GDC 2022: Game Tools Developer Guide
There are around 600+ sessions/tutorials/events at GDC 2022, finding the sessions that a tools developer would be interested in takes time. Below you will find a list of sessions that can be used as a guide for your tools developer GDC 2022 experience, whether you plan on attending or you will be viewing after the fact.
Note: Some talks that are mentioned here are not 100% tool-centered, but in any case, can provide inspiration and a different perspective. Understanding how the users of our tools work is paramount for the success of our tools.
If you don’t have a lot of time or just want Game Dev Tool-centered sessions - don’t miss the Tools Summit, Tools Roundtables, and Tools Design Roundtables.
These sessions are organized by Geoff Evans and David Lightbown to bring you the best Tool Centered Talks and Discussions from experts around the industry.
Key Words & Key Roles
I have tried to make navigating this list easier by providing helper labels that will hint what Tool Developer roles might be interested in this session. Just use the find feature of your web browser and type one of the following key terms.
Here is the list of roles that you can use to search:
- DCC Tool Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tools QA
Furthermore, you can search the list by using the following keywords:
- Programming
- UX
- Workflows
- Pipeline
- VFX
- Visual Arts
- Production
- Design
- AI
- Procedural
- Machine Learning
- Visual Arts
How to use this list
- If you are going to GDC, you can follow the links in the list below to create a schedule for yourself. Alternatively, if you already have a plan, you can check and make sure you don’t miss out on anything you would enjoy.
- If you are not going, you can still look forward to watching sessions that you want to see in the GDC Vault.
Sessions marked with Toolsmiths icon - point to sessions that you should consider going to because you are 100% guaranteed to find insight as a Tools Developer.
I’m sure that you can find a session that will inspire you to make something great!
Tools Summit Day (Full Day)
Tools Summit: Efficiently Shuffling Loads of Data from Place to Place
- Programming
- Tools Summit
- Postmortem
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tool Lead
- Tools QA
Tools Summit: Ubisoft Connect: Building User-Centered Frameworks for Internal Tools
- Programming
- Tools Summit
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Summit: File System Tricks for Safe Incremental Builds
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Tools Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Summit: Help Game Designers Analyze Data: How to Develop an Online Pivot Table Tool
- Programming
- Tools Summit
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Summit: An Easy-to-Use Cutscenes Preview Tool with Low Resources
- Programming
- Tools Summit
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Summit: Immutable Data for Editors for ‘EVE Echoes’
- Programming
- Tools Summit
- DCC Tool Dev
Roundtables
Tools Roundtable Day 1: Workflow
- Pipeline
- Workflows
- Programming
- UX
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Pipeline Dev
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tool Lead
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Roundtable Day 2: Assets
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Roundtable Day 3: Pipeline
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Design Roundtables Day 1: Design
- Programming
- Design
- Workflows
- Programming
- UX
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Tools Design Roundtables Day 2: Production
- Programming
- Design
- Workflows
- Programming
- UX
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- DCC Tool Dev
Technical Artist Roundtable Day 1
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Technical Artist Roundtable Day 2
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Technical Artist Roundtable Day 3
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Automated Testing Roundtable Day 1: Process
- Workflows
- Programming
- QA
- UX
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tool Lead
- Tools QA
Automated Testing Roundtable Day 2: Legacy
- Programming
- QA
- Build
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tools QA
Automated Testing Roundtable Day 3: Implementation
- Programming
- QA
- Build
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Tools QA
Game Audio Programming Roundtable Day 1
- Programming
- Programming
- Audio
- DCC Tool Dev
Visual Effects Roundtable Day 1
- Programming
- Visual Arts
- DCC Tool Dev
Visual Effects Roundtable Day 2: Artistic Lens
- Programming
- Visual Arts
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
Visual Effects Roundtable Day 3: Technical Lens
- Programming
- Visual Arts
- DCC Tool Dev
Version Control & Files
Virtual Sync: Terabytes on Demand
- Programming
- Build
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Version Control for Game Developers (Presented by Unity)
- UX
- Workflows
- Programming
- Production & Team Management
- Build
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- DCC Tool Dev
Stop Wasting Your Game Art! (Presented by Perforce Software)
- UX
- Workflows
- Production & Team Management
- Build
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
- DCC Tool Dev
Remaster
Resurrecting a Classic: Bringing ‘Diablo II’ into the 3rd Dimension
- Programming
- Visual Arts
- Programming
- DCC Tool Dev
Psychonauts 2: Bringing Classic Characters into the Modern Era (Presented by Adobe)
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Programming
Advanced Graphics Summit: Designing the Terrain System of ‘Flight Simulator’: Representing the Earth
- Procedural
- Advanced Graphics Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Game Narrative Summit: Narrative Tools as Powerful as ‘Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy’s’
- Game Narrative Summit
- Programming
- Procedural
- Pipeline
- QA
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Pipeline Dev
- Tools QA
Figuring Out How Things Work in an Unfamiliar Codebase
- Programming
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
UX
UX Summit: It’s Not Just About Design: Universal Approaches to Designing in a Collaborative Environment
- UX Summit
- Programming
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Technical Art
Building the World of ‘The Ascent’
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Technical Artist Summit: Building ‘Zeta Halo’: Scaling Content Creation for the Largest ‘Halo’ Ever
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Technical Artist Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Machine Learning
AI Summit: ‘Age of Empires IV’: Machine Learning Trials and Tribulations
- Machine Learning
- Programming
- AI Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Machine Learning Summit: 4 Years of Bringing Characters to Life with Computer Brains
- Machine Learning Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Machine Learning Summit: Walk Lizzie, Walk! Emergent Physics-Based Animation through Reinforcement Learning
- Machine Learning Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Machine Learning Summit: It’s Complicated: Getting ML inside a AAA Engine
- Pipeline
- Machine Learning Summit
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Machine Learning Summit: Aegis Engine: Building Multi-modal Moderation System in NetEase Games
- Machine Learning Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Math In Game Development Summit: Turning Patterns and Fractals: Program Generation of Natural Textures
- Procedural
- Machine Learning
- Programming
- Math In Game Development Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Machine Learning Summit: AI Animator : A Real Time Motion Completion System
- Machine Learning Summit
- Procedural
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Game Level Generation using AI Bot (Presented by Tencent AI Lab)
- Procedural
- Machine Learning
- Programming
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Application of AI Technology and Organizational Design to Improve Game Quality and Productivity
- Production & Team Management
- Programming
- Machine Learning
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Independent Games Summit: Choose Your Own Misadventure: AI-Powered Futures for Game Design
- Independent Games Summit
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
Open Source
Open Source Game Development Summit: Understanding the Godot Engine Architecture and Development Process
- Open Source Game Development Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Build
Open Source Game Development Summit: Open Source Strategy for Game Studios
- Open Source Game Development Summit
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Build
Open Source Game Development Summit: Being Successful with Open Source in Game Development
- Open Source Game Development Summit
- Pipeline
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Build
Moving to Open: Benefits and Challenges Roundtable (Presented by the IGDA)
- Pipeline
- Advocacy
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Build
Math
Math In Game Development Summit: Visualizing Math
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Math In Game Development Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Math In Game Development Summit: Practical Automation: A Guide to Random Game Content Generation
- Procedural
- Programming
- QA
- Math In Game Development Summit
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Procedural
Never The Same Twice: Procedural World Handling in ‘Returnal’
- Procedural
- Programming
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Procedural Primer for Artists (Presented by Houdini)
- Programming
- Procedural
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Urban Worlds: A New Procedural Modeler (Presented by Threedee.io)
- Programming
- Procedural
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Procedural Workflows in Production (Presented by Houdini)
- UX
- Workflows
- Programming
- Production & Team Management
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Pipeline
Creating the World of ‘Riders Republic’: A Declarative Pipeline
- Procedural
- Visual Arts
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Build
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Opportunities for Universal Scene Description (USD) in Game Development (Presented by NVIDIA)
- Pipeline
- Production & Team Management
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Panel: Experimenting with USD in Game Pipelines (Presented by Autodesk)
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
AI-enhanced content authoring
AI Summit: Innovations in Procedural Narrative
- AI Summit
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
AI Teaching: The Application of Wukong Human-AI Collaboration Technology in MOBA Games (Presented by Tencent AI Lab)
- Procedural
- Programming
- QA
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
AI
AI Summit: Down with Nav Meshes: The Next Generation of Navigation Data
- Procedural
- Programming
- AI Summit
- DCC Tool Dev
Audio
The Soundscapes of Yara: Audio Innovation and Representation in ‘Far Cry 6’
- Audio
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Benefits of a Customized Reaper Pipeline for Dialogue at Naughty Dog
- Pipeline
- Audio
- Production & Team Management
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Animation
Animation Summit: Microtalks 2022
- Programming
- Animation Summit
- DCC Tool Dev
Visual Arts
Evolving the ‘Horizon’ Series: Animating Believable Robots and Characters
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- QA
- Visual Arts
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
Building Machines for a Better Future in ‘Horizon’
- Visual Arts
- Production & Team Management
- Pipeline
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
Recalibrating Our Limits: Lighting on ‘Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’
- Visual Arts
- Production & Team Management
- Workflows
- Pipeline
- UX
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
The Art of ‘Sable’: Imperfection, Limitation and Worldbuilding through Visual Design
- Programming
- Visual Arts
- Design
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
Gearing Up Millions of Armor Combinations in ‘Dauntless’
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Programming
- Programming
- QA
- Pipeline Dev
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
Postmortem
Classic Game Postmortem: ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ (Achtung!)
- Design
- Postmortem
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
Classic Game Postmortem: ‘Q-bert’
- Design
- Programming
- Postmortem
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- DCC Tool Dev
- Tool Lead
Production
Emotion Based Creation Pipeline
- Production & Team Management
- Design
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- Tool Lead
- DCC Tool Dev
The Many Challenges of Making ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Production & Team Management
- Pipeline Dev
- Build
- DCC Tool Dev
Our remote future: Game creation and collaboration with AWS (Presented by Amazon Web Services)
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Production & Team Management
- Build
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Leadership
Production Essentials Summit: Congratulations You’ve Become a Lead: Now What?
- Production Essentials Summit
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
Leaders Working at the Heart of the Team 2022
- Production & Team Management
- Tool Lead
- Dev Support/Production Engineer
Miscellaneous
Live Long and Render!
- Career & Studio Development
- Pipeline
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
- Build
Educators Summit: Tools Dev in Game Edu
- Educators Summit
- Programming
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
- Build
Third-party DCC Tools
Adobe Substance 3D Keynote (Presented by Adobe)
- Programming
- Visual Arts
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Accelerating Creative Workflows with Epic Games (Presented by Autodesk)
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Visual Arts
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
SideFX Labs 2021-2022 | Servicing Next-Gen Development (Presented by Houdini)
- Pipeline
- Programming
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
DOTS Authoring and Debugging Workflows in the Unity Editor (Presented by Unity)
- Workflows
- Programming
- UX
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Unity Art Tools Roadmap: A New Era of Creativity (Presented by Unity)
- Programming
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
Making Game Production Tools with Bifrost (Presented by Autodesk)
- Programming
- Workflows
- UX
- Pipeline
- Visual Arts
- Tool UX/UI Designer
- Tool Lead
- Pipeline Dev
- DCC Tool Dev
