Freya Holmér
Born1992 (age 31–32)
CitizenshipStockholm, Sweden
Occupation(s)Indie game developer and creator
Notable workShapes and Shader Forge
Twitch information
Channel
Years active2014-present[citation needed]
Followers26,200
YouTube information
Channel
Subscribers254 thousand[1]
Total views10 million[1]
100,000 subscribers2022

Last updated: 25 July 2024
Website

Freya Holmér (born 4 April 1992), also known by the pseudonym Acegikmo, is a YouTuber, Twitch streamer, and indie game developer from Stockholm, Sweden. She is best known for her shader and graphics libraries, Shader Forge, and Shapes, and her development on the indie VR game Budget Cuts. She has been involved in talks at industry events and has mentoring programs for game developers.

Biography

edit

Holmér attended FutureGames beginning in 2010 studying Game Design.[2]

During her last year learning at FutureGames, Holmér had an internship at the game studio Avalanche Studios Group.[3]

Development tools

edit

She is the creator of the free and open source developer tool Shader Forge, which was one of the largest plugins for the Unity game engine, attaining over 2.6 thousand stars on GitHub. Shader Forge was a tool for editing and creating shaders in Unity. On April 30, 2018, Shader Forge was made free and open-source software. It was one of the earliest shader tools, launched in 2013, before Unity added their own. Holmér was approached by Unity regarding an acquisition, but the deal fell through because "[their] goals weren't aligned".[4] The tool was originally sold for $90 as a plugin on the Unity asset store.

Holmér created and actively maintains Shapes, an instant vector graphics library for Unity.[5] Shapes provides accessible tooling to create 2 and 3-dimensional shapes in the Unity game engine. Shapes was listed in Unity’s "Top Paid Assets" list on the Unity Assets Store for multiple months in 2023.[6]

Career

edit

She is the co-founder of the indie game organization Neat Corporation, creator of the VR stealth game Budget Cuts.[7]

Holmér is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in the game development industry and has spoken out about the need for more under-represented groups to work in game development. Additionally, Holmér has improved the accessibility of mathematics education by creating visualizations and videos about topics such as splines, beziers, and other complex concepts in relation to game development.[8] Holmér taught for some time[when?] at FutureGames, her alma matter in programming and Unity game development courses. During her time there, she found a lack of accessible tools and resources for video game developers in asset shading.

Holmér also live streams on Twitch and uploads educational mathematics and game development-based video essays on her YouTube channel.[9]

References

edit
  1. ^ a b "About Freya Holmér". YouTube.
  2. ^ "Freya Holmér on Indie and Accelerated Learning" (Press release). FutureGames. Archived from the original on 2024-07-25. Retrieved 2024-06-04.
  3. ^ Bourguignon, Tim. "DevJourney Podcast". DevJourney Podcast. Archived from the original on 2024-04-14. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  4. ^ Chan, Stephanie (2018-04-30). "Shader Forge is now open-source and free to all developers". Venturebeat. Archived from the original on 2023-10-02. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
  5. ^ Unity Asset Store Review - Add Vector Graphics to your game with Shapes, 2024-07-25
  6. ^ "Discover Unity's Top Paid Assets on the Asset Store". 2023-03-30. Archived from the original on 2023-03-30. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  7. ^ Hayden, Scott (2018-06-13). "'Budget Cuts' Release Date Confirmed for Tomorrow After Previous Delay". Roadtovr. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-06-04.
  8. ^ "Visualizing Math with Freya Holmér". DEV Community. 23 January 2020. Archived from the original on 2024-01-10. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  9. ^ Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor (2018-10-30). "Self-education, et al. (with Freya Holmer)". Nice Games Club (Podcast). Retrieved 2024-06-04.
edit