Bringing the future of storytelling to the heartland
We're faculty of Indiana University, and we teach students to do amazing work with the Unreal® Engine at our campus in downtown Indianapolis. Our graduates are changing and improving their lives, their communities, and their world. We want to help.
Download the proposal
Based on what we’ve achieved so far, we believe the IU School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI can be the premier school in the Midwest for virtual production using the Unreal Engine. We’re seeking an Epic MegaGrant to help us build a complete equipment and data pipeline from camera to composite.
Our goal: Build on our past success to teach virtual production and provide the resources for a robust educational experience using the Unreal Engine.
Learn more about our program & faculty
Student reel
Our faculty
How we use the Unreal Engine
Undergraduate curriculum
Our students use Unreal as part of earning their bachelor’s degrees, to create next-level games and worlds in several classes including:
- Intro to Game Design and Development
- Intermediate Game Design & Development
- Advanced Game Design and Development
- Multi Media Project Development
- Game Production
High school students
Our summer programs sell out every year in Game Design and Development class using the Unreal Engine. We teach high school students how to create games and VR experiences using Unreal – and many later enroll in our school to continue the journey. We also have growing partnerships with our alumni teaching Unreal at the Paramount Schools of Excellence (middle school) and Purdue Polytechnic (high school) in an effort to experiment with showing young Indianapolis learners the power and promise of Games education.
Research
Our faculty partner with researchers to develop experiences powered by the Unreal in multiple domains, from defense to medical and psychiatric VR simulations.
Unreal is enabling our program and our students to do crazy-fantastic things, like work in teams to develop games for private clients during a semester, and produce stellar Capstone projects, portfolios, and demo reels before working in some of the biggest studios on the planet.
Change and disruption
We teach our students to disrupt industries and change how things are done. By creating a Midwest Virtual Production Training Hub at the School of Informatics and Computing, we will expand the path to success for a diverse community of awesome students on campus and expand our network of next generation storyteller alumni.
The grant would build on our students’ success using the Unreal Engine, so they can take storytelling beyond games into film, animation and advertising. We want to teach distinct types of virtual production and to provide the needed resources for a robust educational experience using the Unreal Engine.
Photo credit: Liz Kaye / Indiana University
What we already have
- Talented students Our graduates have forged careers at Pixar, Rockstar, Pipeworks, ILM, and Digital Domain. They’ve worked for Harrison Ford, host popular podcasts, and operate their own local media companies.
- An international alumni base Our alumni work in film, television, marketing, game, and 3D production houses all over world.
- Amazing faculty We regularly win teaching, creative and research awards. We serve as principal investigators and co-PIs on internal and external grants or contracts currently totaling more than $5 million innovating in virtual reality for historical preservation, medical and dental simulation, psychiatry and defense.
- Motion Capture Full Body (Xsens), Hand (ManusVR). and Facial Motion Capture (Faceware) for virtual human integration.
- The space to innovate Our school has more than doubled its physical size in the last year, expanding into space that was inaccessible before. We want to update our space to allow for maximal tracking, a team sizes in our green screen rooms.
Our existing space
Proposed Remodel
We want to reconfigure our greenscreen space so it opens up to the hallway through large glass accordion doors, allowing better shooting vantage points. The cyclorama would be reoriented toward those doors to make use of three walls. These changes would substantially improve the usability and visibility of the space.
Wrapping it up
We want to educate the storytelling workforce of tomorrow with Unreal, as they explore the creative potential and opportunities of virtual production.
Post-COVID, faculty at the IU School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI are excited to resume what we love most: teaching our students and helping them achieve success. With this grant, we can invest in our program and build on its success, to make a positive difference that extends beyond our campus and state.