Game Design, Development, and Arts News

A class of RIT students is taking part in an international game design and development competition to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic and flatten the curve.

RIT students are creatively connecting with each other, using applications like Discord and Slack to virtually study and socialize day and night.

While all educators are contending with new challenges of teaching in the middle of a pandemic, teaching in the arts—a traditionally hands-on process—represents unique challenges.

While many college athletics are on a timeout during the pandemic, esports at RIT are plugged in and fully operational. This semester, RIT Esports has student groups playing 15 different competitive games, along with four teams to support esports operations. As teams begin their fall leagues, students are finding different ways to practice and scrimmage in a socially distanced manner.

Through a partnership with the popular online magazine, Vignelli Center lectures are being rebroadcast by Design Milk. The semester's first event featured an inspiring talk by creativity strategist Natalie Nixon.

Despite restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students at RIT are still finding ways to participate in hundreds of clubs and organizations this semester, including dancing, designing games, and even skydiving.

Professionals interested in learning how to use Unreal Engine to create interactive 3D can now do it online with RIT’s Unreal Engine Foundations Professional Certificate program on edX.

RIT is establishing Open@RIT, an initiative dedicated to supporting all kinds of “open work,” including — but not limited to — open source software, open data, open hardware, open educational resources, Creative Commons licensed work, and open research.

Normally lined with exhibits showcasing the talents of RIT faculty, students, and alumni, three RIT galleries are instead outfitted this semester with the desks and technology necessary to meet the academic needs of hundreds of first-year College of Art and Design students. The University and Bevier Galleries inside Booth Hall and the William Harris Gallery in Gannett Hall have been transformed into creative classrooms.

Students Joy Anderson (Film and Animation) and Aria A. Dines (Film and Animation; Illustration) are featured speakers for the Levine Center to End Hate's "Brave Spaces" event.

Film and Animation (Production option) student Sophie Walter further hones her video editing skills by working for RIT SportsZone, an on-campus production organization covering RIT athletics.

The unexpected transition to remote learning during the spring semester challenged faculty across RIT to experiment, create, and deploy new methods of instruction to ensure student success. As the university gears up for in-person and online classes—or a combination of both—faculty members are applying a wide range of lessons learned from the spring to keep academic momentum moving forward in the fall.