USC Games offers numerous game development laboratories which are open from 9am - 2am, closing just short of being open 24 hours a day in order to encourage healthy work habits. In addition to development spaces, our Mixed-Use Lab features systems for VR/AR development, advanced engineering systems, and has spaces for large-scale game testing as well as 15 HD monitors and attached gaming consoles, giving our students a chance to both work AND play.
Our students also have access to two 100+ person theaters, a lobby of touch screen monitors used to display their work, and our Console Development Laboratory with PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo development kits. Within the Interactive Building - the hub of our physical spaces - we offer the IMGD Graduate Student Thesis Lab, the Virtual Production Laboratory, two Usability Labs, a Vive Lab, and numerous conference rooms.
Within the Cinematic Arts Campus, students also have access to two additional 100+ person theaters, state-of-the-art video and audio editing suites, sound stages, a voice over recording studio, and foley stage. The Viterbi School of Engineering offers 6 more general use computer labs, with 100s of game-development ready systems.
Beyond these general facilities, our complex also offers the following specialized labs and research labs.
USC GAMES STUDIOS USC Games Studios is a two story building featuring over 100 VR-ready development systems, usability facilities, and audio facilities. USC Games Studios is the primary teaching lab for Advanced Game Projects, our cross-disciplinary capstone course including students from all USC Games degrees. Teams are selected in a rigorous green light process involving faculty, industry, and student leads, and work in the studio building their project over the course of a full academic year.
MOTION CAPTURE STAGE The SCA Motion Capture Stage is amongst the most sophisticated motion capture stages available at a any university, and is, in fact, one of the largest motion capture facilities in the Los Angeles area. The facility is set up for the capture of both body and face, and is capable of elaborate virtual production such as that seen in AVATAR and A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Students from all disciplines within the school use this Vicon-and Xsens-based motion capture system for both linear media as well as games and interactive media.
ESPORTS LAB Our Esports Lab allows multiple Varsity Esports teams to train for competition, while additionally supporting projects/studies that are being developed to focus on how ergonomics, health, nutrition and fitness can positively optimize Esports performance
MFA THESIS LAB During the third year of the Interactive Media & Games MFA degree, each degree candidate will design and develop a final project that will contribute to the field of interactive media. The MFA Thesis Lab is located on the research floor of SCI, so that there is natural overlap with these year-long projects and the work going on in SCI’s research labs.
GAME INNOVATION LAB The USC Game Innovation Lab is a research space and think tank where new concepts in game design, play, and usability can be developed, prototyped and play tested in an environment separate from the timelines and constraints of commercial game development. Under the direction of Professor Tracy Fullerton, the goal of the lab is to nurture concepts that push games beyond their currently defined genres, markets and play patterns and to make breakthroughs in these areas that will be valuable to lab sponsors and the industry on the whole.
The Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center is an organized research unit between the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Keck School of Medicine of USC with a mission to increase public awareness of critical issues in mental health, behavioral science, and sensorimotor rehabilitation, and to provide hands-on creativity-based educational opportunities for health researchers and practitioners. The center and its associated Garden Lab is directed by Professor Marientina Gotsis, providing mentorship to students of all rank and discipline, producing scholarly research, and showing creative works at festivals, conferences and art shows around the world.
