Two Day iPhone OpenGL Class Coming to The Bay Area

cars After the success of the OpenGL class in Denver, we’re bringing the iPhone OpenGL class to the Bay Area. It will be held November 19th and 20th in Cupertino, right next to Apple’s headquarters at Infinite Loop.

The class is aimed at iPhone developers without previous OpenGL or 3D graphics experience. As part of the class, we’ll create both 2D and 3D OpenGL applications, and we’ll cover a broad range of topics, start with the basics of setting up OpenGL and rendering triangles on screen, to multitexturing and point sprites in the last day. This is definitely a hands-on class, so you’ll need to bring your laptop and be ready to do some coding.

Check out the Mobile Orchard page for discounts and registration details. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Hope to see you there!

Early Bird Registration Ending For Denver OpenGL Class And 360iDev

For those of you still on the fence about attending my iPhone OpenGL class in Denver, you should sign up before this Sunday if you want to get the super-combo deal. Right now you get a total combined discount of over $300 if you sign up both for the OpenGL class and the 360iDev conference. If you’re only interested in the OpenGL class, the early-bird registration ends next Friday, September 4th.

Obviously I’m biased when I say the class is going to be awesome (which it is), but I can also say with total honesty that 360iDev is an incredible conference. It’s very different from WWDC, but that’s what makes it so great: It has top-quality content and speakers, but it’s small and intimate, so you get to meet and hang out with all the other speakers and participants. It was at the first 360iDev conference back in March that I met Keith and Owen (among many other cool developers) in person for the first time and that’s how App Treasures was born.

So if you’re on the fence, I hope you give it a try. See you in Denver!

Teaching a Two-Day OpenGL iPhone Class. Register Now!

opengl I’m excited to announce the intensive, two-day class on OpenGL for the iPhone that I’ll be teaching. The class will be held September 26th-27th, in Denver, right before the 360iDev conference, and it’s part of the Mobile Orchard Workshops.

The class is aimed at iPhone developers without previous OpenGL experience. It’s going to be very hands-on, and you’ll create both 2D and 3D applications during the weekend. You’ll learn all the basics: cameras, transforms, and how to draw meshes, but we’ll also cover some more advanced topics such as lighting, multitexturing, point sprites, and even render targets. Most importantly, you’ll walk away with a solid understanding of the basis, which will allow you to continue learning OpenGL and advanced computer graphics on your own from the docs, samples, or even browsing the API directly.

The main requirement for the class is that you’re familiar with the iPhone development environment and that you have basic knowledge of the C language. Beyond that, to the the most out of the course, you should be familiar with the basics of linear algebra (vector, matrices, and dot products). Anything else, we’ll cover it all during the class.

Registration is now open, and you can get some great discounts by registering early and attending the 360iDev conference. For more details, check the official announcement page.

Hope to see some of you there!

Flower Garden Coverage and Interview on Spanish TV

A couple of weeks ago I gave a presentation about iPhone development at Gamelab, the main game development conference in Spain (yes, it was my first technical presentation in Spanish!). Afterwards I was interviewed by Zoom Net, a popular TV show about games and technology. Yesterday they aired the episode with my interview and I was pleasantly surprised to see they turned it into a full 4-minute section covering Flower Garden. Coverage starts at 8m 40s from the start (and, obviously, it’s in Spanish).

Notice the other iPhone games that flash at the start of the Flower Garden section: Harbor Master, Up There, and Little Red Sled, all App Treasures games! The video also starts with coverage of Fifa 10, so we’re in pretty good company 🙂

Unveiling The App Treasures Indie iPhone Game Label

apptreasureslogo_withcompanylogos

Today we finally unveiled a project we had been working on for a couple of months: The App Treasures label.

Only indie games that we consider to be really fun, polished, and of high quality are part of the label. We hope that when players enjoy one of our games, they can turn to the other App Treasures games and find something they like.

With the App Store dominated more every day by big developers and publishers, this is a way for small indie developers to stand our ground. With App Treasures we establish a strong brand, share resources, and get more visibility in the App Store and in the eyes of the users. The same benefits we would get with a publisher, but without giving up our independence, creative freedom, or a percentage of the profits.

The current App Treasures members are:

The Blimp Pilots (Koi Pond, Distant Shore)
Imangi Studios (Imangi, Word Squares, Little Red Sled)
Snappy Touch (Flower Garden)
Streaming Colour Studios (Dapple)
Veiled Games (Up There, Payday Roulette)

You can read more details in this interview I did for App Craver. Mobile Orchard also published a really good piece with some interesting views and conclusions on App Treasures.

Oh, and don’t forget to follow App Treasures on Twitter to keep up with the latest news.