SPACE 2.0
Using Large Language Models to create a virtual client for psychology students at Howest to practice their conversational skills. Space 2.0 started in 2023 to 2024.
Sport Good Governance Game
The Sport Good Governance Game (SG3) Erasmus project consists of 3 parts: the elaboration of an awareness game, a workshop and an action plan to inspire European sport managers (to be) and help them become better ethical leaders. Participants in the SG3 program learn to recognize various elements that can threaten the integrity of their sport and they learn the basic principles of good governance and ethical leadership that they can apply in their own organization.
AI in Production
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a buzzword that has become hard to ignore lately. Despite much attention to the subject at conferences and in the media, it can remain vague what the realistic possibilities are today. In recent years, we have had AI breakthroughs in the field of self-driving cars, voice technology and playing various games. However, a clear picture of how this game, VFX and animation can improve production pipelines is still lacking.
Scan4Stories
Today’s heritage visitor is looking for unique experiences. To shape these experiences, strong stories and technological innovation are essential. However, there is no clear frame of reference for how to successfully combine both elements. Scan4Stories tries to provide an answer to this challenge. Scan4Stories is a TETRA project in which HOWEST’s Tourism and Recreation Management and Digital Arts & Entertainment programs collaborate. The project builds knowledge about Storytelling and explores the technical possibilities of Immersive technologies such as Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality. Scan4stories started in 2019 and ended in 2021.
Procedural 3D
Creating a 3D model using a procedural workflow starts with a simple shape just like classic 3D. Manipulations are then carried out to achieve the intended result after a number of steps. Based on an existing model, a similar model can be obtained by adjusting the parameters associated with those manipulations. The advantage lies in the fact that a large part of the work to create a 3D model can be reused. Procedural 3D started in 2019 and ended in 2021.
Procedural Textile Generation
For a renown Belgian carpet textile manufacturer, we created a workflow for procedurally generating a photo-realistic carpet. We used Houdini, an innovative software package mainly used in the VFX industry to procedurally render and create 3D content, for example special effects in movies. Houdini allows a technical game artist to predefine how the content should look and act by means of scripts and algorithms. This allows great flexibility in rendering a variation of similar but unique visuals of 3D objects.
SIVAR
With this “Sector Innovating Virtual & Augmented Reality” project, partners and external organizations are guided in defining this added value in their current workflow. The project consists of two parts: a first part aimed at developing concrete proofs of concept where VR and AR technology is applied within the industrial sector and a second part aimed at a broader knowledge transfer for partners from other sectors. This project ran from 2018 to 2019.
iPlay
From flexible, lightweight LED display solutions to sensor matrices and camera-based motion tracking, various developments lead to significant potential in the professional sports, fitness, gaming and health sectors. These technologies make it possible to gather large amounts of data on the user’s movement in real time and interact with mobile devices. In addition to targeted feedback, this also enables immersive experiences. However, current innovations only include limited visualization elements, awkward VR goggles and give almost no feedback. Moreover, most systems are extremely expensive.

PROJECTS