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Faculty Bio

Emil Polyak

Emil Polyak

Assistant Arts Professor
Tisch Asia

Phone: +65 6500 1785
Email:

Office: 03-17

Biography

Emil is an award-winning 3D artist and educator from New Zealand. He has an impressive professional and teaching background in advanced 3d productions. Emil was course leader at the Media Design School in New Zealand where he mentored a number of award winning student projects such as the 2008 Crowbar Awards' Gold Medal winner, "The Giant Moa" and the "Time To Fly", winner at the Hamburg Animation Awards in 2009.

Emil has developed effective methods in interdisciplinary collaboration in education. Almost two decades ago he was one of the pioneer artists experimenting with digitally fabricated 3D imagery on desktop computers. He has won a special award at the National Digital Graphics Exhibition in digital communication category in Hungary, 1996. Emil has exceptional skills in lighting, rendering and compositing, rigging and MEL scripting and has extensive knowledge in photography.

With background in engineering he also holds a diploma in 3d Computer Animation. Research interests include: pipeline and development, high dynamic range image acquisition, entertainment engineering, robotics, bio-mechanics., tracking systems. Emil has been involved in the industry as freelance 3d artist. Recent projects include: Coca Cola interactive marketing, Sky Sport Channel, NZ Lottery, Maori Television, Sea World Whale Watch.

Short Statement:
When we discover new links between the physical and the virtual worlds, we start experimenting. The majority of our tools are parametric but with a great amount of irregularity that provides freedom. We develop our own solutions to integrate aesthetics and we force the system to process our ideas and create meaningful results that surprise people. From a rough sketch to an animated 3d character in an interactive world we are going from physical to virtual where we manipulate and integrate the content before we go back to physical to interact with our new worlds. Our curiosity goes beyond ordinary superficial analysis.