Game Developers Conference 2007

NVIDIA Sessions for GDC 2008

Advanced Skin Rendering in NVIDIA’s Human Head Demo
4:00-5:00 pm – Room 3003 (West Hall) – Wednesday, Feb. 20

Rendering realistic human skin represents one of the toughest challenges in computer graphics. In this session, NVIDIA’s Demo Team discusses the advanced skin rendering techniques used in the NVIDIA Human Head demo. Attendees will learn about an extremely realistic, physically-based real-time skin shader that is easy to implement and highly scalable to meet the performance needs of your application.

Particle-based Fluid Simulation For Games
9:00-9:30 am – Room 3003 (West Hall) – Thursday, Feb. 21

The computational power of modern GPUs has reached the point where realistic free-flowing fluids can be simulated and rendered in real-time. This talk will provide an overview of fluid simulation techniques for games and then describe in detail the advantages of particle-based simulations and how they can be implemented efficiently on the GPU.

We will describe how spatial data structures can be implemented on the GPU to accelerate particle-particle collisions. We will then examine several methods for rendering particle-based fluids, including using point sprites and iso-surface extraction using marching cubes, and how to integrate these effects into games. The presentation will include several live demonstrations.

3D Stereoscopic Game Development - How to Make Your Game Look Like Beowulf 3D
9:30-10:00 am – Room 3003 (West Hall) – Thursday, Feb. 21

3D stereoscopic movies - such as Beowulf 3D and U2 3D - are the cutting edge of immersive entertainment experiences by putting the viewers directly in the movie. As more movies go 3D, consumers will expect the same from their 3D games and applications. Now NVIDIA brings 3D stereoscopic support to the latest 3D games letting your customers feel like they are a part of the action rather than watching it happen. This talk will cover equipment, software, setup, and configuration, including an overview of NVIDIA’s 3D stereo mode implementation. Attendees will learn guidelines for maximizing the 3D stereo effect, going over what works well, and what does not.

GPU Optimization with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools
10:30-11:30 am – Room 3003 (West Hall) – Thursday, Feb. 21

Find out how to take full advantage of your GPU using NVIDIA's suite of GPU performance analysis tools for both DirectX and OpenGL. Attendees will learn how to measure and correct GPU bottlenecks with PerfHUD, and to query performance counters with PerfSDK. The session will also cover profiling and accelerating fragment programs with ShaderPerf, as well as using GLExpert to identify OpenGL API usage and performance errors. The talk will also include an independent real-world case study from a popular shipping game.

NVIDIA FX Composer 2: Shader Development Unleashed
12:00-1:00 pm – Room 3003 (West Hall) – Thursday, Feb. 21

FX Composer 2 is a comprehensive shader development environment for programmers, artists, and technical directors which supports both DirectX and OpenGL, and HLSL, Cg, and COLLADA FX shaders. This session will highlight the latest features of FX Composer 2, including source level shader debugger for Cg and HLSL10 shaders, Direct3D 10 support including geometry shaders, and particle systems.

NVIDIA GDC 2008 Tools Page