Round-Up: 2006 Festival of Visual Effects, Central European Game Developers Session, Command & Conquer 3 Confirmed

Today's Gamasutra news round-up includes news of the 2006 Festival of Visual Effects, a game development conference taking place in December in Central Europe, and the first news regarding the much-anticipated Command & Conquer: Tiberian Twilight for the PC, as well as the latest GameSetWatch and Serious Game Source updates, product news and Gamasutra job postings. - It was announced today that the 2006 Festival of Visual Effects will take place July 7-9 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California. Summer movies such as Superman Returns, Poseidon, and Cars, as well as the television program Smallville, will all be the subjects of presentations during the public festival. Panels, special screenings and other events are in the planning phase and a full line-up of activities and participants is expected to be announced by May 15 on the event's website. "We are thrilled to be presenting our eighth annual Festival at the Egyptian for the first time," say Roth. "Each year the Festival has grown in scope and number of attendees. This venue shows how much the VES has expanded as well as the visual effects industry's continually increasing influence on the business of films, animation, games and television." - Czech, Slovak and Polish game developers will meet at the 4th annual Game Developers Session taking place in Brno in the Czech republic on December 28-30. The event is a three day gathering of around 400 developers, and will include several workshops, lectures, postmortems and practical examples of game development. The meeting, as was the cast in 2005, is being organized by Czech and Slovak game and software development teams, including Softworks, Bohemia Interactive, Microsft and Mindware Studios, and is being sponsored by gaming press, including Level - Vogel publishing, Tiscali, and Sektor.sk. More information (in Czech) can be found on the event's website. - The June issue of PC Gamer breaks the news that Electronic Arts will release the oft-rumored Command & Conquer: Tiberian Twilight for the PC. The game is being built upon a heavily-modified version of the SAGE engine, which was used in Command & Conquer: Generals and Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2. The upcoming strategy game will include in-game VOIP support and clan support, and will also include cutscenes featuring live actors, a nostalgic throwback to games from earlier in the series. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include a look back at notable Quake player Dennis 'Thresh' Fong's finest hour playing against Billox, a review of indie project On A Rainy Day, and the question of what licenses should be made into games. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news on a partnership between responDESIGN and McDonald's for Exergame DVDs, Gamasutra product news on a new SDK version from ATI, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Bally Technologies, Digital Extremes, Electronic Arts, Institute of Technology Carlow, and Next Level Games.