Stephen Hodnicki

Lead/Sr. Software Engineer

accsa1@r.postjobfree.com

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Playdom, Disney Social Games, Palo Alto, CA

July 2013 - February 2014

Sr. Flash Engineer, Mobile and Desktop

- Working on the recently released Disney Hidden Worlds game for iOS, Android,

and Facebook. (4-stars on iOS, 4-stars on Android, and 4.5-stars on Facebook).

- Primarily responsible for building, improving and maintaining the graphics asset

pipeline, animation systems, video playback APIs, and UI components. Advise the

team on architectural decisions, performance optimization, and GPU-related

technical issues, and perform code reviews and debugging of existing codebase.

Lightformz, San Francisco Bay Area

May 2012 - Present (in spare time)

- Working on my own action and puzzle games targeting iOS, and running on my

own C++ mobile game engine. Performing all game design, art, production,

programming, and App Store integration.

- Maintaining and improving my own high performance 2D C++ game engine for iOS

and Windows. The engine features multiple animation systems, including those

used for particle effects, tweening, and the extraction and playback of Flash-based

animations. It's architecture and usage is highly intuitive. It includes a self-

optimizing display list, it seamlessly integrates easy-to-use, JSON-formatted data

structures, and it provides customizable UI components and building blocks.

Custom layouts incorporating complex alignments can be defined in, and

constructed from, external JSON data alone. And memory management is easy

and straightforward, so there is no need to guess how it is handled behind the

scenes in the engine's systems. These features, along with many others

supporting sound, in-app-purchase, bitmap fonts, native file system access,

masking, and render-to-texture, etc., make the engine perfect for both quick

prototyping, and polished, release-quality App Store games.

Gaia Interactive, San Jose, CA

December 2012 - April 2013

Sr. iOS Engineer

- Built animation extraction and playback tools for the iOS platform, allowing Gaia to

re-purpose a large pool of existing Flash-based character animations for use on

iOS, and significantly reducing total game download size. Tools allowed for

extraction of animation directly from SWF files, and provided support for definition

of playback frame ranges, real-time preview, saved settings, batch processing, and

controlled scaling of source textures. Playback APIs provided performance- and

texture-memory-optimized playback of simultaneous animations on iOS in the

Starling Framework and on desktop machines.

- Contributed to the ongoing development of a yet-to-be-released iOS game by

coding game UI, implementing store features, and providing advice on mobile

game engineering best-practices to team members. Participated in the testing and

feedback cycle for a second, soon-to-be-released iOS game.

EA (Electronic Arts), Redwood City, CA

February 2011 - May 2012

Technical Director

- Performed as Product Owner for the design and development of an in-house game

engine following Agile methodologies.

- Provided technical direction, including mentoring and code reviews to teams of

game engineers in the US and China. Directed and supported the efforts of 3rd

party game developers contracted by Pogo. Developed best practices for the

maintenance and update of Pogo's game catalog. Helped to develop and

implement a process for bringing 3rd party games onto Pogo's publishing platform.

Midnight Oil Creative, Burbank, CA

May 2009 - February 2011

Senior Software Engineer

- Developed Disney's Environmentality Challenge digital scrapbook creator, a Flash-

based online application allowing students to combine text, image and video

assets in an intuitive (and environmentally friendly) way to build a digital portfolio

for submission to the Environmentality contest. Released September 2009. All UI

code was created from scratch, and was included in our libraries for re-use.

- R&D: Built reusable libraries in ActionScript 3 and C++ for use in Flash, iPhone,

and iPad projects. The 2D & 3D libraries and Shaders have been used on multiple

delivered projects for building custom video players, polling interfaces, web- and

AIR-based printing widgets, interactive 3D, custom UI, complex animation, etc.

- Mentored team members in Object-Oriented Design principles and practices.

LightScape Interactive, Los Angeles, CA

2005 - February 2011

Founder & Technical Director

- Designed and developed the downloadable game Acid Rain. Performed all game

design, art, production, and programming.

- Developed 2D / 3D Game Engine for Flash including advanced, professional

quality game tools (skinned character animation, AI, etc.) for ActionScript 3.

- Programmed and maintained jpressonline.com, a high-end men’s clothing e-

commerce site with over 1700 products per season. Programmed site, tools, CMS,

etc. from scratch in PHP, MySQL, CSS, JavaScript, HTML and Flash.

Warner Bros. Advanced Digital Services, Burbank, CA

August 2008 - May 2009

Programming Consultant

- Maintained, debugged and updated the wb.com portal site in ActionScript 3.

- Developed consumer-facing and internal Flash-based websites.

2007-2008

Applied Minds, Inc., Glendale, CA

Lead Programmer

- Lead team of programmers in prototyping and interface development on projects

for government and industry-leaders. Integrated highly-customized hardware and

software solutions to build class-leading prototypes. (ActionScript, C++, Python.

Windows, Linux.)

Legacy Interactive, Los Angeles, CA

2001 - 2005

Lead Game & Engine Programmer

- Performed as Lead Engine and Game Programmer on multiple shipped titles: Law

& Order: Dead on the Money (PC Game: Java), Advanced Cardiac Life Support

(Mac & PC CD-ROM: Lingo), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (PC Game: C and

others.

- Designed and built 2D and 3D game engines and tools from the ground up in C++,

Java, and Lingo, used in multiple shipped titles (8+).

IBM Innovation Center, Atlanta, GA

1999 - 2001

Sr. Media Director

- Lead teams of artists and developers on various custom media projects.

- Built web-based games in Java, Flash and Director, including associated physics

algorithms, and Java servlet-based backend high score system. Built multiple web-

based children’s learning projects.

Rich Media Research & Development

- Tasked with developing cutting edge technology demos for use in the lab’s projects

and marketing efforts. Built multiple demos in Java including a minimal 3D engine,

transition effects, and navigation applets. Other demos included complex uses of

DHTML.

Technical Director

- Responsible for technical consulting on web, CD, and kiosk based projects in the

Studio, and for providing training to the artists on technical topics.

IBM Interactive Design Studio, Atlanta, GA

1997 - 1999

Programmer

- Performed consulting and programming on numerous sites including SuperBowl

XXXII, State Street Bank, NYSE, Merrill Lynch, Lend Lease, Motorola, Star Trek,

TryScience, Sony, Kodak, World Golf Village, and many others.

- Created PERL based chat engine for use on NHL.com.

- Programmed LiveWire JavaScript for integration of Integrion banking sites with

back-end systems.

- Programmed back-end systems of World Book Encyclopedia Online.

1994 - 1997

New Media Productions, Atlanta, GA (Sr. Programmer)

MCI, Atlanta (Sr. Designer)

PROFESSIONAL HONORS

JavaOne Conference, San Francisco, CA

2003

Speaker & Panelist, JavaOne Games Summit

- Delivered a conference session and technology demo on the merits of Java as a

game platform.

- Panelist in games summit Q&A session.

LANGUAGES & SOFTWARE

ActionScript 3 Flash, FlashBuilder IDE

C++ XCode

some Objective-C Eclipse

Java Visual Studio

Lingo, Lua Photoshop

JavaScript, HTML, CSS Illustrator

PHP, MySQL SVN, VSS, Perforce

EDUCATION

Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta (1989-1992)

Mechanical Engineering (1 yr.), Industrial Design (2 yrs.)

Non-degreed, Good Standing

ORGANIZATIONS

American Mensa

Member since May, 2012

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