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Postmortem: Ubisoft Montreal's Splinter Cell Conviction

Moving Splinter Cell's trademark stealth-based game play in an action oriented direction without undermining the series was a tricky problem for Ubisoft Montreal. The original game design for Conviction was radically different from the franchise's traditional mechanics and necessitated a mid-development reboot. Fortunately, clear direction and a well-tuned production pipeline kept the team from being knocked off balance by the shift.

Fragged

Big explosions with lots of fragmentation and debris are a video game mainstay. But making them look convincingly unique is a tedious process for artists. Here, the authors describe a procedural technique for automatically generating fragmented meshes that can save both time and sanity.

Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment

Are the now-ubiquitous Quick Time Events in games a lazy way to keep players mashing buttons? Or, are they broadening the range of expression for game designers? Using examples from the past and present, this article looks to the future of QTEs.

Electric Eye

Kinect and Move have arrived, and with them comes a growing interest in augmented reality. In this article, César Botana guides you step by step through the basics of the OpenCV library, an essential tool for pattern recognition in augmented reality games. Also covered is placement of 3D objects in game worlds based on these patterns' orientations.

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