Kivanc Guney
Game & Technical Artist / Researcher / Bristol, UK
I make things that sit between art and code. Shaders, tools, assets, and serious games. MSc in Commercial Game Development from UWE Bristol, Distinction. I am currently part of a research project at UWE building an AI-driven 3D avatar for educational settings, and looking for a funded PhD position in adaptive systems, affective computing, and game-based learning.
Selected Work
Serious Game · ML · Unity
Sensor-based fitness game with real-time gyroscope tracking and ML-generated personalised workout plans. MSc Dissertation, Grade 85.
3D Character · Blender · Stylised
Stylised 3D reinterpretation of Mega Man with a soft, cartoonish aesthetic. Modelled and rendered in Blender.
Unity Tool · Editor · Technical Art
Unity Editor tool for previewing and modifying shader texture slots in real-time during look development and material variant testing.
Research
I am currently part of a voluntary research project at UWE Bristol, supervised by Dr. Nikolaos Ersotelos, where we are building an AI-driven 3D avatar of a lecturer. The system uses an LLM backend, real-time lip sync, and a Unity frontend to answer student questions in a natural conversational way.
My MSc dissertation, GyroFit (Grade 85), was a sensor-based serious game that used phone gyroscope data and a TensorFlow/ONNX machine learning pipeline to generate personalised workout plans. It showed me that adaptive systems need to go beyond static user profiles and respond to how someone is actually feeling during interaction. That question led me toward affective computing and player modelling as a research direction.
I am looking for a funded PhD position in serious games, adaptive AI, and affective computing, with a focus on health and neurodevelopmental support. I currently serve as a reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing.
ORCID: 0009-0002-4534-4192
Contact
Kivanc Guney 