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Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:57 PM PT Posted by Emru Townsend

SIGGRAPH Rocks the 80's Arcade Games

et-starwars.jpgI've been in San Diego for the last few days for this year's SIGGRAPH conference, and while I've been catching some interesting stuff at Emerging Technologies and other exhibitions, I can't resist leading off with a report from the Electronic Theater.

The Electronic Theater is SIGGRAPH's premier showcase for computer-generated films, and it's always kicked off with a live pre-show event. This year, there's a spectacular outbreak of 80's fever; several of the SIGGRAPH community's rock stars have taken to the stage before each screening to play classic vector-graphic arcade games (Asteroids, Tempest and Star Wars).

The games are actually MAME emulations running on PCs, with just a few crucial differences: the controls are actual arcade controls (while the Tempest controller is just a dial, the Star Wars controller is from a Star Wars cabinet) and the screen is the Civic Theater's movie screen. Oh, and this isn't just a rasterized version of the game; Matt Polak of Raven Systems Design customized the software, translating the vector information so that lasers could draw the image on the screen. Best moment from last night: discovering that Jim Blinn still has killer Asteroid moves. Guess all that NASA work still comes in handy.

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