POINT OF PERSPECTIVE
About the Immersive Media Design Program
This project was created by Matt Yackulak, Ahmad Shameem, and Jennifer Kerr for their Capstone Project for the Immersive Media Design Program at the University of Maryland.
Immersive Media Design (IMD) offers a unique undergraduate program giving students an opportunity to combine their artistic talents with computer science.
Steeped in technology, this program allows students an opportunity to code, create, and collaborate in immersive ways. Innovative researchers, digital artists, computer scientists, and experts in augmented and virtual reality, and human computer interaction, comprise the faculty. They represent just a small portion of what students can do with a degree in Immersive Media Design at the University of Maryland.
Team Members
Matt Yackulak
Matt Yackulak is a current Senior at the University of Maryland who is majoring in Immersive Media Design and Cinema and Media Studies. His primary career interest lay in the film and video game industries. He was passionate about joining this project because it allowed him to combine a cinematic storytelling piece with a video game-like experience.
For this project, Matt's primary roles were writing the script and managing the assets and code within Unity.
Ahmad Shameem
Ahmad Shameem is a senior at the University of Maryland majoring in Immersive Media Design. He takes heavy inspiration from video games, CGI and enjoys genres including dark fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. His career goals lay within the film or game industry as a 3D artist. He joined this project as it allowed the exploration of most if not every aspect used in creating a full game/experience. This includes sound design, motion capture, 3D character creation, texturing, animation, and 3D environment development.
Ahmad took the role of creating game ready assets including interactable props, characters (Thorbo and Axel Starr), and virtual environments. Software used includes Zbrush, Blender, and Substance painter. Ahmad also did mocap and voice acting for Axel Starr, and some sound editing for other characters.
Jennifer Kerr
Jennifer Kerr is a senior at the University of Maryland seeking a major in Immersive Media Design’s Emerging Creatives track and a minor in History. Her interest in this project stems from the storytelling aspects it allowed and the opportunity to express both previously-known and newly acquired skills through her work in this project.
In this project, her primary contributions came in the design and creation of Murdock and TX-77’s player models, mocap and voice acting for TX-77, and various other assets within the work.