A Look Back – CDE Celebration Event 2015

23rd July 2015

A Look Back – CDE Celebration Event 2015

Phil Willis – Director of CDE Project (University of Bath and Bournemouth University)

The beautiful City of Bath played host to this year’s annual conference, the ‘CDE Celebration Event’. The aim was to open the Centre for Digital Entertainment (CDE) up to the world, offering something different and exciting, bringing together students, academics and industry partners to share experiences and celebrate all things CDE. What better place to do this than in the magnificent Assembly Rooms in Bath, used in the eighteenth century for social occasions and still as grand and as welcoming as ever. Delegates came from far and wide to be a part of something unique in this amazing location.

Phil Willis with Mayor of Bath, Cherry Beath

CDE is an EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre, funding research engineer students working in companies that specialise in computer games, animation and visual effects amongst others.

The Student Exhibition was the perfect platform to showcase the fantastic research by our engineers, giving them the opportunity to network with some very high profile industry members and leaders.

Student Exhibition 2015

Delegates could experience first-hand, the diverse range of research projects in progress, including an interactive Punch and Judy Show, ‘Future Interactive Living Rooms’ and ‘Virtual Eye Tracking Systems’. Guests even had the chance to control a robotic arm using an ‘eye-gaze’ system and take part in a simulation to help brain injury patients relearn social skills. The atmosphere within the Student Exhibition was electrifying, with industry members, research engineers and academics all sharing knowledge and highlighting the potential impact and social importance these projects may have in the future.

The research engineers were also placed under the spotlight with the Student Fast Forward sessions. These fast and fun presentations provided a whistle-stop tour of all of the research projects giving each engineer the voice to encourage visitors to their exhibition stand.

Student Fast Forward Sessions

The evening was spent in the breath-taking surroundings of the Roman Baths, and with the sun still shining brightly, this was an idyllic location for everyone to relax and enjoy a glass of champagne and canapes, before moving into the Pump Rooms for dinner.

It was a privilege to welcome several industry guest speakers to help CDE celebrate in style.

Hans-Peter Seidel from Max Planck Institute for Computer Science and Saarland University engaged the audience with his talk on ‘3D image Analysis and Synthesis – The world inside the computer’.

Hans-Peter Seidel – MPI Informatics and Saarland University

Steffen P Walz from the University of RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, discussed ‘How to Play in the Gameful World: Researching the Potentials and Pitfalls of a Ludic Age’.

Andrew Vidler from Ninja Theory, Marco Romeo from Moving Picture Company and Andy Gibb from the BBC, also enthralled guests with details of past, present and future projects, the challenges faced and the future of the industry.

Top left to bottom right: – Steffen P Walz – University of RMIT in Melbourne Australia, Andrew Vidler – Ninja Theory, Marco Romeo – Moving Picture Company and Andrew Gibb – BBC

All of this, combined with an inspirational showcase of the two Universities’ academic staff research, provided two days of high energy, interactive content and it proved to be the Centre for Digital Entertainment’s biggest and best event yet.

University of Bath and Bournemouth University Academic Showcase.

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