EricUndersander.com

eric undersander linkedin.com/in/EricU

abqc6o@r.postjobfree.com

freelance game coder

Credited on six published AAA games

Programming expertise in physics, gameplay, optimization, tools

Seeking remote and short-term on-site contract work

// technical skills

Languages: C/C++, HLSL

Platforms and APIs: Windows (DirectX), PS3, 360, Havok

Tools: Visual Studio, Perforce, 3DS Max, Paint Shop Pro

// professional experience

Big Huge Games, Timonium, MD

Contract Software Engineer June 2011 November 2011

Senior Software Engineer April 2007 June 2011

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was BHG s first major console title, its first action-

RPG, and its first streaming, open-world game. When I joined in 2007, the

programming team was fairly small and lacked experience in many requisite areas.

Despite these challenges, Reckoning successfully launched in February 2012 on PS3,

360, and PC. My work:

Intelligent third-person camera, including enemy framing and obstacle avoidance.

See my in-depth article in Game Developer Magazine, September 2011.

Havok Physics integration: collision geometry pipeline, character movement,

streaming Havok data, ragdolls, chains, inverse kinematics, and collision queries.

Vegetation system for grass and other ground clutter. Tool-side: real-time

brushing onto terrain, a layer system, and custom control over instancing.

Runtime: streaming, batched rendering, wind, and distance LOD.

Terrain texture streaming. Terrain shader to blend detail ground textures.

Minimap rendering, including triangulation of road splines and a shader to handle

multi-floor interiors.

General memory profiling, performance profiling, and optimizing.

Self-employed, Orlando, FL July 2004 April 2007

As sole producer and engineer, developed a PC racing game intended for digital

distribution. Responsible for game design, art contracting, music licensing, and

software engineering. Programmed systems to meet the unique requirements of the

game design, including:

Physics simulator, including rigid bodies, continuous collision detection, ragdolls,

friction, and aerodynamics for aircraft. Detailed, accurate bullet-time replays.

Deterministic, replayable game simulation framework, with automated

determinism-checking during replays.

Large-scale terrain renderer; supports dynamic LOD and USGS elevation data.

Unique, science-fiction, roller-coaster-style race track with custom track editor.

3D models: support for skeletal animation, skinning, and geometry instancing.

Graphical effects, including real-time shadows (via shadow mapping), variable-

width 3D lines, real-time posterization, and wireframe traversal visualization.

Self-employed (Continued)

GUI system for game menus and tutorial messages. It s XML-driven and supports

clickable text links, custom fonts and symbols, and various animation effects.

DirectX utilities for robust device-loss-handling ( alt-tabbing ) and input device

management (mouse, keyboard, joysticks, gamepads).

Electronic Arts-Tiburon, Maitland, FL

Software Engineer July 2003 - July 2004

Software Engineer, Part-time (Austin, TX branch) Oct 2002 - July 2003

Software Engineer, Full-time Intern (Austin, TX branch) Jan 2001 - June 2001

Worked on NFL Street, an original, first-year title for PS2, Xbox, and NGC.

Added specular lighting (with gloss maps) to the Xbox character lighting model.

Handled PAL versions of game for Xbox, PS2, and NGC.

Worked to satisfy Microsoft TCR and Sony TRC for memory card features.

Worked on Madden NFL 2002 for PC. Just previously, the franchise had made the

leap to PS2 as one of the console s most impressive launch titles. Within a short

development cycle, our small engineering team successfully ported the ground-

breaking new simulation and graphics technologies from the PS2 to the PC.

Ported various PS2 render code to D3D (character shadows, snow, rain, sun and

stadium-light flares, character breath fog, footprints, real-time field degradation).

Implemented a GPU-based occlusion query.

Implemented stadium shadows (GPU-generated lightmaps).

Helped bring Xbox Live functionality to Madden NFL 2005, NCAA Football 2005, and

NASCAR 2005. These were among the first EA titles to support Xbox Live.

Wrote a helper class for simulating high latency; tested online play.

Ported online leaderboard and other Flash screens to Xbox.

Performed research and prototyping for an unreleased console title. Worked closely

with the project s Lead Programmer on all core graphics and physics systems.

Implemented a space partitioning system to accelerate collision-detection and

visibility culling (a hybrid kd-tree/BSP-tree).

Implemented a custom height-line occlusion-culling system.

Integrated existing terrain with Havok's collision-detection system.

// education

University of Texas Austin, TX

BS in Computer Science (High Honors), May 2003, GPA 3.9

// extras

Demo video and more at EricUndersander.com

References available upon request

Contact this candidate