I am working on starting PhotoCity up again!! In the mean time, I've been making a 3D modeling tool to turn point clouds (from PhotoCity or the Kinect or anything else) into polygonal models. Now I plan to join the pieces together!

Here's the link to the point cloud modeling tool, PointCraft: http://www.photocitygame.com/pointcraft/

If you get the chance to go to a big, fancy conference in an area that actually interests and inspires you, then you should definitely take it. I went to SIGGRAPH as an undergrad when I was vaguely interested in computer graphics (before starting grad school in the same field) and it was an awesome experience, both the technical presentations AND the social aspect. I hung out with old classmates, new classmates, and went to parties at swanky clubs exclusively for the conference attendees (none of those regular-people riff-raff)... It definitely solidified my interest in graphics and grad school.

Honestly, though, this CCSC conference looks kind of boring. Is it education related? I can hardly tell. I'd worry that it is too vague/too general and if you went, you'd risk not actually being interested in anything anyone said. Make sure you care at least a little bit about what the conference is actually about, and then yes! Go and meet people and have a good time! The point of a conference is to meet people interested in the same stuff as you.

Additional point: If you intend to apply to grad school, having work published anywhere helps these days.

Try "I like..."

Ok, I'll spoil it: "i like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur"

Followed by: "i like turtles"

A recent proposal from the UC Santa Cruz EIS lab (also mentioned in the article), an Automated Game Designer: http://www.slideshare.net/rndmcnlly/the-intelligent-game-design-game-design-as-a-new-domain-for-automated-discovery-1784151 It's not about making a bot that can behave intelligently/interestingly in a restaurant setting... what are the broad applications of that? (As other people have pointed out, the bots may come out pretty demented and flavored like The Internet.) It's about making a game designer that can design games on its own, learn from its own experience, get MINIMAL human input (not 10,000 plays online). The computer designer can do what the computer is good at (enumerate all possible play traces, look for instances of accessibility/cheats/funky behavior the designer might not have intended or expected) and the humans on the side can do what they are good at (shaping, polishing, collecting a few human play traces).

It's not just this economy. This has been going on ever since Disney bought/merged with them. The reason they make sequels is because the merchandising for a movie is what makes a ton of money -- 'Cars' toys, shoes, bed sheets, even diapers... and the same for every other movie. Making sequels means not having to design a whole new line of accompanying products. It's all about making money. All this means is that the really good original movies come out at a slower pace, because they have to make the sequels in the mean time. But then Toy Story 3/4/100 is probably going to be a better movie than whatever crap is also coming out.

It's based on a different University of Washington project: http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/