Richard Copperwaite

Work & Experience

Principal Programmer nDreams

Jun 2019 – Present

Led teams of 5-8 programmers from concept to release of VR exclusive games Fracked (2021) & Synapse (2023). Carried out recruitment, management, mentoring, establishing best practices, technical specification and task allocation

Worked with producers, designers, artists, animators & sound designers to optimise workflows, remove blockages, oversee interdisciplinary communication, and deliver projects in ambitious time-frames

Independently developed tools & systems to support VR input handling & interactions, performance monitoring, platform integration & build infrastructure, as well as full pitch projects & prototypes utilizing hand & eye tracking and gesture & speech recognition. Contributed to company-wide processes and shared technologies

Lead VR Developer Breaking Fourth

September 2016 – May 2019

Developed tools & features to support storyboarding, performance capture, environment design, cutscene editing, visual effects, 360 video rendering, user interaction, & app optimization for cutting-edge VR devices including console & mobile

Recruited, managed, & provided technical support to 3D artists, animators & audio engineers

Performed on-site technical direction & hands-on troubleshooting of performance capture sessions with live actors

Released 9 animated productions, many featured at film festivals such as Raindance, Tribeca, Venice & Vancouver

Interactive Developer Engage Works

November 2014 – September 2016

Developed rich interactive applications for touch video walls & kiosks, testing on-site at international locations and harnessing domain-specific hardware & SDKs (Touch Frames, Video Matrices, Video Capture Cards)

Coordinated with producers & designers, researched process & tools improvements, performance & compiler optimizations, and new & emerging technologies

Experienced UI Programmer Codemasters Racing

November 2012 – October 2014

Developed UI features for cross-platform AAA games such as Grid 2 (2013), F1 2013, Grid Autosport (2014) & Dirt Rally (2015)

Worked with designers, artists, producers & quality assurance engineers to prepare technical specifications, implement features, and efficiently resolve bugs & issues. Contributed to the design of Codemasters’ next-gen in-house game engine

Software Engineer OnLive Inc.

July 2011 – August 2012

Developed streaming latency, visual quality & performance improvements for top-tier video games via DirectX intercept layer