Jan Kruse

About Me

I am a Professor of Visual Effects at Mediadesign University of Applied Sciences. I am also part of the strategic leadership team in my function as Prorector Research and Transfer.

I started my career in Video and Audio Editing, and spent more than 15 years in the Visual Effects Industry, and worked as a Supervisor, Producer and Compositor in various companies across New Zealand, Canada and Europe. My portfolio includes work on high profile projects such as Lord Of The Rings, King Kong, X-Men and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

I left my position at Weta Digital in 2011 to pursue an academic career. I hold a PhD in Creative Technologies from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.

I was a Co-Founder and am a former director of the VRLab in New Zealand. I am currently leading a Research Lab for Immersive Technologies in Germany and am the CEO of Irradiance Game Studios in Munich. I have worked on a number of high-profile research projects including a $1M collaborative two-year venture looking at improving eye disease diagnostics and patient communication fully funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in New Zealand.

One of my current projects is a visualization of signals propagating through the neurons in the human ear - a collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), one of the leading universities in Germany and one of the most prestigious technical universities in the world.

Research

My research walks the thin line between Visual Effects, Game Design and Computer Science. I am a designer by heart, the screen is my canvas and my brushes are lines of code.

Publications

• Kruse, J., Connor, A.M., Marks, S. (2022). Evaluation of a Multi-agent “Human-in-the-loop” Game Design System. ACM Trans. Interact. Intell. Syst. 12, 3, Article 19 (July 2022), 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531009
• Kruse, J., Connor, A.M., Marks, S. (2021). An interactive multi-agent system for game design. The Computer Games Journal, 10(1). doi:10.1007/s40869-020-00119-z
• Kim, J., Fu, S. Y., Bennett, G., Kruse, J. (2019). Extended Reality practice in Art & Design Creative Education. SIGGRAPH Asia 2019, Brisbane, Australia.
• Reay, S., Nakarada-Kordic, I., Bennett, G., Kruse, J., Lydon, A., & Simm, J. (2019). Can virtual reality simulation prepare patients for an MRI experience?. Radiography (Elsevier). doi:10.1016/j.radi.2019.11.004
• Rameka, A. N. A., Connor, A. M., & Kruse, J. (2019). Activity recognition evaluation via machine learning. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Ambient Systems, 18. doi:10.4108/eai.23-3-2018.161436
• Kruse, J. (2019). Designer-driven Procedural Game Content Generation using Multi-Agent Evolutionary Computation . (Auckland University of Technology). http://hdl.handle.net/10292/12944
• Connor, A. M., Greig, T. J., & Kruse, J. (2018). Evolutionary generation of game levels. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies, 5(15). doi:10.4108/eai.10-4-2018.155857
• Bennett, G., de Leon, T., Harris, M., Kruse, J., Repas, D., Witehira, J., & Wroniewicz, O. (2017, April 11). Cycles: Repetition and redirection (No. Of Pieces: 7) [Artefact]. The Pah Homestead, Auckland, New Zealand.
• Bollard Breen, B., Chapman, J., Dorward, L., Pin Koh, L., Krajewski, J., Kruse, J., & Jarvis, R. (2017). New technologies for novel conservation solutions. In 28th International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2017). Cartagena: Society for Conservation Biology.
• Connor, A. M., Greig, T. J., & Kruse, J. (2017). Evaluating the impact of procedurally generated content on game immersion. The Computer Games Journal, 6(4). doi:10.1007/s40869-017-0043-6
• Kruse, J., Bennett, G., Reay, S., & Denton, A. (2016). Virtual MRI experience for children. In Serious Games. JCSG 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 9894 (pp. 260-263). Brisbane, Australia: Springer Verlag (Germany). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-45841-0_26
• Kruse, J., Sosa, R., & Connor, A. M. (2016). Procedural urban environments for FPS games. In ACSW '16 Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference. Canberra, Australia: ACM. doi:10.1145/2843043.2843479
• Piper, J., Bennett, G., & Kruse, J. (2016). Developing new pedagogical models for curricula targeting industry and government collaborations. SIGGRAPH Asia 2016. Macao: ACM Digital Library. doi:10.1145/2993352.2993360
• Kruse, J. (2016). Artist-driven software development framework for visual effects studios. In A. M. Connor, & S. Marks (Eds.), Creative technologies for multidisciplinary applications (pp. 286-308). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-0016-2.ch012
• Kruse, J. (2015). Human-based genetic algorithms for procedural urban environments in FPS games. Symposium: Creative Gaming (CG2015). Auckland, New Zealand.
• Bennett, G., & Kruse, J. (2015). Teaching visual storytelling for virtual production pipelines incorporating motion capture and visual effects. SIGGRAPH Asia 2015 . Kobe, Japan: ACM Digital Library. doi:10.1145/2818498.2818516
• Kruse, J., & Connor, A. M. (2015). Multi-agent evolutionary systems for the generation of complex virtual worlds. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies, 2(5). doi:10.4108/eai.20-10-2015.150099
• Kruse, J. (2015). Interactive evolutionary computation in design applications for virtual worlds. (Auckland University of Technology). http://hdl.handle.net/10292/8593
• Kruse, J. (2012). Using RGB-D cameras in live action visual effects. (Auckland University of Technology). http://hdl.handle.net/10292/9569

Editorial Board and Program Committee

• 2020 International Journal of Creative Computing
• 2018 Reviewer SIGGRAPH Asia
• 2018 Committee Member IEEE TALE Conference Australia
• 2018 Program Committee ConVR Auckland
• 2017 Committee Member "Symposium on VR" SIGGRAPH Asia
• 2017 Committee Member "Emerging Technologies" SIGGRAPH Asia
• 2016 Editor for International Journal of Creative Computing
• 2015 Committee Member for PSIVT 2015 Conference

PhD & Master Thesis Supervisions

• 2019 N. Thandu, Master of Creative Technologies, An Exploration of Virtual Reality Technologies for Museums
• 2019 G. Singh, Master of Design, Expressive, Digital Storytelling - Utilizing Non-anthropomorphic Attributes
• 2018 A. Rameka, Master of Creative Technologies, Evaluating a single-modality ground-based activity recognition sensor for human inclusion into digital systems
• 2017 K. Markovic, Master of Design, Digital Surrogate of Large-Scale Heritage Artefacts
• 2017 J. Iijima, Bachelor of Design (Hons.), Visualizing Voice: Caption design for improved accessibility of tone of voice
• 2016 O. Efimov, Bachelor of Design (Hons.), Artificial Visual Apparatus
• 2016 K. Markovic, Bachelor of Design (Hons.), Photo-realistic environments in game engines
• 2016 P. Cleveland, Master of Creative Technologies, Drama Drones: Integrating drones into film making in New Zealand
• 2015 TJ Greig, Master of Creative Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Game Dynamics
• 2015 D. Thomson, Bachelor of Design (Hons.), Visual Effects using Deep Image Compositing
• 2015 A. Botha, Bachelor of Design (Hons.), 3D Dynamics and Visual Effects
• 2015 Barbra Ho, Bachelor of Design (Hons.), Analysis of the Long Take using Visual Effects and Cinematography

Awards

• 2017 Vice-Chancellor Doctoral Study Award 2017
• 2015 Design & Creative Technologies - Dean's List