Five AIT student projects were selected as finalists in this year’s AEAF Awards, and two of the AIT finalists came away as winners in their respective categories. We are incredibly proud of the students, their teachers, and all the hard work that has gone into these projects. Each year, the prestigious AEAF Awards celebrate the best work across animation, VFX, games, and immersive media.

The students’ work made an appearance alongside entries from international industry leaders, including MPC Film, Method Studios, and Weta Digital, and local legends including Flying Bark and Cheeky Little Media.

 

AIT and The Forge

Students enrolled in AIT’s Bachelor of Interactive Media or a Bachelor of Digital Design participate in a final year unit called The Forge. This intensive unit prepares students for the demands of industry by having them fulfil an industry brief in a simulated workplace environment.

Students collaborate as a production team, and at the end of the subject will have their own production – ready to add to their portfolio, and to submit to awards and competitions, including the AEAF.

 

The AEAF Awards

The AEAF Awards are Australia’s leading annual awards, recognising the world’s best artists and studios creating animation and visual effects. An internationally recognised jury panel reviews hundreds of entries before announcing the finalists for each of the 20 categories of competition.

Previous winners of the AEAF Awards are among the world’s premier post-production companies, effects houses, and film studios.

The AEAF Awards Night included a screening of the Finalists and Winners Showreel – a compilation of clips from all finalists and winning projects in all categories.

Bringing together the best talent from the industry alongside students still honing their craft makes the AEAF a true showcase of current and future talent working with animation and VFX.

Check out this year’s finalists and medal winners below:

 

VR Experience Category

 

Title: ColorgizeVR

Crew: Nathalia Andrade Da Silva and Gabor Vermes

Award: Bronze

 

In collaboration with their AIT teacher Carlton Zhu and AIT’s industry partner LiminalVR, students Nathalia and Gabor created ColorgizeVR.

 

“Our aim was to create a short, energising VR experience as our final university project.

We had a short period of time to make it happen but the support from our teacher Carlton and the weekly catch up meetings with Adam from LiminalVR made it much more manageable.

Step by step we built a virtual reality game from scratch, where we created our own colour palette, designed the sounds and tweaked the initial idea weekly, added extra mechanics and simplified the physics system.

Both me and Nathalia were very proud of the outcome and we are extremely happy to make it to the top three of the AEAF award in 2021.

It was an honour to work with Nathalia and Carlton Zhu on my very first VR game, I have learnt a lot from both of them. Also, I would like to say thank you to Adam and Damian from LiminalVR for the opportunity and their support to work on such a unique project.”

• Gabor Vermes

 

Watch ColorgizeVR here.