NextGen Player

. Among the discussion is animating Gears of War 2, Motion Capture, and advice for aspiring animators seeking to break into the field.

NGP: What key pieces of advice do you have for aspiring young animators looking to break into games?

Scott: It takes a lot of hard work and a special eye to be able to analyze and break down the movement of something, and then rebuild it in a different medium, and then stylize it.

Observe your surroundings, and always watch how the people and things around you move in real life. Not just walk cycles, but expressions, emotions and interactions. Now I sound like Yoda. "Between you ...the rock ...and the ship" :)

But seriously, observe your surroundings and apply that to your animations, and that will help you create believable, compelling animations, whether they are stylized or not.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA, have released their list of nominees for 2008's British Academy Video Games Awards. Unreal Engine games are well-represented by Gears of War 2, competing in the Artistic Achievement, Multiplayer, Use of Audio, and Game Award of 2008 categories.

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Nephthys, a well-known Unreal mod that is used to fix bugs and make administering servers easier, has been updated to version 1.4. With this version comes a whole slew of changes, including support of additional games.

Nephthys is a native mod for Unreal1 engine based servers allowing for efficient attack blocking, banning, player logging and other features. Nephthys also is a client-side mod to profit from web hosted downloads. Joining servers with custom maps/mods using Nephthys is by a multiple faster than without Nephthys.

Nephthys provides (full list see the Nephthys-Documentation):

* Full integration into any game configuration
* Advanced attack blocking
* Bug fixes / work arounds to avoid crashes
* Banning
* Kicking
* Player IP log
* Customized file Upload
* Fast Web Download for Clients
* Advanced Server Query
* Advanced Master Server Uplink
* UScript Interface allowing for custom mods

Nephthys now supports Unreal 224v, Unreal 225f, Unreal 226b (Gold), Unreal 226f, Deus Ex 1110 (1112fm), Rune 107, and Rune 108 (108 HoV). You can get the Windows version

or the Linux-native version for Rune only

.

A

from Hansoft explains that Epic Games China has adopted the Hansoft production management solution.

"What doesn't bend, breaks. Hansoft is ideal for game industry development because it provides flexibility for shifting priorities and goals through highly intuitive and usable interface design. The ability to easily manage resources for projects, customize the production style and views per project and user, and quickly see resource conflicts, workloads and costs continues to impress me daily. Overall, Hansoft's integration of the scheduling, reporting and bug tracking systems, with large scale multi-user role based architecture, makes it an excellent single tool solution for the full production pipeline," said Mike Hines, Project Director at Epic Games China

Hansoft is a fully integrated production management tool, used by a rapidly increasing number of studios in more than 20 countries for project management, bug tracking and workload coordination. Hansoft makes it possible to run scheduling and agile projects in one single tool. It empowers teams to ship better games faster and provides management with a project status overview updated in real time.

“Improved collaboration and flexibility are fundamental principles behind Hansoft. Using a tool that truly empowers teams is key when focusing on productivity to get the most out of their talent. I’m really happy to work with Epic Games China and see Hansoft put into action in their exciting projects,” said Hansoft CEO Patric Palm.

Epic Games' Rod Fergusson put forth

to the official Gears 2 forums which, if adopted, could change the way the Gears of War 2 rankings work. Currently, they are based on the TrueSkill level system, a complex algorithm that takes into account wins and losses and a whole host of other obscure things. The new system:

What if, instead of skill rank, we instead showed your experience level. You would gain experience through your individual performance in Public multiplayer matches - the higher your score at the end, the more experience you acquire. Of course the experience gained across the different match types would be balanced so you couldn't just grind on the respawning game types to try and level faster. The experience requirements for each level would grow with each level gained (like a typical RPG) and we'd have 99 levels of experience for you to show off your leetness.

Generally speaking your level will always go up since you're always acquiring more score, hence experience, with each completed match. The only exception to that would be people quitting. Players that quit would gain an experience penalty that could cause them to be demoted. At the end of every match you will be able to see how much experience you've gained and how much further you have to go till the next level

Even though Mass Effect 2 is well under development, Bioware is still providing love for the original.

that not only is more DLC coming, but so is a patch for PC in "a month or two."

For those of you who have Gears of War for the PC and haven't been able to play it, Epic has

.

, Gears of War was accidentally stopped from running when a digital signature Epic used to sign the EXE for cheat protection expired on January 29th.

UT Unlimited is one of the very few active map review sites left standing and we are proud to welcome them to their new home...

! Firefly has already posted tons of reviews for Unreal Tournament, 2004, and 3 maps and the site has just been overhauled to help make them easier to find. Drop by and check out the new UT Unlimited and tell 'em we sent you.

It's friday once again, and it's time for FragBU! You're invited to play with or against BU staff members and your fellow BuF'ers for two nights of fast and heart pumping matches which can take you from DM, TDM, CTF, vCTF, and even WAR. If you've never been to a FragBU event before, don't worry, it's open to anyone who wants to join us for some good old fashioned friendly fragging.

Before you start, don't forget to check out the FragBU thread in the UT3 forums for download links to all of the custom content we use. There are quite a few large map packs like the excellent and often played HOLP1 and HOLP2 plus many stand alone maps which all see their fair share of map play. All of the content is available through the servers fast redirect, but it is recommended to download the files before you jump on the server if you want to jump in on the action right away.

To check on the status of the server without opening the game, you can either check the FragBU thread or log on to the official FragBU IRC channel at #fragbu on EnterTheGame where there's always plenty of people to help you out if you need any assistance getting on the server.

If you are patiently waiting on the server and it's currently empty don't fret, It may take a while but people will eventually join. Most players do not start joining around until 10pm EST but people will join earlier if they see activity on the server. So just fire up the game and join up! If idling on the server isn't working and you do not want to wait any longer, you can always ask people to join in the IRC channel and many will eagerly hop on.

We hope to see you there!

FiringSquad has

that showcases the use of PhysX in Mirror's Edge. Side by side comparison shots, video, and even some benchmarks round out the test of PPU vs CPU vs GPU.

Over the past several weeks, we have been hard at work restoring both FileWorks and our hosted sites to working order. This has been a quite laborious process but it is finally complete. You should be able to access almost any file through

and the sites listed along the side of this page should be accessible. Of course, if you find any problems, feel free to

.

Along with this change, we have completely modified our permission and data architecture. This means that hosted site FTP information is completely gone, your old usernames and passwords will not work any longer. I am sure in the past that you have probably seen us trying to get a better handle on who is running hosted sites and current contact information for them, but that has been a difficult thing to accomplish. Now that we have revamped the server, however, we have decided that we are going to make FTP access by request for the time being. If you currently have a hosted site, you will not be refused FTP access, this is simply a way for us to get current contact information for our active hosted sites, as well as to send our new Hosted Site emails which will help both us and you.

Thank you for your continued support! We really appreciate it! We have lots of great things in store for 2009 and hope that you will continue to support and participate in this awesome community!

If dressing up and videogames are your thing, then PlanetUnreal may have something just for you... the

. Win copies of your favorite Unreal Tournament games signed by none other than Tim Sweeney who, incidentally, is not included.

For Xbox 360 and PS3, that is, according to

. If the PC is your gaming platform of choice then you can expect a delay similar to that of the original. If the port is equally as solid, I don't think anyone will complain to loudly.

Eat3D is offering what looks to be a wealth

from seasoned industry professionals for everything from Unreal Kismet and Facial Rigging to Next-Gen Texturing and Unreal Materials.

Each video runs from 2.5 to 4 hours in length and have short samples for viewing to see if they are right for you. If you don't need a physical copy, then you can purchase a download for a discounted price.

VE3D

that Activision and Raven have launched

for their UE3 powered title,

.