Patrick le Duc - Game Programmer

As part of my graduation project, I conducted an experiment in game networking. The experiment was to gain insight into why games, in terms of number of users, haven't scaled as much over the years as computers have done in terms of processor speed. To conduct this research I developed a clone of the game Subspace. This game is considered to be the one of the first massive multiplayer games. I developed tools inside the clone to gather and monitor data and present it in a human readable form. Furthermore, I developed my own 2D engine, using both SDL in combination with OpenGL, and all networking code was written by me, there was no third-party library involved for the networking.

For the GPGPU course at NHTV , students were asked to perform a task, for which modern day CPU's would be unsuitable, simply because of lack of performance or speed. My choice was to render Fractals using the GPU. We were given the option to use any type of GPU rendering e.g. CUDA, OpenCL and/or Compute shaders. My choice was to use Compute Shaders since these were relatively new and showed a high potential.

In order to to render the fractals, I implemented a Ray Marching algorithm. This is a technique in which a ray is being shot, into the scene, from each point of the screen. Each iteration is a step further into the scene. As the object gets closer, the steps get smaller, until, in the end, there is a collision. Using this technique I implemented the Mandlebox, Mandlebulb and a Tetrahedron fractals.

The screenshots below show some of the results.

Feel free to download and run the project. You can even tweak some of the values and create very interesting shapes!

The project in the GRP4 (Graphics programming 4) course at NHTV was to implement several shader types using NVidia's CG.

My task was to implement the following shaders: Coler-Interpolation, Point/Spot/Directional Lighting, Reflaction, Refraction, Bump Mapping, Projective Textures and Shadow Mapping. Take a look at the screenshots for some of the results or download the project to experience the live demo.

During my 6 month internship at Nixxes Software in Utrecht, The Netherlands, I was assigned as a tools programmer to the Tomb Raider team for both "Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris" and the Xbox 360 version of "Rise of the Tombraider" . I was responsible for the implementation and integration of one of the new tools into the production pipe-line.