For students and industry professionals with an interest in visual effects, game engines and their cross-over into other mediums and industries, this was a must-see event. 

Timothy, a film student at AIT, came along hoping to gain industry insights from an expert.

“I find these master classes very beneficial as you connect with industry people, the presentations are always very well prepared, and you just get to communicate with like-minded people.” 

As well as explaining his work, Lukas gave our students a practical demonstration, setting up one of our guests with a motion capture suit, gloves and helmet rig, before showing how the captured data can be translated to a 3D animated character in real time.  

“That was very enjoyable,” Timothy said after the event. “Super interesting just to get some deep insight into the newest software, technologies, and an actual presentation of how to set a motion capture suit up. That was excellent.”    

“I can’t tell where my spot in this industry will be, but I’m definitely very excited.” 

Victor is also studying film, and is in his first year of a bachelor degree at AIT. 

“It was pretty cool to see how motion capture works in real life,” Victor said.  

“It’s not where I’m aiming at the moment, but it’s something that for how the industry works now, you have to learn, we have to know the basics, to be able to help someone on a set.” 

“You bring people from different kinds of courses – there’s people from animation, there’s people studying film, studying 3D, and everyone kind of has to work together on a set, so it’s good to know different experiences… it’s really cool.”   

As for our guest speaker, Lukas sees great things ahead for our creative students.

“We are living in an era, where, gaming, creativity, 3D animation, programming, you can have a bright future, and that is not going to stop, it’s going to be continually increasing.”    

And he believes Australia is the ideal place to pursue that bright future.

“Australia, it’s a really good place to break into the industry, because it’s very accessible.”

“So, my best advice is, if you love art, if you’re into the passion, just do what your heart’s telling you.”

And his advice for times when the path to that dream career doesn’t seem to be going so smoothly? 

“I fail. Yeah, I make mistakes, absolutely. But they help me to become better or to open myself to new opportunities, because when one door closes, ten more of them, they open. And you may feel that that’s the end of your career. No, it is not. What is really happening is that, Universe, Life, The Future, is giving you options coming up to you. You just need to open your eyes.”    

In a career defined by so many big moments, it must be hard to choose ones that stand out, but Lukas was good enough to share a few of his treasured memories with us.

“When you travel with artists in a tour and you see your work, or your design, or your engineering work on a huge screen and you have like, 60 – 70,000 people cheering – even if they don’t know that you exist – but it’s a nice ego [boost]. Yeah, it’s great. It feels great.” 

Charlotte, from AIT, described the excitement students had to learn from Lukas at this event.

“The talk ran way overtime, but people were still engaged and there were LOTS of questions. We could’ve stayed another hour, so we had to turn the lights off to beckon people to go home!”

And Steven, from our partnerships team, had this to say about the evening.

“I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone involved that made tonight amazing! Everyone had great energy, we had heaps of engagement with the students, alumni, and industry – shows everyone’s time and energy was all worth it.

“Wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else!”