Damon Reid, BA, MSc Technical Specialist – CGI, Immersive Technologies, Virtual Production

Damon Reid, BA, MSc

I oversee the VR Lab, Virtual Production Studios and LED Façade at SODA. I manage the technical development and day to day running of these spaces, ensuring workshops and skills sessions are in line with industry trends. I provide consultation and creative technical support in research projects in XR and Virtual production.

I specialise in the immersive 3D and VR landscape, with an expansive career spanning over three decades. My work in the industry began in the mid 1990s, as an environment and character artist at Superscape (now Glu Mobile), where I contributed to two award-winning games for Lego in 2000 and 2001 – Lego Creator Knights Kingdom and Lego Creator Harry Potter.

My expertise at Superscape took me to Bandai, Nokia, Alcatel and Vodaphone, developing 3D prototype content for mobile devices. I joined the University of Salford in 2004, managing a VR cave setup at the CUBE in Manchester, introducing VR to construction industry SME’s. Along with this, I worked on other 3D visualisation projects relating to LIDAR scanning and GiS mapping for Manchester City Council, co-designing an online 3D prototype city model called Cityviewer.

I then moved over to the MediaCityUK campus, working mainly on events support, live broadcasts both internal and external (BBC Writers Room, 6 months to Brexit Simulcast 2018), immersive exhibitions (Manchester Science Festivals 2016 to 18) and managing LED walls, digital signage display systems, VR and projection mapping. I Co-designed a VR application for Salford’s Microbiology department called MicroBiHome as part of his MSc in Science Communication and Future Media. I joined Manchester Met in 2021.

My core software skills are in 3DS Max, Unreal Engine, Adobe Creative Suite (Motion graphics, VFX and video post-production); Mo-Sys VP Studio for virtual production; multiple VR and AR applications using Meta Quest, VIVE and Pico VR platforms, (Gravity Sketch, OpenBrush, Spatial.io.). My professional interests include VR Serious gaming and Virtual production in filmmaking.

Contact our specialists

 

 

Digital Media Bar in Chatham: digitalmediabar@mmu.ac.uk

Digital Arts Bar at SODA: soda.techhub@mmu.ac.uk

Photography Bar in Chatham: photography@mmu.ac.uk

 

For more information on opening times and access, students should visit the Technical Services FAQs for Digital Arts here: Technical Services – Students – Arts and Humanities | Manchester Metropolitan University (mmu.ac.uk)