Rigging 101: from model validation to rig optimisation

Elliot Stammers | DNEG Animation

Elliot Stammers is a Rigging Technical Supervisor at DNEG Animation. He has led much of the face rigging work on some of DNEG Animation's biggest shows such as Ron's Gone Wrong and Entergalactic. Elliot's work can also be seen on Paramount's Under the Boardwalk, were he served as the Lead Facial Character TD. Join Elliot as he walks us through a variety of key rigging concepts to get your rigs running smoothly.

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Creating Expressive Faces for Games, VFX and Animation

Jahirul Amin | CAVE ACADEMY

Jahirul Amin of CAVE Academy introduces FACS, (Facial Action Coding System) to create expressive faces. You'll study the anatomy of the human face, the universal expressions and micro expressions. Following on from this, you work in Maya and ZBrush to take a neutral head and create a more expressive face.

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Bringing characters to life

Craig Caldwell | University of Utah

Whether it is animation, VFX, or immersive media… character development in storytelling is tough to get right. It can seem like an impossible task to create engaging characters that your audience can emotionally connect to. No matter what genre you prefer, fantasy, medieval, comedy, drama... the characters must be complex, knowable, and feel real. In this workshop, Craig Caldwell covers how to flesh out characters, beginning with their motivations, backstories, psychology, and external relationships.

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Wayfinding 101: cognitive mapping as a tool for level design

Fern Griffiths | Maverick Games

In this workshop you will explore how you can use cognitive mapping as a methodology for guiding players in a non-intrusive way. Looking at what cognitive maps are, how they are formed and the different techniques we can use to help players understand and navigate the spaces we create for them.

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Nanite, Lumen and PCG. Fun with rapid development in Unreal Engine 5.

Cris Robson | Epic Games

This workshop introduces you to the three systems with some easy to follow hands on sessions - you create a mega-assembly using Nanita meshes, then use instances in order to populate your level quickly. You set up Lumen and a few self illuminated meshes to bring life to your scene and will fast populate it with some handy PCG scripts. As long as you can understand the basics of using Unreal Engine 5 then come along, and if you are not sure, pop on by anyway.

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Benchmarking cinematic and gameplay character animation in Baldur's Gate 3

Gerry Jacobs | Larian Studios

This specialist masterclass delves into the creative process of benchmarking the character animation seen in Baldur’s Gate 3. Interwoven in this presentation, Gerry Jacobs will speak about her career originating from a traditional background and spanning multiple industries and explain how those fundamental skills apply to her job today and how they can adapt to different job roles for a career with longevity.

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Things I don’t want to see in your game design portfolio

Zaid Shaikh | Firesprite

Potential employers don't have time to read through a massive game design document to understand someone's game, and would much prefer to see a voiced explanation of the game and the design process. This workshop offers insight on how to help your portfolio stand out amidst a sea of others.

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X-Pitch Factor

David Neumann | NEWMATION

Welcome to X-PITCH FACTOR, a workshop to be led by Hollywood manager and producer, David Neumann. David has been on both sides of the table, a seller of projects to studios and streamers and a buyer of new projects for his own company. In this workshop, you learn how the industry works behind the scenes, and how to pitch your next big animation project.

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Tips and trick of how to prepare your portfolio with TT Games

Dee Kariyawasam | TT Games
Alexandra Jaeschke | TT Games

In this workshop 2 members of the team from TT Games, Dee Kariyawasam and Alexandra Jaeschke, will guide you through some tips and tricks of how to prepare your portfolio, along with covering preparation for applying for jobs all the way through to how to prepare for the interview. The workshop gives you some helpful information to land that your dream job in games development.

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