Martyn Broadhead

Martyn Broadhead BSc, CertED

Lecturer

A diverse background spanning community theatre, graphic design, and social enterprise, Martyn brings industry experience to his teaching. Starting his career in Yorkshire, he worked in community theatre before moving to London to focus on graphic design. Following this, Martyn worked at a mental health social enterprise, where he applied his graphic production skills to support, train, and help run a digital publishing company.

Martyn began his teaching career in further education, where he gained over 10 years of experience on A levels and BTECs. For the past 10 years, he has been teaching undergraduates in higher education, where his professional work has equipped him with the skills and knowledge to lead a range of modules in animation, visual effects, and game development.

Games development

Responsibilities within the university

Leading and teaching various modules in the areas of 3D animation, character animation, visual effects, and version control for games. Responsibilities involve delivering lectures, workshops, practical sessions, providing student feedback, and ensuring that graduates are equipped with the necessary skills for the animation, VFX and games industries.

These responsibilities cover the following modules:

  • Character Animation and Control (Module Leader): Students develop skills in designing, creating and controlling characters for video games.
  • 3D Animation Techniques (Module Leader): Focuses on core animation principles and their application in 3D environments and video games.
  • Visual Effects for Games (Module Leader): Covers the creation of visual effects using industry-standard software, and their application in the video games pipeline.
  • Final Year Individual Project: Supporting students through their independent research and project work.
  • 3D Modelling: (Module Leader) Covers the design and creation of environments for video games.
  • Research Methods for Games: Teaches students how to develop research skills specific to the games industry.
  • Version Control and Asset Management (Module Leader): Focuses on essential tools and organisation practices for managing game development projects and resources
  • Game Engine Rendering Techniques: Explored advanced rendering, shaders and material techniques within game engines.

Research / Scholarly interests

Research focuses on the integration of emerging technologies, such as augmented reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), in education, particularly for enhancing early literacy through phonics instruction. It examines how AR tools can support the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics by aligning technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. Recent work has investigated the development and usability of marker-based AR applications, such as Magic Spell Phonics (https://www.magic-spell-phonics.com/), to facilitate multisensory learning, phoneme-grapheme correspondence, and reading fluency. There is a particular interest in how these tools can be adapted to meet the needs of diverse learners and provide differentiated instruction in primary education.

The research also explores the application of video game technology in educational contexts. This includes investigating how game-based mechanics be leveraged to create more immersive and effective learning environments. The potential of video games to enhance motivation, provide real-time feedback, and promote deeper learning through experiential and problem-solving activities is of particular interest, especially in subjects not traditionally exposed to these technologies.

Recent publications

Rodney, Ross, Weinel, Jonathan and Broadhead, Martyn (2023) Retro stylistic transformations in games. In: Proceedings of EVA London 2023. BCS London 10th – 14th July 2023. Electronic Workshops in Computing . EVA London Electronic Visualisation and the Arts - BCS Learning and Development Ltd., Arts BCS London Office, London and Swindon, pp. 240-242. ISBN 978-1780176161 ISSN 1477-9358 (doi:https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2023.44)

Pyjas, Gabriela Maria, Weinel, Jonathan and Broadhead, Martyn (2022) Storytelling and VR: ιnducing emotions through AI characters. In: Proceedings of EVA (Electronic Visualisation & the Arts). EVA London 2022 (4th - 8th July 2022). Electronic Workshops in Computing . BCS Learning and Development Ltd., Swindon, pp. 194-204. ISBN 978-1780175942 ISSN 1477-9358 (doi:https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.37)

Tsjornaja, Anne, Weinel, Jonathan and Broadhead, Martyn (2022) Art(NET)work: visualising interconnected artwork data in VR. In: Proceedings of EVA (Electronic Visualisation & the Arts). EVA London 2022 (4th - 8th July 2022). Electronic Workshops in Computing . BCS Learning and Development Ltd., Swindon, pp. 250-251. ISBN 978-1780175942 ISSN 1477-9358 (doi:https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.47)

Broadhead, Martyn, Daylamani-Zad, Damon, MacKinnon, Lachlan and Bacon, Liz (2018) A multisensory 3D environment as intervention to aid reading in dyslexia: A proposed framework. In: 2018 10th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games). IEEE, pp. 1-4. ISBN 978-1-5386-7124-5 ISSN 2474-0470 (Print), 2474-0489 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1109/VS-Games.2018.8493407)