A Practical Workshop for Next-Gen Game Creators Utilizing the Advanced Graphic Engine MAJUA 

Saturday, 19 December | 10:45 AM - 2:30 PM | Room 414/415

Premium Agency Inc (PA) is a veteran Japanese console videogame and digital-content developer that, in the past few years, has been very active in game development education throughout Asia.  From offering intensive Playstation 3 courses for the Hong Kong government to establishing a game-development department at Ta Tung University, Taiwan, and helping establish Nanyang Polytechnic University's Games Resource Centre in Singapore, PA has garnered universal praise for the applicability and quality of their course content. PA pulls its staff off the front lines to teach, to ensure that all students train and practice using actual development kits, and gain knowledge that can be applied directly to any game-development position they might be considered for in the future.

PA's course material is simultaneously balanced and specialized in a three-phase program where all students are taught the basics in the first stage, which includes history of the game industry, and the fundamentals of game design, 3D modeling and animation, and programming.  In the later phases, students are allowed to branch out, and take specialized courses in their areas of interest and form small, instructor-supervised development teams with fellow students, in which they can apply the knowledge they've learned and get a taste of actual development with expert guidance.

In this workshop, attendees learn how to make use of PA's next-gen web-development platform, MAJUA, which is powered by PA's internal development engine and open-source Blender3D technology. In a compact format based on PA's full course, instructors first explain how to use MAJUA and then offer support and guidance as students make use of the technology and pre-prepared game assets to create a smal- scale action game. 

It is a workshop requirement that participants bring a laptop that has at least the following specifications:

 ・OS　Windows XP /Windows Vista
・RAM :  1GB or more
・CPU　 Intel(R) Core 2 Duo 2GHz or more
・Graphic Cards　 NVIDIA(R) GeForce 7XXX Series
（8800/8900/9300 recommended）
・Wireless LAN support
 
At the end of the workshop, attendees present their work and discuss the ideal method for future game-creator training.

Instructor(s)

Motonobu Kawashima
Katsunori Yamaji
Premium Agency Inc.

Instructor Bio(s)

Motonobu Kawashima
Motonobu Kawashima graduated from the Faculty of Environmental Information and received his masters degree in media and governance at Keio University. In 1999, he became assistant professor at the Tokyo University of Technology, where he is in charge of motion-capture and character-animation studies. He is also a lecturer at the School of Media Science at Tokyo University of Technology and Nippon Engineering College, a committee member of CG-ARTS (Computer Graphic Arts Society), a committee member of the nomination section for the Tokyo International Anime Fair, and a member of the judging panel. At Premium Agency, he is in charge of curriculum design and the next-gen game-creator training program.

Katsunori Yamaji
Katsunori Yamaji graduated from the Department of Environmental Information at Keio University as a member of the inaugural class in 1994 and joined Sega Enterprises Ltd., where he was involved in development and production of video games. In 2000, he moved to Microsoft Corporation to handle the production of video games in the Xbox department. In May 2003, he retired from Microsoft and established Premium Agency Inc. He is now president of PA, a part-time lecturer in the Media Department of the Tokyo University of Technology, and a committee member of CG-ARTS.