You've heard the stories of humble startups who create a hit game that brings them fame and fortune. Although many of your students will sign on with larger companies when they graduate, some of them will go off and create amazing work on their own or with small teams. Learn how you can incorporate the entrepreneurial spirit and skills in your curriculum and help your students be prepared for whatever path they choose.

In a well-set-up workflow, it gets harder to find those incremental improvements that we can use to shave seconds off of each task. What if we could shave seconds off of lots of tasks with one tool? Computer gamers and mechanical-keyboard enthusiasts have a few tools that the CAD community has not yet widely embraced. Gaming peripherals are designed to send multiple keystrokes or commands to a computer in one key press. This class will look at how input devices such as game pads, gaming mice, and customized keyboards can improve a design professional’s workflow. We’ll look at several types of individually customizable input tools, and discuss how we can implement tools that were not designed for a corporate environment in that environment. We’ll examine where these tools have shortcomings, and how to dial in their utility versus the potential for them to be a distraction. The speaker has been using the tools we’ll discuss for more than a decade in Revit software and AutoCAD software—find out why.

In this class, we will cover the workflows to create a game from your InfraWorks 360 software designs. The workflow will cover exporting your InfraWorks 360 model, harnessing 3ds Max software, and then using Stingray game engine to create the game. This session features Autodesk Stingray, 3ds Max, and InfraWorks 360.

In this course you will study and implement techniques for modeling and rendering high-resolution tiling textures in 3ds Max software for design visualization, simulation, and games. Starting with a highly detailed model, you will set up a camera and lighting rig using mental ray software for rendering. Additionally, we will set up the rig to produce a tiling texture without perspective using the mental ray software Production Shaders. Then using render passes and render layers, you will produce albedo, diffuse, normal, specular, mask, and ambient occlusion images suitable for a physically based rendering workflow used in modern rendering and game engines.

Join us for the first-ever “Research Reveals!” Design & Make game show. It's the designers versus the makers: architects versus engineers; product designers versus manufacturers; creatives versus producers. Based on the classic game show “Family Feud,” this fast-paced theater session brings industry experts together to test their knowledge of the latest State of Design & Make report. They’ll need to be fast on the buzzer to compete. Who will win this ultimate, live throwdown? Find out when we play “Research Reveals!”

Join us for an epic digital panel dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion in the gaming industry. This event unites game developers, designers, storytellers, and enthusiasts to tackle the challenges and unlock the opportunities to create a more inclusive gaming landscape. Power up your network by connecting with industry leaders, dive into an insightful panel discussion, and level up your strategies for breaking down barriers and championing representation in games. Whether you're a veteran player or a newbie to the field, this digital panel is your ultimate chance to connect, learn, and contribute to a more inclusive future in gaming.

The Character Animation Tool (CAT), built into 3ds Max software, is a versatile system for creating dynamic character animation loops designed for export into game engines like Unreal and Unity. You can use CAT to build custom rigs—including characters with multiple or nonstandard limbs—without the hassle of manually placing footsteps. Using the intuitive CATMotion editor, you’ll learn how to quickly develop and tweak essential game animations such as idle, walk, run, jump, and die. CAT also supports integration with custom motion data, making it ideal for both original content creation and iteration. Whether you're a game developer or an educator working with students, CAT empowers even beginners to produce polished, expressive animations full of personality and emotion. In this session, we’ll walk through the fundamentals—from rigging a mesh to exporting animation-ready FBX files—so you can confidently add CAT to your game asset pipeline.

In this class, we will demonstrate the differences and similarities between rigging for games and rigging for film. We will cover the challenges associated with each area and what can be done to overcome such challenges.

Game engines are known for their innovative graphics and physics. That would make it seem like game engines are only beneficial to architects. This is just not the case. Game engines provide a wide range of benefits to engineering firms, and this class will explain how to get started using them in a way that is easy, fun, and affordable. Game engines could be used to help QA/QC a project, or to help visualize engineering analysis 3D models, or for real-time interactivity using virtual reality (VR), or even as an interactive game that shows construction sequencing animations, and much, much more. The possibilities are endless. Game engines are fun to use, so it’s time to use them in your engineering firm!

In this class, students will learn how to use Revit software, the Live add-in, and Stingray game engine to create high-quality, interactive visualizations from 3D models. First, you will learn how to use the Live add-in to convert 3D Revit models to the game engine, Stingray. Once in Stingray engine, you will learn how to create immersive environments for your clients. In these environments, owners can explore, interact, and even edit their own projects. They can choose from various design options and view the costs associated with them. Students will learn a workflow that is simple, repeatable, and teachable, even for those unfamiliar with video games or programming. The benefits of using gaming in construction include increasing owner involvement, reducing the time and effort it takes to produce an attractive proposal, and facilitating bidding on smaller projects with a quality offering only affordable by larger projects today. Visualizations through Stingray game engine ultimately lead to winning more work. This session features Autodesk Stingray and Revit. AIA Approved

This class will focus on basic workflows in Stingray game engine to get your project into Stingray game engine for visualization. We will focus on what you need to do to prep your data and convert your design data to a Stingray project. You will discover the pitfalls to avoid, and you’ll get to an interactive model quickly. And we will cover basic interaction. The class will assume you have familiarity with 3ds Max software and either InfraWorks 360 software or AutoCAD Civil 3D software. Both are preferred. This session features Autodesk Stingray, 3ds Max, and InfraWorks 360. AIA Approved

Transitioning from a traditional workflow to a Building Information Modeling (BIM) process is a challenge-a challenge that requires problem solving, constant training, lateral thinking, skill developing, and lots of practice. There are many ways to spread this kind of knowledge, and a traditional approach may not be the more successful. Through the principles of L-D-A (lecture-demo-action) and game design techniques, this class will explore a different approach to teaching BIM through the gamification of a pathway that leads from the old ways of working to the new practice. This is suitable not only for architects, but also for owners and operators who want to approach the subject of BIM through an engaging, effective way.

Games and applications, especially those on continually evolving mobile devices, now occupy an increasing percentage of a student's day. At the same time, performance in math and engineering for that same demographic is dwindling at an alarming rate. To compete in the future and secure promising opportunities, the latter (but not necessarily the former) must change. This class will offer ways to increase class engagement while using—and building—the types of games and applications almost certainly found in nearly every student's pocket.

In this hands-on lab, you'll use AutoCAD software to create a basic 3D game environment and a side-scrolling 3D game environment. Learn how to create and import street furniture, buildings, vehicles, and other 3D objects using AutoCAD software's Solid, Surface, and Mesh tools. Export the 3D environment to an FBX file format for the Stingray gaming engine. Import the AutoCAD 3D model into Stingray to see the model in real time. This class is designed to expand your AutoCAD 3D modeling knowledge.

Any building information modeling (BIM) software can be considered a game engine: it has geometry, data, and interaction. As a BIM manager, you want to design workflows that are easy for your team to follow, and be ready for a variety of exceptions. That's not too different from a game master designing a game logic for the player to follow. What are the rules? What's the outcome? What's the interface that helps players/users navigate your logic? How can you keep players/users engaged? How can you achieve all of this within the capacity/limitation of Revit software? This session will showcase a few games built entirely within Revit, as well as some efforts that gamify the work in the professional production of Ennead Architects.

Intended for intermediate to advanced AutoCAD Civil 3D software users, this class is designed to show land development professionals techniques and nuances for creating renderings and movies of their proposed projects. Utilizing many of the programs provided in Infrastructure Design Suite software (AutoCAD Civil 3D software, InfraWorks software, Revit software, and 3ds Max software), this class will consist of a live demonstration showing how to create compelling and grade accurate visualizations of your site designs. By treating InfraWorks 360 software as a “level builder” we will explore how to composite existing and proposed ground surfaces, build and apply coverages for pavement and pavement markings, and prepare tree surveys for 3D placement. Finally, we will explore the use of InfraWorks software models in real-time game rendering engines. By capitalizing on real-time engines, we can shortcut long rendering times to create accurate visualizations quickly.

Designing a virtual reality (VR) environment for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry depends greatly on content building groups. It leads to designing time consumption for the areas that are not the focus of AEC. Correlating with some level generator aspect of the gaming industry, the expense of environment generation could be reduced with highly varied environment design options. Using the algorithms of procedural generation and VR rendering options, a combination of human-generated assets using Maya software or 3ds Max software and algorithms can render an autogenerated and assorted range of VR environments in Revit software or related AEC tools. We will discuss a study of how procedural generated levels in a Spelunky game can be related to the VR environment generation for AEC, as well as how construction and building design can benefit from existing methodologies in the gaming industry.

Autodesk offers a wide range of software applications to truly drive interdisciplinary collaboration in the fourth industrial revolution. Throughout the past decade, we’ve witnessed a true initiative to cross industrial barriers and promote information exchange and data-driven design in gaming, engineering, and architectural design. One of the epicenters of this technological revolution is the use of virtual reality (VR) platforms, which fully immerse the user in an environment, enabling previously unseen convergences of different professions. Affordable VR headsets are becoming more prominent in gaming, and the ability to create stunning interactive environments is now truly universal knowledge. If you want to build a world without limits in virtual reality and fully unleash your creative potential regardless of the industry you belong to, this is your class!

As architects and designers we are always looking for more advanced ways to share and explore our designs with the client. With the introduction of gaming engines into the architecture industry it has allowed architects more flexibility in how they design and create a more unified collaborative approach with the client. The success of adopting gaming engines into the industry relies heavily on adoption of the software in an already challenging design workflow, from allowing for maximum adaptability as the design changes to creating an optimized experience within the software for client integration and understanding. In this class we will look at CallisonRTKL as a case study, in how we have approached the software and identified the key challenges that are faced in the industry across multiple disciplines, from hospitality, urban planning and Retail, how to overcome them, and how to create seamless integration from BIM models to Unreal for maximum flexibility for the design team.

If you want to see what innovation looks like, just look at the computer games industry. With the advancement of real-time interactive 3D graphics engines, low-cost, high-powered computer graphics hardware, and new types of input devices, the video game industry is transforming the way others are using these technologies. As a result, new trends and solutions are now being adopted by businesses and organizations outside of the gaming industry to streamline the understanding of complex projects and information and better the overall ability to make faster, more informed decisions. This class will give you a bird’s eye view of how others in government, military, and corporate businesses sectors are adopting trends and making use of technologies from the video game industry to create solutions that would otherwise not be possible with traditional industry tools.