Vicon Standard 2020

VICON STANDARD 2020
A
SIMPLE MOTION
CAPTURE SYSTEM
DELIVERING POWERFUL
RESULTS
ENTERTAINMENT
UW-Stout is proving that it doesn’t need an elaborate
system to capture the imaginations of students
DAVE BECK
Director, School of Art &
Design and Associate Dean
of Humanities College
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Several years ago the
University of Wisconsin-
Stout was ready to upgrade its
design offering with a motion
capture studio, but as a public
institution it had to walk a thin
line between providing students
with an industry-ready, premium
technology and managing a tight
budget. Vicon had the flexibility
to offer that balance.
“We’re the largest art and design program in the upper Midwest,” says Dave Beck, director
for the award-winning School of Art and Design and an associate dean at UW-Stout. “We’re
just over 1,000 students in art and design. Two of the largest and fastest-growing programs
are game design and animation, and our game design program is nationally ranked by the
Princeton Review.”
Destinations for alumni include Dreamworks; Last of Us games developer, Naughty Dog;
and the studio behind the more recent Halo games, 343 Industries. Sectors such as
construction and architectural visualization are increasingly taking an interest in the
programs’ graduates, too.
It’s not just big players on the national stage who are drawing on UW-Stout’s graduate pool,
either. Staff are seeing growing opportunities to work with, and provide a talent pipeline for,
local companies interested in the possibilities of animation and gaming. To keep pace, it was
important to provide students with experience in using the latest production technologies.
“A polytechnic university is all about preparing students for careers through applied, handson
learning. Everything they’re doing is not just doing it from afar, it’s actually getting your
hands dirty and creating it,” says Beck.
With all of that in mind, establishing a motion capture offering was increasingly becoming
a priority.
“We felt that it was important to provide the students with an additional set of tools, an
additional set of knowledge and competencies,” expands Andrew Williams, program director
for game design and development. “When we look at the game and animation areas,
especially in the larger, upper echelons of the industry, specialization is absolutely key to any
viable path. We felt that this is another area where our students could specialize so that they
could even better position themselves for some of those opportunities in the future.”
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