About

Who?

Chris is an Engine programmer working in core systems on CRYENGINE for Crytek^🗗 in Frankfurt Am Main, Germany. He is graduate of Teesside, Hull and Abderdeen Universities, with a strong and focused love of coding in C/C++, while experimenting with technology and hardware.

When he's not trying to join together software and hardware into something new and (possibly) useful, you can often find him coding, soldering, dismantling and rebuilding electronics, and reading about what's going on in the world of tinkerers, hackers, developers and gaming.

But there's more to life (although he sometimes won't admit it) - when he's not describing himself in third-person on his portfolio, he may be watching oddball world cinema, nerdy TV shows, animated sitcoms or Blade Runner. You might find him out and about with friends (at the cinema, music festivals, or even just out for a meal) or on XBOX Live/Steam (talking about oddball world cinema and Blade Runner). Sometimes, he even plays the guitar really badly.

Work

Chris has worked over the years as an opthalmic assistant, digital imaging assistant in photography equipment sales, a loss prevention officer, in outdoor equipment sales and repairs (camping) and electronics repairs (laptop, PC and game console hardware and software repairs).

Computing

Chris has had a very keen interest in computing and gaming since he was very young, when the family acquired an MSX1 home computer, and moved through an Atari ST and numerous IBM compatible Windows/Linux PCs, for all of which he has programmed small apps and games. He also owned a NES, Gameboy, SNES, Dreamcast, PSOne, XBOX, XBOX 360, XBOX One and Series X - most of these he has repaired, upgraded, probed and poked these machines to find out all he can about them, from a desire to work on them at a systems level.

Academic Projects

MSc Computer Science for Video Game Development

Virtual Paintbrush	University of Hull 2016-2017
MSc Computer Science for Video Games Development dissertation project » Using Direct3D 11, Ultraleap/Leap Motion sensor, Oculus DK2, Microsoft Kinect V2 » A real-time gesture-based 3D virtual painting environment

"Gravity Wells" Simulation Scene	University of Hull 2016-2017
MSc Computer Science for Video Games Development project » Uses OpenGL, Winsock v2, AntTweakBar » Real-time networked concurrent physics simulation across multiple clients

Tunnel Terror Game	University of Hull 2016-2017
» MSc Computer Science for Video Games Development project » Uses Direct3D 11 to understand engine and game architecture and develop a small engine and game

Advanced Rendering: Underwater Scene ^🗗 (youtube video only)	University of Hull 2016-2017
» MSc Computer Science for Video Games Development project » Using Direct3D 11, DirectXTK » Raymarching an animated underwater scene using HLSL

Omega Wars Multiplayer 3D Game ^🗗 (youtube video only)	University of Hull 2016-2017
» MSc Computer Science for Video Games Development group project » Using Direct3D 11, XInput, Oculus VR (optional) » A real-time 3D arena battle game with real-time physics and advanced rendering » Supporting multiple gamepads, VR, scores and real-time particle effects

"Let's Submarine!" 3D Graphics Scene ^🗗 (youtube video only)	University of Hull 2016-2017
» MSc Computer Science for Video Games Development project » Using Direct3D 11, AntTweakBar » A real-time underwater scene with customizable graphics options and techniques

MSc Computer Animation and Graphical Technology Applications (CAGTA)

3-Dimensional Diffusion-Limited Aggregation^🗗 (youtube video only)	University of Teesside 2006-2007
» MSc CAGTA project » Using OpenGL / FreeGLUT » Diffusion-limited aggregation example in 3D, with small optimisations

Cellular Automata^🗗 (youtube video only)	University of Teesside 2006-2007
» MSc CAGTA project » Using OpenGL / FreeGLUT » Real-time cellular automata implementation in OpenGL

3D Spline modeller^🗗 (youtube video only)	University of Teesside 2006-2007
» MSc CAGTA project » Using OpenGL / FreeGLUT » Real-time 3D spline generation and manipulation with multiple viewports, menus

BSc Interactive Computer Entertainment / BSc Computer Studies

	University of Teesside 2000-2002 2005-2006
Unfortunately no demos/documents are available for any work at Teesside right now Topics studied / work done: » Sudoku Solver (Dissertation Project) » Virtual Environments in Unreal 2004 » Operating Systems concepts » Hardware, logic and 68000 assembly language » Web programming (Advanced) » VRML environments » Advanced Visual Programming

BSc Computer Science for Internet Information Systems

The Bacchus Restaurant Management System^🗗(youtube video only)

University of Aberdeen
2003-2005

» BSc Computer Science for Internet Information Systems project
» Uses Java 2, Java 2 ME, Palm J2ME software, Palm OS devices (emulated for demonstration)
» A real-time, multi-platform restaurant management system
» Features:

J2ME on Palm OS software for creating orders Java 2 desktop server app ro manage data flow
Java 2 desktop (touchscreen) for managing orders from Kitchen
Java 2 desktop software for managing stock, setting menu and prices

Unfortunately no demos/documents are available for any more work at Aberdeen.
Topics studied / work done:

» Website and backend development using LAMPP (PHP, *SQL, etc)
» User Interface and accessibility using Java 2
» Real-time database studies
» AI Programming using Prolog

Chris is currently reading / playing / listening to...

Books:
"Cinema Speculation" by Quentin Tarantino (ISBN 9781474624220) "C++ Concurrency in action" by Anthony Williams (ISBN 9781933988771)

Games:
Tetris Effect (XBOX, Switch, PC) by Enhance Hi-Fi Rush (XBOX) by Tango Gameworks

Music:
"Brotherhood" (2008) by The Chemical Brothers "Aggression Continuum" (2021) and "Recoded" (2022) by Fear Factory "Selected Ambient Works, Vol II" (1992) by Aphex Twin