Length: 60 minutes

Suggested HOME restaurant or bar (attendees to make their own choices). Back in one hour.

Lunch
Short Lunch Break

Length: 120 min

This is an opportunity to meet digital entrepreneurs in the North West of England, EASTN-DC Partners and academic colleagues in search for cross-fertilisation.

Coffee served

HUB session continues

14.00 h – 14.30 h

VRH360
VR visualisations and 360 Videos

Gabriel Radakovitch (Artistic Director), VR | Théo Radakovitch (Sound Designer) Ambisonic audio to 360 videos. A French company providing VR visualisations and ambisonics audio for architects and land developers.

14.30 h – 15.00 h

Deft Ear
Sound Branding, Game Audio, Sound Design & Music

Craig Burgess | Joe Shorrocks
Deft Ear is a Manchester-based company focused on the creation of tailored sound and music content, strategies and experiences to enhance brands, games, video, apps, VR and creative media content. Their tailored sound and music content, sound branding strategies, audio asset management, music licensing, creative development and technical production expertise incorporate a range of approaches designed to suit and augment your existing project identity, aesthetic and core aims and objectives; whether you’re developing a brand, game title, marketing campaign, app or just want to try a different approach.
@DeftEar

15.00 h – 15.45 h

RnD Enterprises
Spatial Audio Utilities for Unreal Game Engine

Richard Stevens co-authored The Game Audio Tutorial (Focal Press, 2011) and Game Audio Implementation (CRC Press, 2015) David Raybould and Nikos Stavropoulos (EA composer).

Working with Electroacoustic Composer Nikos Stavropoulos the team are exploring the potential for game engines to act as tools for spatial music composition, realisation, and performance. These tools enable composers to visualise and interact with their music in 3D space in ways not possible within a traditional digital audio workstation, and with the addition of VR capabilities to experience spatial music in a truly immersive and engaging way.

Break

Quick reset for demo setups

Length: 120 minutes

Institute for Cultural Practices
VR game- Postcards from South Asia

A virtual reality game created by MA and PhD students at the University of Manchester
for the Manchester Museum
Dr Kostas Arvanitis Senior Lecturer in Museology, University of Manchester
Frances Liddell – Postgraduate -MusM in Museology, University of Manchester
Falk Morawitz – PhD NOVARS Research Centre, , University of Manchester

Postcards from South Asia is a virtual reality (VR) game created by four MA students at the University of Manchester for the Manchester Museum’s expansion of a new South Asia gallery arriving in 2020. The task was to build on the VR game created by last year’s students and develop a VR experience that engages young people in South Asian culture. The game combines digital tourism with cultural objects from the museum’s collections in order to create an environment for ‘edutainment’ (educating and entertainment). In the game the player is transported to different heritage sites around South Asia and there are various mini games which the player can complete. Each mini game relates to the heritage site or country in which it resides offering insight into that culture. Some mini games also incorporate a cultural object that can be found in the museum collection. Throughout the game, the player is able to take photographs which can be kept in an inventory and then uploaded to social media as ‘postcards’. This act of sharing postcards hopes to prompt a form of informal learning and social interaction, cementing the information learnt from the mini games.
The game is currently still in development stages and therefore only hosts one level in arcade style which is based in the old town of Galle, Sri Lanka. In this level the player will take part in traditional stilt fishing, play a game of Mancala and help to cook a local delicacy. Future developments of this game will involve the creation of more levels based in different countries with a narrative that will help to thread these levels together.

Augmented Reality for Musical Instruments
Manusamo & Bzika

Alena Mesarosova (Slovakia), Manuel Ferrer (Valencia). Architect Alena Mésárošová is co-founder (with visual artist Manuel Ferrer Hernandéz) of the interdisciplinary art group Manusamo & Bzika, which focuses on the creation of interactive installations involving the use of augmented reality and 3D modelling. Since 2006, the group has produced creative AR work for numerous festivals and projects in Slovakia, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Alena holds a degree in Ingenier-Architecture (Inzinier architekt) at the Fakulta Umení, Technická Univerzita v Košiciach, Slovakia as well as a bachelor’s and recently completed a PhD at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Ferrer holds a PhD by the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. The AR demos will include musical instruments and more.