Mr Matthew Bett

Contact info

m.bett@abertay.ac.uk

+44 (0)1382 30 8352

Biography

I consider myself something of a modern day 'renaissance man' in that I have a broad experience of many subject areas and skill sets.

Fundamentally I am an engineer. A problem solver that draws on my experience and knowledge through conventional engineering, art and design, game design, programming and mathematics to solve problems and create new things! I love to create and hopefully inspire the same type of enthusiasm for engineering in the students that I teach. I have been fortunate not only to have worked in many areas but to currently be working at the cutting edge of hardware and visualisation with the games, film and special effects industry as part of my ongoing research work which is thourougly rewarding and fascinating!

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Teaching
Research

Currently I teach on the undergraduate Computer games programs.

My areas of responsibility are teaching computer graphics, games programming techniques and procedural methods primarily. Across all these areas the intention is not to 'train' individuals in a particular API or hardware technique, but rather to give a solid understanding of the fundamental knowledge behind each subject so that it can be applied in any area.

Interests

My Research interests cover a variety of areas and apply to Games, graphics and virtual film production and game hardware, including:

Procedural content creation: Generation of almost anything procedurally. My background in this derives from mathematics through to fractals, Perlin-noise based techniques and growth systems. Many problems of content creation can be solved with procedural methods, but the real challenge is to create tools allowing the direction and manipulation of these techniques to a usable end. Currently looking problems from the creation of a massive procedural asteroid belt down to the creation of procedural snowflakes.

Virtual Production tools and techniques: The film industry is moving more towards real-time representation of film assets for pre-production purposes. This includes techniques such as performing virtual Camera work on pre-production assets. My work includes the development of a bespoke virtual camera management system using easily available Game hardware (Motion controllers) to facilitate a fully featured virtual camera for a fraction of commercial solutions. Work on this camera system on a variety of platforms and applications is ongoing with the system already having been used on an upcoming Hollywood release.

Virtual Reality: Tied in with films and non game uses there are some exciting applications in virtual reality as a film production tool. Various problems are thrown up with non-immersive applications of virtual reality and my work is examining various aspects of this in conjunction with previously developed tools for the film industry. There is also an aspect of examining other sensory applications and hardware combinations of virtual reality as a possible component of original art installations and use for persons with disabilities.

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