MSc Computer Games & Entertainment

Key academic staff

Professor William Latham (Co-director of the MSc CGE and Leader of the Business modules) 

William is well known for his pioneering work with IBM (1987-93) in evolutionary art and computing at the IBM UK Scientific Centre in Winchester. He is co-author of the book 'Evolutionary Art and Computers', published in 1992, which covers the work during this period with the mathematician Stephen Todd. His award-winning organic computer animated films were shown at SIGGRAPH and many computer graphics events around the world, and he had major art exhibitions, touring the UK, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan for four years. During this period his work received much press and TV coverage and a number of IBM patents emerged from this work.

From 1993 to 2003, William was CEO of Computer Artworks Ltd, which initially worked with the music industry for two years (clients included BMG Music) then focused on producing computer games for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC. Employing around 90 people, clients included Microsoft, Nokia, Atari and Sony Computer Entertainment. Hit games developed included the award-winning ‘The Thing’ (PS2, Xbox, PC) for Vivendi Universal which was a number one hit in the UK and Germany. (The game is a sequel to the cult John Carpenter film of the same name.) Other products included the cult PC game Evolva for Virgin Interactive and Organic Art for Warner Interactive and Mattel. The average turnover was approximately £5m per annum, with two development studios in London and Brighton. William was responsible for negotiating and closing contracts valued at $100K to $5m with USA and European Publishers.

William Latham is Director and Founder in 2003 of Games Audit Ltd, which is an Operational and Technical Due Diligence Company focusing on the development of Playstation3, Xbox360, Nintendo Wii, PC and MMO games for clients which include Banks, VCs and City Investment companies, Games Publishers and Developers. Games Audit clients include: 

• Ingenious Ventures, Add Partners and IDG Ventures, ITI Techmedia (Scotland), Imprimatur Capital, IFG (International Film Guarantors), Add Zero, Nesta, NCC (National Computing Center; escrow provider).

On Creative Computing courses provided to international students, and in the context of a flourishing creative industry, William featured in the following video:

• YouTube - Inspiration Session 19: BSc Creative Computing Contemporary Applications in Computing

William originally trained at Oxford University BFA (1979-82) and the Royal College of Art MA (1982-85). William was a Running Stream Professor of Creative Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University from 2004 to 2006, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London before becoming Professor of Computing at Goldsmiths in early 2007.

Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie (Co-Director of the MSc CGE and Leader of the Maths and Graphics modules)

Frederic was previously the director and founder of the former MSc in Arts Computing at Goldsmiths, before joining William Latham to create the new MSc Computer Games and Entertainment. He received his BEng in Electrical Engineering, with honors in aeronautics, from the Polytechnic School of Montreal, his MEng from McGill University in Computer Vision and Biomedical Imagery, and his PhD from Brown University (in 3D shape representation). In the mid-nineties he was leading R&D projects in the industry of 3D Geographical Information Systems, with Thales – part of Thomson-CSF – based in Paris, France.

His current research interests incorporate ideas from computer vision, together with the physics of waves and shocks and their modelling in modern mathematics via singularity theory. Frederic is also working on perceptual models grounded in geometry, based in part on Gestalt theory. Frederic has initiated several 'shape-based' projects mixing the arts, humanities, social sciences, and computing, including CyberCity and CyberMonument, digital sculpting (with the Mid-Ocean Studio), digital archaeology (co-founder of the SHAPE lab at Brown University), and FoldSynth Protein Folding Visualisation Project (with William Latham and Stephen Todd at Goldsmiths and the Bioinformatics group at Imperial College, London).

• YouTube: Creative Computing @ Goldsmiths, April 2011.

Dr Marco Gillies (Leader of the Animation and Physics in games modules)

Marco Gillies has over ten years' research experience working on animation and 3D characters. He is the author of the Piavca real time character engine and is a lead developer on Cal3D, the leading open source 3D character animation middleware. His software has been used for a variety of applications including immersive virtual reality, education, multi-user virtual worlds, dance and healthcare. He gained a PhD in character animation and AI from the University of Cambridge in 2001, and has since worked in research and teaching at BT, University College London (UCL) and Goldsmiths.

Marco's main research interests are on animated virtual characters and particularly expressive body language. This broad area covers many aspects, including animation, AI and the simulation of behaviour, motion capture and the analysis of body movement. His most recent work has centred on Data Driven Methods for creating responsive virtual characters. Marco holds a PhD from UCL. More details are on his research page.

Andy Thomason (Leader of the Programming, Tools and Middleware, and AI modules)

Andy is a games industry veteran – from his involvement in computer chess and console games in the 1970s through Psygnosis technology group, Rage games, Confounding factor and now Sony Computer Entertainment. He's now split between SN Systems, Sony's console tools specialist, and Goldsmiths. Andy has contributed to many recent triple-A game titles by troubleshooting performance issues.

Andy holds a half time senior lecturing position with us, and keeps a half time position at Sony, SN Systems in Bristol, as a Compiler Engineer (since 2004). Previously he was Technology programmer at Confounding factor (2003-04), on the game "B-17 Flying Fortress: The mighty 8th" (1999-2003), at Psygnosis (1994-99).

Andy has experience with every aspect of computer science from video codecs, speech recognition, game engines, mathematics, geometry processing, operating systems to compilers.

Andy is a contibutor to the Game Programming Gems series and has given talks at GDC and other conferences. He has been featured in IT now magazine and on Gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2468/day_in_the_life_andy_thomason_.php
http://ice-gic.ieee-cesoc.org/2009/tutorials.html

Recent blog entry by Andy on #AltDevBlogADay  called " Building the perfect coder " (April 11, 2011).

Andy holds a BSc with Honours in Physics and Electronics from the University of Manchester, and an MSc in Mathematics from the Open University.

Gareth Edwards (Leader of the Shaders and Rendering module, co-lead on Maths and Graphics)

Gareth Edwards has 30 years' experience of high-end graphics programming in animation, rendering, special effects for videos and movies.

Initially working for CAL Video as a programmer, then Technical Director, in 1989 he was headhunted by The Moving Picture Company and during this time he won many awards for technical animation and special effects, especially for commercials. In 1994 he was headhunted by Cinesite, the premier international KODAK digital film effects company. During this time he worked between Los Angeles and London.

In 1998 he was appointed CEO of Digital Renaissance HDT, the largest digital effects and digital imaging company outside of the West Coast of the USA. He headed the European end of the world famous Digital Domain requiring Gareth to work between New York and Digital Renaissance in Oberhausen, Northern Germany.

He has started several of his own companies, including: BiBC (co-founded), the UK company which first led the video download revolution (1999); Stargate Resources, which specialises in data-driven real-time visualisation in architecture, scientific visualisation and engineering (2007); and DeepView, which specialises in 3D stereo vision (2008). He has worked for many of the best known companies in the world, including BT, the BBC, IBM, tiscali and Industrial Light and Magic.

Gareth is a graduate from Grays School of Art and the Royal College of Art (MA).

Dr Mick Grierson (Leader of the Audio engineering and Mobile technology modules)

Mick Grierson specialises in applied real-time audiovisual interaction and cognition research. He has over 15 years' experience working in film, television and music, creating motion graphics, music, sound and interactive installations for the arts, games and entertainment industries. He is currently principle investigator on a £300,000 three-year industry fellowship, developing a range of interactive audiovisual software for platforms including iPhone, iPad and PS3. This work continues his previous fully-funded research in experimental audiovisual interaction within commercial gaming environments.

As a software developer and artist, clients range from traditional broadcast (BBC, Channel 4, Universal), to public institutions and researchers (Beau Lotto, Science Museum, soundandmusic.org), to world-leading musicians and artists (Christian Marclay, Greyworld, Vernon Reid). Throughout 2005-06 he designed motion graphics and digital audiovisual installations for the hit TV show Derren Brown: Trick of the Mind, including the now classic "Zombie" experiment. In 2007 he released the Mabuse Audiovisual Composition environment, which has been downloaded by tens of thousands of VJs and performers. In 2008 he collaborated with the Sonic Arts Network and the South Bank Centre to create a freely available interactive audiovisual interface for use by people who are deaf and hard of hearing, and received considerable international press attention after demonstrating his Brain Computer Interface for Music to the BBC. In 2009 he released the open source C++ audio DSP library, Maximilian. Maximilian consists of professional level C++ DSP code for interactive audio, game and application software development.

Mick holds a PhD from the University of Kent. He is Director of Creative Computing at Goldsmiths.

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Alumni Lecturers

Gareth Lewis (Leader of the Advanced Programming and Tools and Middleware in Games modules, 2008-10)

Gareth Lewis helped us design the curriculum back in 2007, and then led the programming aspect of our courses the first two years, until the summer of 2010. Gareth went back to work full time for the industry in mid-2010.

His background is primarily in video games development and programming, having worked for several leading developers and publishers, including Acclaim, Sony SCEE and Mivrosoft Lionhead Studios, as well as being involved with some of the most creative products such as Peter Molyneux famous Fable and Black & White games franchise. In addition to teaching programming on the MSc CGE course, while at Goldsmiths he was a games technical management consultant working with clients across Europe, including ITI Techmedia (now part of Scottish Enterprise) and Hotgen.

Gareth has Master's degrees in Cognitive Psychology and Business Administration, Postgraduate Diplomas in Technology Management and Business Administration, and a degree in Computer Science.