News by Topic: Games, Film, And Digital Media

Zach Sheikh, a fourth-year game design and development student, is battling a rare cancer for the third time in his young life. As a result of being all too familiar with illness and grief, Sheikh has wished for help creating a game jam to raise awareness for children experiencing loss and serious illnesses, and RIT’s MAGIC Spell Studios is partnering with the Dear Jack Foundation to make this wish come true.

Researchers at RIT are building a serious video game to help cities prepare for, prevent, and respond to cyberattacks. RIT received a more than $600,000 grant and was selected by the Army Cyber Institute (ACI) at West Point to develop the cyber exercise game and a framework for future development.

Hanif Rahbari, an assistant professor of computing security, was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to make connected vehicles more reliable and secure against quantum attacks.

RIT has again been ranked as one of the top game design universities in the nation. RIT was named No. 5 on the Animation Career Review list of Top 50 Game Design Schools and Colleges in the U.S. and No. 2 in New York state.

The crown jewel of RIT’s Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction & Creativity, MAGIC Spell Studios brings together the university’s academic strengths in game design and development, film and animation, and digital media, with a commercialization focus that provides Hollywood-scale virtual production experiences for students and clients.

Tayton T. Troidl, a fifth-year film and animation student, received the inaugural award for Best Documentary Student Filmmakers: East Region at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Student Film Awards. The award ceremony celebrates African American, Asian American, Latino, and women student directors.

Forbes has named RIT alumnus Colin McDonald among the top young entrepreneurs helping to make tomorrow a brighter day. McDonald ’22 (computer science) and his software development agency, Moonsworth, were named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2023 in the Games category.

WXXI’s “Connections” program features Owen Gottlieb, assistant professor of interactive games and media.

Tina Cannaday Chapman DaCosta ’04 MS, ’14 MFA is using her parents’ life stories to teach important lessons about diversity, equity, and inclusion. In fall 2022, the director of RIT’s Diversity Theater program released Dear Eleanor, her second short film based on her parents’ lives.

RIT is vying to be the first university to develop and have a game character accepted into the wildly popular online game Dota 2. The character, or courier, in the form of a tiger, was developed in MAGIC Spell Studios by a team of former RIT students and a faculty adviser.

The Society for the Protection and Care of Children (SPCC) was founded in Rochester, N.Y., in 1875, and yet there are many people in the city who are not familiar with the organization. Capturing the positive impact the SPCC has on families, and sharing the many valuable resources the organization provides, was a challenge that members of RIT’s College of Art and Design accepted.

Animation Career Review ranks RIT No. 8 among the top 50 AR/VR colleges in the United States.