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GDC 2014 Visual Arts talks feature Destiny, Bioshock Infinite and more

Passes for the Game Developers Conference 2014 are going fast, and today we're announcing even more sessions for the Main Conference that you'll want to check out.
Today we're showcasing some of our excellent Visual Arts track talks, part of a set of 70+ in-depth lectures, including a behind-the-scenes look at Bungie's animation workflow for producing Destiny, a look at how the lifelike movements of Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth were crafted, and more.

Now in its 28th year, GDC is the world's largest and longest-running professionals-only game industry event, and will once again take place at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California during March 17-21, 2014.
How Bungie animates Destiny
Bungie's Richard Lico will be presenting a frank look at how the studio animated its upcoming "mythic sci-fi" shooter Destiny in his GDC 2014 talk, Designing the Bungie Animation Workflow. Lico, who worked as principal animator on Destiny, plans to break down how Bungie efficiently animates emotive character performances without sacrificing quality. Attendees are encouraged to have some familiarity with game animation, as Lico will be digging deep into Bungie's process of rigging and designing character animation in Maya. He also plans to share raw animation footage, which should offer an interesting perspective on the Destiny animation process.
Reanimating the art of Plants vs. Zombies 2
The visual design of PopCap's latest garden defense game may seem like a straightforward evolution of the original Plants vs. Zombies, but experienced hands know nothing is ever simple or straightforward when it comes to game development. Learn more in a talk from PopCap Games senior artist Mark Barrett titled The Art of Reanimating Plants vs. Zombies 2. During the session Barrett plans to share never-before-seen concept art, animations, and anecdotes -- good and bad -- from the game's development.
Breathing life into the animation of Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth
Don't miss Shawn Robertson's talk about the work that went into animating Elizabeth, the real star of Irrational Games' swan song Bioshock Infinite, at GDC 2014. During the session, titled simply Creating Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth, Robertson plans to talk about the various systems and narrative techniques used by the Irrational Games team to breath life into Elizabeth. He'll provide practical examples from early builds of the game, and offer tips on how animators and designers can use art, narrative, and complex character-centric game systems in concert to create a believable simulacrum of a real person.
More essential GDC details
Earlier GDC 2014 announcements include the news that Irrational Games co-founder Ken Levine will be giving a GDC talk about Narrative Legos, news that Keiji Inafune, Yu Suzuki, and more will be giving a series of Japanese talks, and a rundown of some popular microtalks that will be featured at GDC 2014, including Turing Tantrums: AI Devs Rant and the Indie Soapbox. Developers on Gone Home, Ryse, and Crusader Kings II will also be giving talks.
All of the announced talks are now available in the online GDC 2014 Session Scheduler, where you can begin to build your conference week and later export it to the up-to-the-minute GDC Mobile App, coming soon.
GDC 2014 itself will take place March 17-21, 2014 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. You can register for the event by visiting the info page on the official GDC 2014 website.
For more information on GDC 2014, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.
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