Heidi Abdolvahabi is a game artist whose creative journey began with a background in stage & costume design for film production. With around 8 years of experience as a visual developer and technical 3D artist for games, she has contributed to titles such as Shahrzad, The Storyteller and Cryptoroomz.
In 2023, she moved to Finland to pursue her Master’s degree in Game Design and Development at Aalto University. Heidi is passionate about the blend of art and technology, exploring how new systems like AI and procedural generation can leverage game development to create unique and immersive player experiences.
Procedural generation is often seen as a technical “dragon,” powerful but difficult for artists to control. In this talk, Heidi shares her personal journey of master’s thesis: a quest to tame that dragon and turn it into a creative ally.
Heidi will explore the “ups and downs” of this process, from the initial research into why PCG workflows often clash with artistic intent, to the practical challenges of development. As a final result, she will demonstrate how this tool was successfully used to build and iterate on game environments for the action game Lumios.