{"id":2921,"date":"2021-06-04T11:06:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T10:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/eda-news\/?p=2921"},"modified":"2022-03-08T11:42:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T11:42:22","slug":"meet-digital-arts-graduate-sam-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/2021\/06\/04\/meet-digital-arts-graduate-sam-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Digital Arts graduate Sam White"},"content":{"rendered":"

We caught up with Sam White, School of Engineering and Digital Arts<\/a> alumnus, to find out more about his career since leaving Kent.<\/p>\n

In addition to an undergraduate degree in Digital Arts<\/a>, Sam also studied MSc Digital Visual Effects at Kent and graduated in December 2020.<\/p>\n

In Feb 2021, Sam started working at Random42<\/a> as a 3D Generalist. Random42 are the global leader in providing 3D medical animation and scientific storytelling solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does a typical day in your current role look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a 3D Generalist, I have had the opportunity to be hands on through the entire 3D pipeline; from modelling, lighting, texturing and composting, to animation and simulations. In between meetings and production work, I will squeeze in some Research and Development time in areas I feel I need to improve on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How do you feel your time at Kent prepared you for working in the industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The course taught me how to use current, industry standard software, such as, Maya, Nuke and the Adobe Suite.<\/p>\n

I was given the opportunity to be involved in a collaborative project with an overseas university in projection-mapping (full video here<\/a> and Sam’s trailer here<\/a>). It was a great experience working with friends and other students abroad.<\/p>\n

\"Media
Media Art Nexus | Is Anyone There – photo of Sam’s work taken by Solomon Quek Jia Liang<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the four years I was at Kent, the feedback I got from my lecturers and friends helped train my eye on how things should look and behave, and this has helped me with what I am doing now, being able to listen to advice and keep on improving until I get to the best result.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was your favourite memory from your time at Kent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my Masters degree, on an FX assignment, I was making a short clip of a DNA strand, inspired by one of the scenes from the movie \u201cPrometheus\u201d. During the look development stages, it was the first time where I felt genuine excitement in my work. I remember showing everyone just an early still image render. I submitted the work to the Lumen Arts Student Award<\/a>, and it managed to get all the way to the finals!<\/p>\n

\"Lumen
Sam’s DNA Image, which was shortlisted for the Lumen Prize Student Award<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are you working on any exciting projects that you can share?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been working on some very cool projects, some of which I’m not allowed to share! Here’s a\u00a0 preview video showcasing a bite-sized project that was designed to teach me all the fundamentals and workflows of Random42\u2019s production:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And here are a few shots of some early practice work:<\/p>\n

\"Molecule
Molecule made up of textures to resemble a light bulb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"2.Receptors
Receptors and lipid surface as practice using TyFlow in 3DS Max<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"experimenting
Experimenting with translucent materials in VRay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are your plans for the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I plan to continue as a 3D Generalist at Random42. In the future, I aspire to go on to be an FX artist \/ FX Technical Director. There\u2019s immense satisfaction watching a simulation manifest into something truly amazing.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to someone wanting to follow the same career path?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Build friendships. Share and learn from others. Learn to work in a team. Be humble. Get used to critical feedback and iterating on your projects.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you Sam! You can keep up-to-date with Sam’s work on his Vimeo<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a>, or Facebook<\/a>. You can also view Sam’s show reel, here:
\nhttps:\/\/vimeo.com\/487995848<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We caught up with Sam White, School of Engineering and Digital Arts alumnus, to find out more about his career since leaving Kent. In addition … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55813,"featured_media":2925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[807,99358,124],"tags":[238534],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55813"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2921"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2938,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions\/2938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}