Glasgow has today launched a major new initiative to formally position itself as the UK’s capital for 3D content creation, backed by a powerful new partnership between the city’s world-leading academic institutions and its most innovative creative studios.
The groundbreaking collaboration brings together the University of Glasgow, the Glasgow School of Art, and the City of Glasgow College, along with a host of industry partners (including Float Digital, ISO Design, Lateral North, and Soluis) to establish the new 3D Content Creation Working Group. The initiative aims to harness the city’s immense talent pool and drive sustained economic growth in a sector that is increasingly vital to the global creative economy.
For the games industry, this announcement is a significant validation of the skills and technologies it has long championed. The city’s rich heritage in game development and animation, with world-class studios such as Wild Child Animation, Blazing Griffin and Screen Burn Interactive leading the thriving indie scene, has been a cornerstone in building the very expertise that this new initiative seeks to promote.
The move has been further strengthened by the recent news that Los Angeles-based animation and visual effects specialist Halon Entertainment is establishing a new studio in Glasgow.
A ‘Creative Powerhouse’ Looking to the Future
The new working group will focus on identifying commercial opportunities and co-developing innovative solutions that leverage the combined strengths of academia and industry in research, innovation, and skills development.
Professor Gordon Hush, Head of the School of Innovation and Technology at The Glasgow School of Art, described the move as preparation for a: “twenty-first-century industrial revolution” that marries technological innovation with the power of imagination.
Alison Bell, Dean of the Faculty of Creative Industries at City of Glasgow College, added:
Glasgow has long been a creative powerhouse, and the emergence of this new working group is a timely and exciting step forward… By collaborating across education and industry, we can ensure that Glasgow continues to lead in creative innovation, attracting global investment and creating high-quality jobs for the future.
This strategic focus on 3D content creation – encompassing everything from immersive digital environments to interactive experiences – is a clear acknowledgement of the ‘More Than Games’ philosophy. It recognises that the talent and tools pioneered in the games sector are now critical drivers of innovation in film, architecture, healthcare, and beyond.
This new partnership signals a confident and unified vision for Glasgow’s future, with the games ecosystem sitting firmly at its heart.
UofG, GSA and CoGC have, over several years, been collaborating on a range of projects focused on 3D visualisation, including:
- UofG’s Innovate UK-funded Project Mobius, where City of Glasgow College’s 3D animation students supported the development of Virtual Reality(VR)  applications, which enable teaching interventions that would simply not be possible without immersive technology.
- A Master’s programme in Medical Visualisation and Human Anatomy jointly delivered by The Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow.
- The EU-funded EMOTIVE project, where 3D animation students from the City of Glasgow College recreated the life of the slave Verecunda, contributed to The Hunterian Museum’s Verecunda VR experience.
- A collaboration between The Hunterian Museum, Historic Environment Scotland and the City of Glasgow College ‘Rediscovering the Antonine Walls Distance Stones’ where 3D animation students from the College were involved in a competition to make 3D models from scans of the distance stones which then went on to be used by the College’s stonemasonry students to produce to-scale reconstructions which are now in-situ along the Antonine Wall.
- UofG’s Innovate UK-funded Museums in the Metaverse project has created a two-sided Virtual Reality platform for the curation of, and interaction with, virtual 3D museum objects, in partnership with Soluis Tech, National Museums Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland and The Hunterian, with the collaboration of Float and Lateral North.
You can read the entire press release on the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce website.
Photo by Stephen O’Donnell on Unsplash