OBJECTIVE
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Engineering position developing entertainment software for games or film.
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CURRENT
POSITION
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Member of the graphics group at Red Storm Entertainment. Working on the engine for
upcoming next-generation games.
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SUMMARY OF
QUALIFICATIONS
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Three years industry experience developing AAA games at a successful studio. Key
contributor to four shipping titles: GRAW and GRAW2 for Xbox 360, and GR2 and GR2
Summit Strike for Xbox. Strong knowledge of C++, DirectX, HLSL, graphics hardware, and
Xbox 360. Strong optimization skills. Studied computer graphics at one of the country’s top
graduate programs. Secondary emphasis on networks/distributed systems. Academic
background also includes mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering. Seven years
industry experience prior to graduate school as a hardware and software engineer. Significant real-world
experience producing and delivering products in a team environment.
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EXPERIENCE
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Red Storm Entertainment, Morrisville, NC
Graphics Engineer: June 2004 to present
- Primary graphics engineer for a recently released next-generation title: Ghost Recon
Advanced Warfighter 2 for Xbox 360. Implemented and optimized the dynamic shadow
system for large outdoor environments. Optimized the core mesh-drawing pipeline and
shader system. Optimized the post-processing system and full-screen effects. Implemented
an automated map-performance tester to gather performance data for artists and engineers.
Worked closely with the art staff to help improve map performance.
- Member of the graphics group for the original Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.
Implemented dynamic soft shadows for characters. Implemented the infrastructure dealing
with Xbox 360 EDRAM, multi-sample anti-aliasing, and predicated tiling. Implemented an
improved light attenuation model based on cubic Bezier curves. Implemented VMX-optimized
math functions to improve CPU efficiency. Re-architected the grass code to
allow execution on an alternate CPU core. Optimized the grass shaders. Updated
previously existing systems to use high dynamic range lighting.
- Member of the graphics group for two previous-generation titles: GR2 and GR2 Summit
Strike. Improved the existing special effects and weather systems. Implemented the sky
system, including lens flare, cloud layer, and a novel technique for adding cloud glow to
the cloud layer. Implemented projected decal effects. Implemented tighter bounding
spheres for static scene geometry. Performed several CPU optimizations.
NVIDIA Corporation, Durham, NC
Architecture Intern: May 2003 to August 2003
- Member of architecture team for next-generation graphics hardware.
Wrote and ran performance tests and modified architecture code to help
product delivery schedule. Quickly came up to speed on large and complex
code infrastructure.
- Leader of small task to integrate a third-party code-coverage tool
into the development flow. Debugged multithreaded applications running
in parallel on a remote Linux farm. Fixed previously existing bug that
had been reducing regression-testing performance.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Research Assistant: January 2002 to May 2004
- Researched ways to improve light field rendering via better reconstruction filters. Paper
published at EGSR 2003.
- Researched new hardware architectures for computer graphics. Paper published at
Graphics Hardware 2004.
Harris Corporation, Melbourne, FL
DSP Software Engineer: September 1996 to December 2001
- Leader of small team on a portable short-range wireless project.
System consisted of a Pocket PC and several custom DSP devices
communicating via personal area network (PAN). Responsible for real-time
embedded DSP software development and digital hardware design. Efforts
during proof-of-concept study were key in resolving technical issues
and allowing Harris to win the $1.5M follow-on. Delivery for follow-on
contract completed on time and on budget. Success resulted in the award
of additional contracts.
- Lead software engineer for portable PC/104 signal processing system.
Responsible for software cost and schedule. Wrote and tested all real-time
signal processing code.
- Digital hardware designer for a high-speed RF scanner. System
architecture consisted of several DSP processors and FPGA devices
performing tasks in parallel and communicating with a high-speed
workstation. Designed, tested, and delivered circuit card and FPGA code.
Micro Systems, Inc., Fort Walton Beach, FL
Hardware Design Engineer: August 1994 to August 1996
- Project engineer and leader of small team on a real-time embedded
project for military target control. Responsible for all phases of project,
from specification to system test and integration. Also performed board-level
design of various hardware modules.
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EDUCATION
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University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (January 2002 to May 2004)
Awarded Master of Science in Computer Science, Thesis Option
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Leonard McMillan
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (August 1990 to December 1994)
Awarded Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, with Honors (Minor in Mathematics)
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RELEVANT
COURSEWORK
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Courses: Advanced Image Synthesis; Physically Based Simulation and Animation;
Graphics Hardware; Numerical Analysis; Internet Services and Protocols;
Distributed Systems; Artificial Intelligence.
Projects:
- Stochastic Ray Tracer: 4x4 jittered supersampling;
importance sampling of reflected rays; spherical light sources
with soft shadows; triangle meshes with hierarchical bounding
volumes; texture mapping.
- RenderMan® Shaders: surface, displacement, and
light shaders; "Worley noise" for stone surfaces; fake
caustics; ray-traced reflections.
- Rigid Body Dynamics Simulator: linear and angular
momentum; quaternions for rotation; friction; collision detection.
- Real-Time Deformation with Fracture: physically based
simulation of deformable objects at interactive frame rates;
finite element method; simple fracture of tetrahedral model.
- Real-Time Depth of Field: software prototype implementation
of per-pixel blur.
- Multiplayer Asteroids: update of arcade classic; real-time
distributed system; redundant server for high availability.
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PUBLICATIONS
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Stewart, J., Yu, J., Gortler, S.J., and McMillan, L. 2003. A New Reconstruction
Filter for Undersampled Light Fields. In Proceedings of the Eurographics Symposium
on Rendering 2003, 150 - 156.
Stewart, J., Bennett, E.P., and McMillan, L. 2004. PixelView: A View-Independent Graphics
Rendering Architecture. In Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Workshop On
Graphics Hardware 2004, 75 - 84.
Stewart, J. 2004. A New Reconstruction Filter for Undersampled Light Fields. Master’s thesis,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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COMPUTER
SKILLS
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C/C++, DirectX, OpenGL, RenderMan Shading Language, HLSL, Cg, Matlab, Lisp, various
assembly languages, Win32, Unix, Linux, Xbox 360.
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