Activision giving next-gen tech talk at GDC

Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard will showcase what next-generation game assets could look like in March during the 2013 Game Developers Conference. Activision Blizzard real-time graphics researcher Jorge Jimenez will lead a talk titled Photorealistic Eyes Rendering and Deformation at the conference, which will focus on the publisher's next-gen pursuits.

More specifically, Jimenez will show off next-gen shading technology running on a "plausible game rig." In addition, he will detail how Activision plans to overcome the "uncanny valley," a hypothesis that claims viewers may be turned off by visuals that are too lifelike.

Next-generation platforms have not been announced, though Call of Duty developers Treyarch and Infinity Ward are rumored to be working on series entries running on future systems.

GDC organizers have also announced that Pixar Animation Studios' Matthew Luhn (Toy Story series, Monsters Inc., Up) will present a lecture titled The 5 Key Plot Points to Creating a Great Story. Luhn will explain how best to go about creating compelling characters and stories for animation, live-action, and games.

Lastly, it was announced that Creative Assembly's lead designer James Russell will hold a lecture during GDC concerning development dilemmas faced during the production of Total War. His talk is titled Designing Grand Strategy: Making the Mechanics of Total War.

Bungie Studios will also be on-hand at GDC 2013, with creative leads Joe Staten and Christopher Barrett discussing the company's new world, rumored to be titled Destiny.

GDC 2013 takes place in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California March 25-29.