Bridging The Gap

1
Bridging The Gap

• Matt Curtis
• Head of School
• Academy of Interactive Entertainment (Melbourne)

2
The Gap
3
Challenges for industry education

• The entry level bar is getting higher
• Skills required are not mainstream
• C and real-time techniques
• Low poly modelling
• Medium sized, multi-skilled teams
• Even some mainstream skills are difficult to
  teach in an academic format, e.g. problem solving
  with a legacy codebase

4
Strong skill sets are required
5
Relevance is a moving target

• Ageia PhysX card, Nvidia GPGPU
• High Dynamic Range (HDR) effects
• Wii controller
• Xbox 360 multi-core
• PS3 cell architecture
• New programming languages
• New modelling tools/techniques (e.g. Mudbox)
• New animation tools/techniques (e.g. endorphin)

6
AIEs philosophy

• Training versatile specialists
• Courses written and delivered by industry
  veterans
• Who understand specialist skills have practical
  experience
• Close contact with industry to stay relevant
• Simulated industry experiences
• Legacy codebase
• Multi-skilled team