Devs from Blizzard, Riot, and more will speak at GDC 2017's inaugural VFX Bootcamp!

Heads up, game devs: GDC 2017 organizers are reminding you to make time to check out all the great talks taking place during the day-long VFX Bootcamp that helps kick off the conference later this month.

This is the first year GDC is hosting the VFX Bootcamp, one of many great Bootcamps and Tutorials that take place during the first two days of GDC (Monday and Tuesday, February 27th and 28th this year) and offer attendees the chance to dive deep and explore focused topics like level design, game production, art direction and animation.

This year the VFX Bootcamp runs all day on Tuesday, February 28th, with a slew of sessions that dive deep into the art and tech of visual effects design in contemporary games. It's more important than ever, as in recent years the discipline of visual effects has emerged as one of the driving forces in game development.

Visual effects tie together game experiences, breathe life into real time rendered worlds, and provide an all-important final layer of visual polish. What started as a few simple, and often painful, "tools of the trade" like flipbooks and additively blended sprites, has grown into a full-fledged art all its own involving subtle and precise mixtures of shaders, lighting, particles, materials, models and animation to name just a few.

However as this craft matures, it has become harder and harder to ignore the absence of shared information, books, tutorials and resources for newcomers to the field and for veterans trying to push the boundaries of what's possible.

In this bootcamp, a group of experienced visual effects artists from across the industry -- everywhere from Blizzard Entertainment to Riot Games to EA DICE -- will share their best tips, tricks, anecdotes and inspiration in a day designed to help overcome those limitations and elevate visual effects to a new level.

Also, explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. So check out the full list of VFX Bootcamp sessions over on the GDC 2017 Session Scheduler. For more information on GDC 2017, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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