Case Studies

EQUIPPING THE EVOLVING LANDSCAPE OF ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY

Overview

Customer: Digital Arts and Entertainment at Howest University of Applied Sciences
Location: Kortrijk, Belgium
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Howest University of Applied Sciences, located in Belgium, is a leading institution in the realm of digital art and entertainment education. With a concentration on practical industry-relevant training, Howest offers a range of cutting-edge courses designed to prepare students for a wide range of careers in the digital arts and entertainment sectors. The university values hands-on experience in its state-of-the-art facilities, which are equipped with the latest technologies and resources essential in fields such as game development, animation, and digital design.

At Howest, the Digital Arts and Entertainment (DAE) courses stand out for blending theoretical knowledge with practical projects. Students learn skills in areas such as game design, animation techniques, and digital media production led by experienced faculty members and industry professionals. Students are well-prepared for the challenges of the rapidly evolving digital landscape, equipped with a portfolio of work and the skills necessary to thrive in the creative industry. This has been acknowledged multiple times by the Rookies Global School Rankings.

THE CHALLENGE

Leading up to an 18-week internship, students enrolled in Howest's Digital Arts and Entertainment courses face a significant challenge: executing group projects within their creative area that require powerful equipment for rendering and simulations. Particularly when utilizing software such as Houdini for simulations, the need for robust computing power becomes crucial. In addition, with a need to achieve accurate visuals, they require a system that ensures color accuracy. Within this short timeframe, the challenge is to provide the students with hardware capable of seamlessly handling intensive renderings while ensuring smooth visuals to successfully bring their final projects over the finish line.

THE SOLUTION

Powerful PC to achieve best performance

To get more performance out of its projects, the school is using the ALTERNATE Creator Workstation Powered by ASUS. The workstation is paired with the ProArt GeForce RTX™ 4080 graphics card, which is very useful for virtual production that requires very high-end hardware, as well as when the students are rendering out their assets. With the ProArt Z790-Creator WiFi motherboard, the school not only can get the best stability and compatibility, but also the comprehensive connectivity allows the school to add monitors or other peripherals to its workflow for the ultimate results. Together with powerful PC, the school is also using ROG gaming peripherals. The precise and responsive control highly integrates students’ project workflow.

Powerful workstation as the core and backbone of virtual production

To make sure the school has the power it needs for virtural production, the Komplett Workstation powered by ASUS is put onset. It is equipped with the latest ASUS Pro Workstation Motherboard and the ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card- enabling the school to run real-time graphics on set. Having to drive multiple high-resolution displays at once, the workstation is paired with a Blackmagic DeckLink Pro 8K card. It comes with four extra SDI outputs which enables different crew members to review the different source footage from the same scene.

“Having a desktop available to us helps us get a lot more performance out of the things that we are building. Compared to working with a laptop, which usually doesn't have that great thermals, we now have a desktop that helps us have way better thermals to push the graphics card sets really powerful way further,” says Dries Deryckere

Color-accurate monitors to see more details

Howest uses two different ASUS ProArt monitors in Digital Arts and Entertainment courses. The school uses the ProArt Display PA278CGV with 144Hz refresh rate to benchmark its projects. This enables the students to review their work with smooth visuals especially when working with fast-moving footage. The second monitor is ProArt Display PA348CGV, which Howest uses when working with content creation packages such as Maya or Blender, as well as game engines like Unreal Engine. Due to its extra-wide display, the students can display more tools on their screens and review more details in their meshes. Both monitors cover a 100% Rec. 709 wide color space and work in HDR, the students can see and preview their models in more details when they are working on the lighting and colors inside of Unreal Engine.

Color-accurate projector to facilitate screening sessions

Howest integrates the ProArt Projector A1 into its weekly supervisor sessions for group projects. Featuring a 98% sRGB color space, the projector maintains consistency between the projection screen and the monitors in the grading studio. This consistency ensures a color-accurate image across diverse teams collaborating on the same project. To enhance its precision, the projector is Calman verified, and with a brightness capacity of up to 3000 lumens, it produces vibrant visuals, enhancing the quality of every group session.

We have exactly the same color space in the projection screen as we have on our monitors in the grading studio. It's also very nice with the projector is that it has got 98% sRGB color space. What we also like is the 3000 lumens for the brightness. That's what we really need. And it's Calman verified, which gives us the color-accurate image.” says Dirk Lambrecht

THE OUTCOME

After installing the ASUS ProArt solution, the school now has a high-performance workflow that stretches from the graphics card to the displays in their grading suite and to the screening room. This ensures the students have access to industry-standard equipment that prepares them to develop the skills necessary for the internship and career they are looking for in the future.

“In the evolving landscape of entertainment technology, The ASUS ProArt setup that we use helps us iterate faster on our curriculum, helps us evolve faster with the ever-changing landscape, and it helps us become the best gaming school in the world once again,” concludes Deryckere.