations, and 3D animations.

The project was developed at the Centre for Advanced Wood Processing at UBC, Canada’s education and training centre for the wood products manufacturing industry. The original concept was proposed by Richard Hewitt, a recent graduate of UBC’s Wood Products Processing program, and Robert Shum, a UBC Computer Science student. The two subsequently hired and managed a team of fellow UBC students to help develop the application, as well as contributing their own animation, video-editing, and programming skills. Funding was provided through BCCampus, a BC government initiative that promotes a fusion of technology and education to create open learning opportunities for students and adult learners.

The educational game is available for Windows PCs and can be downloaded for free at:
http://www.learncnc.org

Calgary – Digital Alberta is pleased to announce the first in a series of upcoming workshops. These one day intensive workshops are geared to providing DA members with a unique opportunity to train directly with experts in their fields.

The First Work Shop is entitled “Digital Painting” with instructor Jaysin from the brilliant DPI Studios. He will run you through the process he uses as you follow along, creating the digital painting yourself. As an artist looking to branching into illustration, design, animation, or gaming this course offers you an opportunity to expand your portfolio and to showcase the pieces that potential employers want to see.

When: Saturday, July 18, 2009
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Where: Calgary Technologies Inc. – 100 3553 31 Street NW – Calgary, AB
What you will need: Laptop, wacom tablet, PhotoShop
Cost: $ 150+ GST for Digital Alberta Members only OR Affiliated Partners (this includes snacks, full lunch and free parking)

Online registration is now open.

Vancouver – Last evening our local ACM SIGGRAPH chapter presented a post-mortem panel for the movie Watchmen, featuring four of the development team from MPC Vancouver.

Watchmen was the first project for the brand new west coast studio, which completed a total of 300 shots for 24 sequences with 50 team members in only nine months. The team wanted to accurately recreate iconic moments from the original graphic novel, which at times proved to be a big challenge, but they rose to the challenge and succeeded. Archie, the owl ship was by far the heaviest asset in the show and played a major part a pivotal part in the show, during the sequence known as Call to Account.

The panel members – Ben Cole, Landon Bootsma, Harry Mukhopadhyay and Tim Mulvihill led the audience through the processes used in building the major shots from reference photos to 3d builds to finished product. Mixed with bits of humour the session was very educational and offered some very good insight into the amount of time and work which goes into the making of a movie such as Watchmen.

Watchmen Revealed was sponsored by: BCIC, 3vis, VanArts, Sophia Books, AnnexPro, Stash Digital Media, VEAbc and Society of Graphic Designers Canada, Vancouver Chapter.

Vancouver – AnnexPro is pleased to be presenting two educational events this summer. First up is the Matrox MAXimum Roadshow on June 23 at the VFS Cafe. The seminar will be showcasing Matrox MAX technology for faster than realtime H.264 encoding for Blu-ray, the web, and mobile devices. Matrox MAX is available in the Matrox CompressHD accelerator card and in the Matrox MXO2 series of I/O devices for the Mac.

The second seminar is the AJA Ki Pro Worldwide Roadshow: From Lens to Post. You are invited to join AJA on July 14 at the Vancouver Film School for a demonstration of their latest innovation in workflow enhancing technology – the Ki Pro. Finally, shoot on the same codec as you edit with, full raster 10 bit Apple ProRes 422, built natively into Ki Pro’s stand-alone, portable hardware. You’ll get a high level overview of AJA and see a live demo of Ki Pro. Ask questions and get answers from AJA executives, and leading industry experts.

British Columbia – Tonight’s ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver Chapter AGM has been postponed to a later date. The AGM was slated to take place prior to this evening’s soldout event, Watchmen Revealed.

Just a reminder that the Canary Derby will be running on June 27 in Vancouver and June 28 in Victoria.  Village Gamer is supporting Brenda Bailey, who is participating on the Wired Woman team – and we challenge you to support a team too! We have all lost loved ones to cancer – please get involved in supporting early detection research.

New Media BC is presenting a case-study on the Canucks Fan Zone, a user-generated editorial and fan media web portal followed by a good old fashion networking mixer in partnership with the Anton Sledgehammer Creative Agency. The seminar will take place on June 25, with a registration fee of $35.00 ($25.00 for NMBC members).

The joint Annual General Meetings of WINBC and Wavefront will take place on June 22 at Nokia’s offices at 9200 Glenylon Parkway, in Burnaby. They are combining the AGMs with the end of season MoMoVan party. The event will run from 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm, and the AGMs will be held at 6:15 pm.

Victoria – VIATeC has two activities planned for July.  First on the schedule is a seminar to aid businesses who need to work around fluctuations in the US dollar, and this July 7 seminar will help businesses to develop hedging strategies to protect technology businesses. This is followed by VIATeC’s July VIAFest event, which is an open house event at Contech. Come out for a tour their facility and view Contech’s unique designs as a provider of advanced animal training and control technologies for pets, their owners and gardeners worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »