By Kimberley Clementi
Pokémon Go. An animated YouTube makerspace. A virtual walk-through of Walt Disney’s office. One is a game. The other two are augmented and virtual realities. Each is a playful, interactive world developed by and within the realm of technology.
And while some may think creating this type of content is just for fun, three UC San Diego Computer Science and Engineering alumni – Edward Wu (B.S. ’04), Shazzy Angulo (B.S. ’15) and Mehul Patel (B.S. ’04) are proving blockbuster games and augmented and virtual realities can make a difference in the real world.
From promoting healthy habits to making computer science more accessible and inclusive, these CSE alum are rewriting the rules of the game.
Gaming on the Go: Pokémon GO.
It’s weekend in an urban setting. Cafes and boutiques are bustling with business. On one corner, an ordinary bench has drawn a family, a young couple, a group of college friends. All are intently, gazing at smart phones. The group is quiet, until someone shouts, “I caught a Shiny!”
This scene – now commonplace in cities everywhere – remains a boggler to some. To those in the know, it can only mean one thing: it’s Community Day and fans have gathered to play the smash hit videogame Pokémon GO.
Introduced in 2016, Pokémon GO is an augmented reality (AR) game based on the popular Pokémon trading cards. The phone app transforms the two-player tabletop game into an active, multi-player game played in the real world, with friends. Anyone, anywhere can join on the go. Hence, Pokémon GO.
The implications of these built-in parameters are not lost on Edward Wu, the leader of Pokémon GO’s technical team and senior product manager at Niantic, the company that makes the game and has turned it into a global cultural phenomenon. Wu argues that Pokémon GO is more than just a game.
The game’s active and collaborative nature promotes physical and socio-emotional wellness. “It’s about going outside, going on walks and meeting people in the real world,” Wu said.
The game utilizes location tracking and mapping technology to guide players down city sidewalks to virtual “Pokéstops” and gyms. Along the way, players catch and train new characters, get supplies, battle and earn rewards based on miles walked.
Just how far have Pokémon players walked collectively since 2016? Some estimates place it north of 14 million miles. That number tallies with more than 500 million downloads since the game launched and over 150 million monthly active users.
Wu says he learned the fundamentals and core algorithms for his engineering role on Pokémon GO while a student at UC San Diego, where he earned dual bachelor’s degrees in computer science and physics. One of Wu’s undergraduate classes was Professor Geoffrey Voelker’s popular CSE 125, aka the “videogame course.”
“Ed is an example for all our students to show that what they’re learning prepares you to go out into the world and make a difference,” said Voelker. “The world is a now a different place because of Pokémon Go.”
“Mitzy” Makes STEAM More Accessible
The room is blue and welcoming. It’s filled with bright balloons, puzzle pieces and stacking rings. A cotton-candy pink animated character offers a bright-eyed smile. Then she speaks: “Hi. I’m Mitzy. And this is my Makeshop, where I bring ideas to life.”
Mitzy, from Mitzy Makes It, is a real-time animated puppet and the brainchild of alumna Shazzy Angulo. Energized with positivity and girl power, the educational brand was designed to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) to girls through a series of YouTube videos, coding workshops, free materials for the classroom and a children’s book.
“Mitzy aims to be a role model for little girls, showing them the joy of what engineering can be,” said Angulo.
In that sense, Mitzy is art imitating life. With a touch of whimsy and sugary sweetness and a heaping dallop of intelligence, the animated character, Mitzy, is an inventor and tinkerer at heart. Not unlike her creator Angulo.
The resemblance is not by chance but rather a product of engineering. With the help of her iPhone and a free-standing microphone, Angulo uses Apple’s Live Link app to stream her own facial expressions directly into Unreal Engine. Angulo’s smiles, blinking eyes and raised eyebrows drive Mitzy’s face while Apple’s ARKit and naming conventions provide the building blocks for her physical traits.
“Ever since I was little, I loved to draw and create characters,” said Angulo. “When it was time to decide what to study in college, the only idea I had about how animation worked was that it involved computers, and therefore involved engineers. I decided to study computer science.”
Angulo says her instinct to study computer science was affirmed through two undergraduate courses – CSE 167, a graphics course with former Professor Jurgen Schulze, and CSE 125, Volker’s video game class. They helped her to discover a connection between technology and creativity.
“Studying computer science gave me the skills to design, create and build my own projects,” said Angulo. “Working through difficult problems and learning how to code gave me an appreciation for the various software and hardware I leverage to create real-time animation.”
While continuing to develop content for Mitzy, Angulo is an Unreal Engine Development Supervisor with WildBrain Animation and has been with the company since 2020. Prior to that, she was part of an immersive technology team at Nickelodeon. Angulo’s path from childhood artist to computer animator is the inspiration behind Mitzy Makes It and a role model for the girls she hopes will follow in her (and Mitzy’s) footsteps.
Virtual Reality and Real Opportunity
Walt Disney’s desk is uncluttered, except for a few books, a lamp and a pen. Norman Rockwell portraits of his daughters hang on the wall. A piano, covered in framed photos, occupies center stage. You are a guest in Walt’s office. You pick up his pen, and for a moment, the force of his creativity is in your hands.
For Mehul Patel, a 10-year veteran at Walt Disney Studies, creating a virtual reality (VR) experience of Walt Disney’s office has been a career highlight. He and his team developed a VR tour where visitors can walk around the office suite, pick up objects and examine them, as if the virtual and physical worlds have converged.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to release virtual reality and augmented reality experiences to fans for films like Toy Story 4, Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast,” said Patel. “But my favorite project was scanning Walt Disney’s office.”
Patel, who won the Disney Inventor Award six years in a row, is the Director of Innovation and Technology Transfer at Walt Disney Studios. He partners with research universities and innovation teams to help transform early-stage tech into impactful products that will be leveraged by Disney’s filmmakers.
While Patel and his team are housed in the studio’s original animation building, their 3,500-square-foot StudioLab is anything but outdated. The high-tech innovation hub comes fully decked-out with virtual reality editing equipment, digital projections, videoconferencing technology and location-scouting drones. With all this tech at their disposal, Patel’s team makes the use of technology easier and more seamless for creatives.
“CSE gave me a skillset that prepared me to work in the industry. I loved coding when I was a developer. It taught me how to creatively solve problems when an obvious answer wasn’t there,” said Patel. “More importantly, being able to understand what it’s like to be the one behind the keyboard, allows me to empathize with the engineers I lead.”
As Patel looks to the future, he sees a wide-open career path for alumni interested in media and entertainment. According to Patel, the amount of content being created drives the corresponding need for digital workflows and software innovation.
“The industry is constantly looking to push the way we tell stories and connect with fans, so it is an exciting time if you’re a technologist,” said Patel.
copyright 2020 – Computer Science & Engineering – University of California San Diego
