The Home of Digital Media and Interaction Design, User Experience Design, Animation for Games, Web Design and Development, Games Development and Sound Design
Huge congratulations to our class of 2025, who presented their work at our exhibition day recently. Students of Digital Media and Interaction Design, Sound Design, Web Design and Development, UX Design and Animation for Games, demoed their projects to friends, family and industry experts, sharing all the fantastic work they have made this year. The showreel above features clips and posters from all the students that took part.
Look out for posts with more details of some of the projects soon and get in touch if you would like to be added to the invite list for next year!
Our year 4 students are putting the finishing touches to their Honours Projects ready to share them at the exhibition on the 14th May. Please drop in to Merchiston Campus between 11 and 12.30 to meet the students and see a huge range of projects. We’ll also be sharing their work here over the next few weeks.
For her honours project Anna Llompart Reus developed “Mindscape”, a Virtual Reality game developed with Unreal Engine 5, featuring six different levels. Mindscape aims to boost mental wellbeing among university students by intertwining Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness in an immersive narrative. The project explores VR’s effectiveness compared to non-VR interventions, highlighting VR’s potential for enhanced immersion and interaction in mental health support.
Anna concluded that although further research is required to fully comprehend the impact of VR for wellbeing, her project indicated a promising avenue for digital mental health interventions.
The images below show some of the detail of the project and you can see more of Anna’s work here – ArtStation – Anna Llompart
Anna’s poster describes the process she followed during the project.The Main hub that allows users to choose their path through the gameGlowing objects highlight interactionsSoft lighting helps to create a calm atmosphereA bright calm environment was createdThe ApothercaryAgain, lighting was key to creating the calming atmosphereInteriors contain lots of areas for users to explore
This post is part of a series celebrating the work the year 4 students have created for their honours projects. Thanks to Anna for allowing us to feature this work.
“The Tourist” is a short animation created by Manuel Herrera Reyes, based on the idea that even Monsters like to post reviews about their travels. Manuel’s love of quirky characters and fairytales is clear throughout the film, which also features some other surprise characters, that even the Monster decides are not worth eating!
Map showing the environment where the story takes place.
“The Tourist” Main character design
Additional Character Designs
This work was created for the 2D animation module run by Fiona Stewart and Andrew McKelvey. Thanks to Manuel for allowing us to feature his work.
Kakapookie is a short animation created by Kateryna Fatnieva for the 2D Animation module. The story features Kakapookie, who is based on the rare Kakapo, a ground dwelling parrot. In Kateryna’s story the bird turns out not to be quite as cute and cuddly as it looks! The illustrations were created using Illustrator before being animated in After Effects.
Goodnight Sara is a short animation made by Rebecca Allen for her year 2 2D animation project. In the film Sara discovers that being tired and stressed can lead to unexpected consequences.
Initial Character design for Sara
Design for Sara’s bedroom
Rebecca created her characters and backgrounds in Procreate to give a hand-drawn feel before rigging and animating in After Effects.
For his honours project, Johnny Viola investigated the use of motion graphics to increase engagement with history. The visuals used updated versions of colours and styles found in paintings of the period, giving the animation a rich texture that adds to the storytelling. Johnny also won a prize for this poster showcasing the work at the Honours poster day.
Visual Development – from sketch to final images
The poster explains the process Johnny followed to create the final motion graphic.
This post is part of a series celebrating the work the year 4 students have created for their honours projects. Thanks to Johnny for allowing us to feature this work.
Sensory Soundscapes was created by Ellen Scott for her honours project and focussed on visualisation techniques within virtual reality (VR) experiences. The project offers a unique, interactive and fully multisensory experience that transports participants through three musical environments. Each environment explores a different musical genre and music visualisation technique that users experience in VR via the Oculus Quest 2 headset. The clip above shows a walkthrough of the project, while the images below show some of the interiors created in Unreal Engine.
Different environments were created to represent the different soundscapes
3 different bar interiors were created – this one shows the Jazz bar
The Tiki bar
Ellen’s poster explains the process followed to create the project.
This post is part of a series celebrating the work the year 4 students have created for their honours projects. Thanks to Ellen for allowing us to feature this work.
BeWell is a mental well-being support and social app aimed at students. Jonathan followed a User centred process, involving his target users throughout to ensure that the solution met their needs. As well as a high-fidelity prototype suitable for user testing he created detailed brand guidelines and a design system to ensure consistency.
Jonathan’s poster explains the process he followed to create his app
This post is part of a series celebrating the work the year 4 students have created for their honours projects. Thanks to Jonathan for allowing us to feature this work.
Sarah’s honours project built on an idea she had originally had during a year 3 module, to create a wellbeing app. During the honours project she took the idea in a new direction, creating a Virtual Reality experience. “Fufilment” is a relaxing space that users can investigate while undertaking mindfulness activities such as icing cakes and swimming. Inspired by Studio Ghibli environments and colour palette, the space has an eclectic feel, which is further enhanced by clever lighting and sound design (and a few pet cats).
Sarah tested her project with users, who praised the look and feel of the project, giving her useful feedback to make navigating the space straightforward, as well as ideas for activities that could be developed in the future.
Sarah’s poster explains the process she followed to create the experience
The interior is designed to feel lived in but relaxing
The project features a surprise underwater scene
This post is part of a series celebrating the work the year 4 students have created for their honours projects. Thanks to Sarah for allowing us to feature this work.
