Every year we put hundreds of game development students through their paces with Search for a Star and Sumo Digital Rising Star and this year is no different. With the 31 finalists confirmed and announced, and Finals Day all booked and confirmed for the 17th April, it’s time to recognise some of the amazing industry professionals who’ve volunteered their time to assess the projects submitted.

With a whole load of assessors coming from our sponsor studios, we have to say a special thank you to Sumo Digital, nDreams, TT Odyssey, Firesprite, d3t, Boss Alien, Epic Games, Red Kite Games and First Touch Games.

As always, their support is what makes the competition possible and we can’t wait to celebrate with everyone on Finals Day!

To join us there with a full day of networking, industry talks and studio mini-expo, make sure you’ve signed up for a FREE ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/search-for-a-star-2019-finals-day-conference-the-grads-in-games-awards-tickets-58107260380

It’s not just our sponsors who have helped give feedback to the students who have entered this year, and with a sizeable number assessing across both Stage 1 and Stage 2 (which is a pretty mammoth task) we’d be remiss to not give a massive shout out to everyone who’s helped this year:

Special Thanks

A huge thank you to Thad Frogley at Boss Alien for leading development on the Stage 1 C++ test, alongside Scott Bevin at d3t, Andrew Greensmith at Red Kite Games & the team at Sumo Digital. It was a tough test (!), and the team has really created something that showcases the high level C++ knowledge of students.

Once again we’d also like to give a special thanks to Brian Cox of Ubisoft Shanghai for his work in developing the Stage 2 base project for the programming challenge. Brian created a great framework for students to build upon, show their skills in C# and Unity, and take in exciting new directions.

2019 Search For A Star Assessors

Art (multiple strands)

Ben Brudenell – Senior Art Director, Boss Alien.

Liam Cullen – Art Director, Perchang.

Simon Dew – Lead Artist, Sega Hardlight.

Anthony O Donnell – Lead Artist, Firesprite.

Chris Downey – Art Manager, Sumo Digital.

Dave Hamblin – Art Director, Microsoft.

Dom Hood – Art Director, Sumo Digital.

Claire McClaughry – Lead Artist, Well Played Games.

Kelvin Tuite – Art Director, Sumo Digital.

Adam Vickerstaff – 3D Generalist, freelance.

Claire Warren – 3D Artist, State of Play Games.

Steve Wilding – Art Director, TT Odyssey.

Keiron White – Artist, Bulkhead Interactive.

Environment Art

Paul Clayton – Senior Environment Artist, Ninja Theory.

Adam Coburn – Environment Artist, freelance.

Gemma Craig – 3D Artist, Frontier Developments.

Philip Howlett – Lead Artist, Sumo Digital.

Tom Lawson – Environment Artist, Ubisoft.

Anthea van Leeuwan – Environment Artist, Playtonic.

Ben Merrick – Lead Environment Artist, Wargaming UK.

Stefan Oprisan – Material Artist, Frontier Developments.

Julius Peters – Environment Artist, Splash Damage.

Freddie Pitcher – Artist, Sumo Digital.

Nicolas Pirot – Technical Artist, Rocksteady.

Tom Pickard – Associate Art Director, Boss Alien.

Roberto Quye – Environment Artist, SIE London Studio.

Tom Russell – Environmental Outsource Artist, Deepsilver Dambuster Studios.

Ian Stubbington – Lead Environment Artist.

Vasileios Tsagkaropoulos – Junior 3D Artist, Fireproof Games.

Jennifer Tucker – Environment Artist, Cloth Cat Animation.

Ben Wilson – Material Artist, Ubisoft Stockholm.

Stuart Wilson – Environment Artist.

Character Art

Sam Beattie – Principal Character Artist, Rebellion Warwick.

Claudio Clemente – Senior Character Artist, Cloud Imperium.

Aaron Humphreys – Character Artist, Just Add Water.

Ryan Kidd – Senior Character Artist, Studio Gobo.

Nik Love-Gittins – Games Artist, freelance.

Jake Roddis – Character Artist, Deepsilver Dambuster Studios.

Phil Tsang – Art Director, Rocket Impact.

Programming

Brian Beacom – Lead Engineer, Outplay Entertainment.

Scott Bevin – Programming Lead, d3t.

Greg Booker – Lead Programmer, Wargaming UK.

Daniel Collinson – Programmer, Firesprite.

Cateldo Fanelli – Senior Gameplay Programmer, Cloud Imperium.

Iain Gilfeather – Lead Programmer, TT Odyssey.

Fred Horgan – Senior Developer, Playfusion.

Michael Iorizzo – Lead Programmer, Bulkhead Interactive.

William Leonard – UI Programmer, Lockwood Publishing.

James Persaud – Senior Programmer, Paradox Interactive.

Guillermo Quesada – Senior Software Engineer, Magnopus.

Lukas Roper – Developer, freelance.

James Tatum – Programmer, Bulkhead Interactive.

Simon Tomlinson – Programmer, freelance.

Tomek Witczak – Senior Unreal Developer (XR), Rewind.

Animation

Gary Bendelow – Animator, Gecko Studios.

Gary Edwards – Principal Animator, nDreams.

Martyn Gutteridge – Animator, Digicast.

Daniele Pezzella – Lead Animator, Playmagic.

Dan Seager – Animator.

VFX

Naveed Aasim – Art Director, ChandNagar Studio.

Aaron Miller – Principal VFX Artist, nDreams.

Tibor Papp – Head of Digital, Pixelwarp Studios.

Vidas Rimkevicius – Visual Effects Artist, freelance.

Adonis Stevenson – Lead VFX Artist, Criterion Games.

A MASSIVE thank you to all of the above – we can’t stress enough how much your support means not only to us, but to the students who have entered the competition!