ÃÛÌÒAV

is home to a collective of visionaries working across film, advertising, television and immersive. Our work and skillset is wide-ranging, thanks to a pool of 3000 talented artists and producers in offices across the globe. Known globally for our visual effects, we have a proud history of creating extraordinary images and scenes for some of Hollywood’s biggest pictures, collecting every possible industry award along the way. Framestore has grasped the opportunities afforded by new technologies and works with brands, studios, artists and organisations to bring immersive experiences to both new and existing audiences.

Framestore is a world-leading visual effects company, producing award-winning content within the domains of feature film, long-form, commercial and interactive entertainment. Framestore’s Rendering Team develops and supports the software used for rendering our production-quality visual effects and includes our in-house renderer ‘Freak’, state-of-the-art shader libraries, and artist-focused rendering tools that are used globally across all of Framestore’s film projects.

We believe there exists an opportunity for practical, production-focused innovative research that can both extend the domain of knowledge and directly impact the quality and efficiency of the imagery that we create. We envisage, by allowing researchers to leverage our cutting-edge workflows and technologies, and use our production-level datasets, we can inspire, accelerate and focus innovation that can be applied within the production context.Ìý

Framestore Research Projects

Learned Resolution Independent Rendering for Feature Films

Application of Machine Learning to Problems in Light Transport

develops digital humans for world-leading technology and entertainment companies. Founded by CEO, Greg Maguire (Harry Potter, Avatar, Star Wars), Humain combines their expertise with advances in machine learning to create believable engaging characters for their clients, which include Microsoft, HBO, and Activision.

Humain has one mission. To move people.

We do this by creating face and body rigs that result in realistic, emotional and expressive characters. Combining psychology and anatomy, with animation, coding and art, just a short engagement with our specialist team can make life easier for production teams, animators, outsource managers and riggers.

We move gamers with our digital doubles. We move producers by giving them rigs they know will work perfectly. We move animators and artists by giving them rigs that guarantee their characters will react realistically and deliver their performances.

We can do this because we are producers and animators, programmers and artists – a blend of technical and creative. We are unique. We are Humain.Ìý

Humain Research Project

Deep Learning in 3D Facial Modelling & AnimationÌý

CfACTs Research Fellow -

Recognized as a global leader in interactive and digital entertainment, * (SIE) is responsible for the PlayStation® brand and family of products and services. PlayStation has delivered innovation to the market since the launch of the original PlayStation in Japan in 1994.

The PlayStation family of products and services include PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, and PlayStation®VR systems, PlayStation™Store, PlayStation®Plus, PlayStation™Now, and acclaimed PlayStation software titles from PlayStation Studios.

SIE R&D are technical experts on topics relating to any of the PlayStation platforms. The group is unique in that they report directly to both SCEE Central as well as the Tokyo-based SCEI R&D Organisation that designs PlayStation hardware.ÌýÌý

Sony Interactive Entertainment Research Project

Emotional connection between virtual avatars and game players

CfACTs Research Fellow -

Joined CfACTs: November 2023

Academic Supervisors: Ìýand

Dr Bas received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of York in 2018.Ìý

His research interests include computer vision and machine learning - specifically 3D morphable face models, neural radiance fields, image-based modelling and rendering.Ìý

Before joining CfACTs, he was Assistant Professor and Deputy Head at the Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Marmara University, Istanbul.

Ìý

Joined CfACTs: October 2023

Academic Supervisors: Ìýand

Industrial Partner Organisation:

Industrial Supervisor:

Dr Adjeisan's research focuses on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning

"I am actively investigating leveraging large language models' (LLMs) robust reasoning capabilities to create intelligent virtual characters (iVCs) within the gaming sector.Ìý Modern games are no longer just about winning or achieving scores but about experiencing a story, becoming submerged in the virtual world, and fostering emotional connections with characters.Ìý We aim to provide users with natural, contextually relevant responses and intuitive interactions to enhance the overall user experience for fascinating and unforgettable adventures".Ìý

Joined CfACTs: September 2023

Academic Supervisors: Ìýand

Dr Wang is interested in research into computer vision and image-to-image translation.Ìý He studied at Zhejiang University for his PhD from 2008 - 2012, under the guidance of Prof. Zhigeng Pan, in the College of Computer Science and State Key Lab of CAD & CG.Ìý

Joined CfACTs: June 2023

Academic Supervisors:Ìý and

Industrial Partner Organisation:

Diqiong is interested in research into the Digital Human Faces Generation.Ìý He studied at Zhejiang University from 2017 - 2023, under the guidance of Prof. Ruofeng Tong in the College of Computer Science.Ìý

Research Project

Joined CfACTs: March 2023

Academic Supervisor: and

Dr Wang earned a PhD in design from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and received his post-doctoral training at the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.Ìý His research interests focus on game design, serious games as well as player experience and user studies enriched with physiological measurement.Ìý Previously he worked as a game designer for six years at NetEase Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES), China, where he helped to develop the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) title, Fairy Tale, from concept to delivery and live operation.

Joined CfACTs: January 2024

Academic Supervisor:Ìý

Aradhya’s research interests include computer vision and machine learning with applications for monitoring railroad tracks, assisting detection of developmental disorders to name a few.ÌýÌýBefore joining CfACTs, she was a Ph.D. scholar at The Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Roorkee from 2017-2023 under the guidance of Prof. Dharmendra Singh, Department of ECE. She has also been awarded the Newton Bhabha Fund for conducting research as a Visiting Researcher at The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

The railway environment needs to be inspected continuously for serving the communities with the goal of putting the safety of the passengers and freight as first and foremost. Railway inspections include monitoring critical railway infrastructures such as leaves on the rail lines for low adhesion. Sustained and periodic monitoring of leaves on the rail lines is a necessity for avoiding catastrophic failures such as derailments thus, leading to delays, loss of life and property. Alongside, leaves on the rail lines causing low adhesion lead to circuit issues and station overruns thus costing the economy. Manual and vehicular inspections face challenges such as slow speed, are time-consuming, there is dependency on inspectors, and block traffic. Therefore, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) (drones) integrated with deep learning techniques play an important role in this day and age in the context of facilitating automated identification, monitoring and cleaning purposes of leaves on rail lines in railway environment for pre, during and post cleaning phases, as they save cost, time, provide reliability, and good coverage.

The academic expertise underpinning CfACTs is sourced from ÃÛÌÒAV’s world-class National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) and as required, other ÃÛÌÒAV centres of research excellence, including Centre for Games and Music Research; the Orthopaedic Research Institute; the Centre for Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Institute of Medical Imaging and Visualisation.Ìý

Related Academic Research and Publications

Ìý- National Centre for Computer Animation

Ìý-ÌýNational Centre for Computer Animation

Ìý- National Centre for Computer Animation

Ìý- National Centre for Computer Animation

Ìý-ÌýDepartment for Creative Technology

Ìý- Centre for Games and Music Research

Ìý- The Orthopaedic Research Institute

Ìý- Centre for Archaeology and Anthropology

Ìý- Institute of Medical Imaging & Visualisation

Contact details are available atÌý

isÌýan active scientist in computer animation with over 15 years’ research experience in a world-leading centre, the NCCA, the UK No.1 educational and research base for computer animation. His research has focused on physics-based modelling (deformation & fluid), motion synthesis, virtual reality (surgery simulation), and novel HCI (eye tracking, gesture control and haptic). Professor Chang isÌýkeen to exploit the usage of novel computer animation techniques for cross-disciplinary research and applications, which has led to international research collaboration and joint funding bids.

is Professor of Computer Animation at the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA), ÃÛÌÒAV where he leads the National Research Centre. He has worked at various universities including Bristol University, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Chongqing University, Queens University of Belfast and Brunel University.

As Principle Investigator, Prof Zhang has brought in 10 million pounds (GBP) of research grants to the NCCA from the EPSRC, AHRC, EU FP7 and EU H2020 as well as other funding organisations. His research focuses on a number of topics relating to 3D computer animation, virtual human modelling and simulation, and physics-based animation. He is also interested in virtual reality, medical visualisation and simulation, and conversational AI.

Dr Mike Board is the Centre Manager for CfACTs, and the Centre for Digital Entertainment (CDE).Ìý