Welcome to the 2025 Industry Week at Solent University.  
Industry Week is a workshop and Masterclass focused week of professional activities led by professionals and a great chance for you to dive deeper outside of the conventional curriculum offering at Solent and learn something new.
We are very proud to present this years lineup, so please do sign up below on the EventBrite Links provided and we'll see you there! 

MONDAY
MONDAY 3rd March AM | Location: JM304
10.00 – 13:00 Tom Gough |  Digital Giant
Lighting in Unreal (Lighting)
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
Returning this year, Tom Gough, Solent CGI/ VFX Alumni and exceptional vehicle artist, has been working at Hutch Games before making the move more recently to Digital Giant.  We are very fortunate to have him drop by for this AM workshop on how to light your scenes properly in Unreal Engine.
Check out some of his work here : https://tomgough.artstation.com/
MONDAY 3rd March PM | Location: JM007
14.00 – 15:15 Jessie Burgess |  Foundry 
Mari Introduction (Texture)
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
We are incredibly fortunate to have not just one, but two exceptional presenters from the Foundry join us this year!  The Mari presentation will be led by Jessie Burgess, Senior Nuke and Mari Creative Specialist.  Mari is an incredibly powerful texture and shader development package created by The Foundry, in this session, Jessie will be showing you a run through of the software before taking a Q and A on how you can incorporate this in your Solent University projects.
Learn more about Mari here: https://learn.foundry.com/mari
MONDAY 3rd March PM | Location: JM018 ​​​​​​​
14.00 – 17:00 Patrick McAndrew |  DarcStudio 
Introduction to DarcStudio and Visualisation (Arch Vis)
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
Patrick is returning for another ace workshop to showcase how the skills you have been building on within the Arch Viz module are readily relevant in local studios.  Incredibly knowledgeable with traditional art, Patrick has delivered some fantastic talks in the past on how these skills are routinely applied at the studio within client work.    
TUESDAY
TUESDAY 4rd March AM + PM | Location: JM018
9:30 – 17:30 Ruth Hutton |  Foundry 
Katana Workshop (Lighting/ Look Development)
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
Katana workshop at Solent University Industry week.  The Workshop will be led by Ruth Hutton, Senior Content and Katana Creative Specialist. 
Katana is an incredibly powerful and industry leading tool for developing lighting and look development setups.  Ruth will be giving you an introduction to the tools before walking you through a sample project and how it is used in a studio.​​​​​​​
   
WEDNESDAY
- LONDON TRIP - 
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
International Women’s Day (March 8th)
Coach Pickup : 7.30am outside The Spark
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WEDNESDAY 5th March 11.00AM | Location: 1920, 1st floor, 109 –111 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3BW
1920vfx is an award-winning visual effects studio established in 2013 by producer Scott Griffin and Visual Effect Supervisors Ludo Fealy and Chrys Aldred. Situated in the heart of both London and Bristol, we are an exceptional team of makers and problem solvers.
 Working with brands, agencies and production companies in Advertising, TV and Film, we guarantee an excellent post-production and VFX service. We maintain our outstanding reputation and spirit, building relationships that last.
WEDNESDAY 5th March 2.00 - 4.00PM | Location: 16 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4DD
One of Us is a visual effects studio with a focus on design and collaboration. We have a reputation for being visually intelligent and bold, and for finding creative and inventive ways to make the best use of visual effects. We are excited by the evolving challenges and possibilities of filmmaking. Above all, we want to make beautiful images!
WEDNESDAY 5th March 7.00 - 10.00PM / EVE | Location: 16 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4DD
This month’s meetup is an all-female lineup, to coincide with International Women’s Day (March 8th).  The evening's lineup includes;
Patterns in the Chaos: Navigating a career in design & technology (with a side of marketing!).
Interviewee: Melissa Knight, Creative Director of Marketing at Chaos.
Interviewer: Ioanna Ivanova, 3D London host.
Timeless Muses. Behind the Pixels
Nadia Monte (Binyan) & Ines Dga (Sybarite) share their vision and discuss their first collaboration.
Rebekah Gao - Associate Lecturer @ University of the Arts London
An innovative professional crafting engaging online and blended learning content specialising in 3D garment design.
The evening is sponsored by our friends at Chaos so expect lots of free swag and goodies!
Thanks to the continued support from our sponsors: SiNi Software, Heata, NTI BlueGFX, and Chaos.
THURSDAY
THURSDAY 6th March AM + PM | Location: JM304 ​​​​​​​
12.00 – 17:00 Alex Kelly |  Figment Productions
Blueprint and Shader Creation in Unreal (Texture)
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
I'm Alex, a film and gaming fanatic, yet to the Nth degree as I like to build them professionally too. I have had the pleasure to work on a variety of projects for big names such as Milwaukee, Ryobi, Samsung and Drilling Systems just to name a few, ranging from PC, Pixel streaming and VR based experiances.
FRIDAY
FRIDAY 7th March PM | Location: JM304 ​​​​​​​
14.00 – 18:00 Peter Arcara |  SideFX
Houdini Introduction and Unreal Roundtrip (Procedural)
EVENTBRITE LINK : PLEASE REGISTER HERE
For over thirty five years, SideFX has provided artists with cutting edge procedural 3D animation and visual effects tools designed to create the highest-quality results. 
We are passionate about what our customers do because our roots are in production,
both as artists and as pioneering technical innovators.
WEDNESDAY/ THURSDAY/ FRIDAY
FRIDAY 7th March, SATURDAY 8th March, SUNDAY 9th March PM | Location: Remote​​​​​​​
All Day |  Climax Studios Team
We are pleased to announce that Climax Studios will be hosting its annual charity Game Jam again in 2025, in support of Mind https://www.mind.org.uk/! Participants will be challenged to design, craft, and code a game in 48 hours from the 7th-9th of March. All funds raised during this virtual Jam will go towards improving awareness for mental health issues, advice call lines and resources, and supporting community projects.
We've really enjoyed visiting and working with your Uni in the past so we're excited to be able to extend the invitation to you. We're hoping that there will be a great mix of students and seasoned developers who will all get to share ideas and their passion for making games with each other.
If you're interested in taking part, please join our Discord https://discord.gg/FvNwJVa8bP where those participating can team up, share ideas, and help each other out. Also, please join on our itch page https://itch.io/jam/climax-game-jam-2025 so that we can give you updates about the Game Jam.
We encourage participants to make a £5-10 donation to Mind on our Just Giving page, however this is not mandatory. Jammers could also raise money via sponsorships from friends and family. Anyone who wants to support Mind can donate at any point during the event. If you'd like to make a donation, you can do so on our Just Giving page https://www.justgiving.com/page/climax-game-jam-2025
As with previous years, we will kick off with an opening Twitch stream on the evening of March 7th, where the theme for the jam will be announced; a full schedule of streams and submission deadlines will be posted on Discord in the coming weeks. If you're unable to join in, you can still get involved as we'll stream a series of updates on the progress of various teams throughout the weekend.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to get in touch.

After the Global Game Jam where a team of third years successfully delivered Dust and Departed, here is another opportunity to take part in a UK based game jam with our partners Climax Studios. I believe you can join as a team or as an individual and join a team of students and industry professionals. Reach out to me if you have any questions or join the server and reach out to an @Organizer in one of the channels or DM this account and one of us will get back to you. It would be great to a few teams and/or students mixing in with the pros. /GL Drew
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