visual-effects-society posts

It's awards season in Hollywood and even games are not immune to be caught up in the glitter. This week the Visual Effects Society announced their nominees for their 2010 awards. As shown by The Hollywood Reporter, they include two game categories. One is for Real-Time Visuals which include two PC games; Modern Warfare 2's Gulag Extraction and Need For Speed Shift's World Sequence.

The other game related category is Visual Effects in an video game trailer. Again two PC games were nominated and both were from BioWare titles; Mass Effect 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The winners will be named on February 28.

The Academy Awards were given out Sunday night but the day before the seventh annual Visual Effects Society Awards were given out in a number of movie, TV and game catagories. This year two PC-only titles won the two game-oriented awards, proving that the platform can stay on top in terms of graphics.

In the Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game catagory the winner was Crytek's 2008 first person shooter Crysis Warhead with Crytek team members Zoltan Pocza, Gabor Mogyorosi and Tamas Schlagl named as representing the developer. For the Outstanding Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game catagory, the excellent team at Blizzard's CGI unit won for the opening cinematic for the recent MMO expansion pack World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard team members Jeff Chamberlain and Phillip Hillenbrand were named as representing the developer.

Last week the Writers Guild of America nominated several games, mostly PC titles, for the game writing category in their annual awards. This week its the members of the Visual Effects Society who are handing out nominations for two game related categories in their annual awards.

The categories are for best real time effects and also for best pre-rendered effects. Five out of the six spots in the categories went to games published by Electronic Arts although we have to think Blizzard is the front runner for the pre-rendered cinematic award for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The awards ceremony will be held on Feb. 21.

Outstanding Real Time Visuals in a Video Game
Crysis Warhead
Zoltan Pocza, Gabor Mogyorosi, Tamas Schlagl
Dead Space
Ian Milham, Ben Wanat, Christopher Stone
Need For Speed Undercover
Henry LaBounta, Steve Barcia, Dave Taylor, Carl Jarrett

Outstanding Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Chrono-Lab, Empire and Allied Scenes
Richard Taylor, Benjamin Hopkins, KaTai Tang, Mical Pedriana
Need For Speed Undercover - Cinematics
Henry LaBounta, Steve Barcia, Dave Taylor, Mark Raham
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Intro Cinematic
Jeff Chamberlain, Phillip Hillenbrand