Darran Hughes
Game Engine Design
Darran joined Media
Lab Europe in September 2001. He completed his degree course in
electronic engineering in University College Dublin in 1996. His main
outside research at this
time was in language evolution and speech perception and so he continued
his studies by
doing a masters in engineering science from UCD in biomedical engineering
based out in the
national rehabilitation hospital in Dun Laoghaire. His thesis was on methods
of speech
enhancement for dysarthic (cerebral palsy) speech.
Following
his postgraduate research Darran decided to get involved in the computer
games
industry in Ireland because of the broad spectrum of challenges and ideas
that were involved
in creating virtual realities. Working with Funcom in Dublin as a programmer
for two and a
half years, he worked on several playstation titles and was working on
an Xbox title up until
he left the company to join Media Lab Europe. This involved work on the
development of
artificial intelligence engines, graphics engines and physics engines
that are the core of
todays V.R. games. Darran hoped to apply some of the skills learned from
both his
biomedical and gaming background to help the team to create intelligent
environments that
adapt to the user and help the user control different aspects of their
mind and body.