
Matthew Newport
Verified Expert in Engineering
Game Development Developer
Matt is an expert C++ programmer with over 15 years experience in the games industry, both at large companies like EA and THQ and at smaller independent studios. He has extensive real-time 3D graphics experience as well as expertise in optimization, debugging, and cross platform console development. Recently, Matt has been focusing on virtual reality applications for Oculus Rift since backing the successful Oculus Kickstarter campaign.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Perforce, Git, Visual Studio, Windows
The most amazing...
...game team I've worked on was Dawn of War II team. As lead graphics programmer, I enjoyed working with talented artists to produce a game we were proud of.
Work Experience
Founder, Software Engineer
Virtual Light Software Inc.
- Developed a virtual reality data visualization and GIS project for the Oculus Rift.
- Contracted for Oculus Rift development with IMVU.
- Worked for EA on Star Wars: Battlefront development.
- Helped start SG14, a game development and low latency study group, as part of the C++ Standards Committee.
- Built reusable framework for Oculus Rift development with Direct3D 11.
Senior Manager of Engineering
EA
- Ported existing core technologies to new platforms (Xbox One, Windows Phone, PS4, Wii U) and developed new cross platform shared technology for use throughout the company.
- Worked with teams across EA to gather technical requirements for fine grained concurrency and led teams in designing and implementing new features to meet those requirements.
- Represented EA on the OpenCL and OpenCL HLM committees and helped drive efforts to apply GPU compute to solve problems for our customers.
- Worked in technical recruitment to set standards, create common programmer tests, and interview candidates.
- Led the platform development for Xbox One during preparations for Xbox One launch.
- Managed a team and wrote code myself as an engineering manager.
Senior Programmer
Smoking Gun Interactive
- Built an Unreal Engine 3 title on Xbox 360, 20,000 Leaks, as part of the "Kinect Adventures!" mini game collection that shipped as a pack for the launch of Kinect for Xbox 360.
- Worked as a graphics programmer on a variety of unannounced internal projects and demos for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
- Recommended, set up, and maintained the continuous integration server using TeamCity.
- Developed computer vision algorithms for Kinect Me, an app for auto-generating a player Avatar using data captured by the Kinect camera.
- Participated in hiring processes by interviewing and evaluating programming candidates.
Senior Programmer
Relic Entertainment (a THQ studio)
- Worked as the rendering lead on Dawn of War II (85 Metacritic).
- Collaborated with Dawn of War II artists on tool, pipeline, and artist workflow improvements.
- Developed and optimized an HLSL shader for the Dawn of War II terrain system, HDR lighting, unit painting, and other rendering features.
- Added engine optimizations and feature additions to the Company of Heroes codebase for Dawn of War II.
- Assisted with optimization and bug fixing on Company of Heroes (93 Metacritic), as well as preparations for the D3D10 port of the graphics engine.
Software Engineer
EA
- Became part of the RenderWare development team when EA purchased Criterion.
- Optimized RenderWare animation and math libraries for PS3 and Xbox 360 using VMX intrinsics and SPUs.
- Wrote a substantial document on optimizing C++ code for the PS3 and Xbox 360 which was widely distributed within EA.
- Played a key role in delivering the first version of RenderWare to support the final Xbox 360 hardware.
- Designed and implemented the runtime and pipeline back-end for the shader system used in two of EA’s Xbox 360 launch titles: FIFA 2006 and NBA Live 2006.
- Developed and supported EA's internal graphics library prior to the purchase of RenderWare.
- Fixed several challenging rendering bugs for FIFA 2005 and NHL 2005 on PC and was credited on FIFA 2005 PC in recognition of support efforts.
Senior Programmer
Nicely Crafted Entertainment
- Worked as a senior 3D programmer on Time of Defiance (73 Metacritic), a massively multiplayer online strategy game for PC.
- Wrote the majority of the DX8.1 3D engine and developed a new DX9 3D engine for use in the Time of Defiance boxed release and future products.
- Optimized the server physics code and implemented hierarchical object support on the client and server.
- Developed a new custom OOP GUI framework rendered using D3D for implementing game UI.
- Implemented a 3D sound support using DirectSound.
Programmer
Rebellion Developments
- Built the control system, weapons, and weapon effects for "Delta Force: Urban Warfare" (70 Metacritic) for PS1.
- Created the UI, controls, graphic effects, and game logic for the prototype of an unreleased Xbox action game.
- Used Direct3D 8 GUI framework for the prototype of an unreleased PC strategy title.
- Created particle effects, gameplay scripting, and bug fixing for a PC action and strategy title called Gunlok.
- Worked on special effects, AI, and game logic for the prototype of an unreleased PC strategy title.
Experience
Dawn of War II
http://www.dawnofwar.com/As lead graphics programmer, I made extensive modifications to the Company of Heroes graphics engine in order to meet the visual goals for Dawn of War II and its gritty sci-fi universe. This included implementing a new HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting engine, a new terrain texturing system, a new system for players to apply custom 'paint' to their units in the game, and many optimizations.
The features I implemented required tool, pipeline, and runtime code and close collaboration with artists on the team. The work involved a number of tools and technologies, such as C++, C#, HLSL, MAXScript, Photoshop scripting, Python, Perforce, NVIDIA PerfHud, PIX, and more.
Frostbite Engine
http://www.frostbite.com/One of my primary responsibilities was to work as the technical product owner for the job manager project, a cross platform library for task and job scheduling that is used by Frostbite and other teams at EA to support the use of task-based concurrency to make efficient use of multiple processors across the many platforms on which EA's games run.
As a technical product owner, I worked with customers on game teams to understand their requirements. As an engineering manager, I led a team of engineers in designing and implementing features to better meet our customers' needs, which was both a leadership and a programming role.
Kinect Adventures!
This project used Unreal Engine 3, and I was responsible for implementing rendering features, performance optimizations, image processing, and gameplay logic.
Company of Heroes
RenderWare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderWareFinally, I optimized RenderWare's animation and math libraries for PS3 and Xbox 360 using VMX intrinsics and SPUs, in addition to writing a substantial document on optimizing for the PS3 and Xbox 360 which was widely distributed within EA.
Star Wars Battlefront
http://starwars.ea.com/starwars/battlefrontSkills
Languages
C++, HLSL, Python, Assembler x86, F#, C#
Libraries/APIs
DirectX 11, Standard Template Library (STL)
Tools
Microsoft Visual C++, Visual Studio, Git, Perforce, Direct3D, Direct3D 9, Direct3D 10, Direct3D 8
Platforms
Oculus Rift, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PS3, Win32, Windows, Xbox, PlayStation, Windows Phone, NVIDIA CUDA
Other
Performance Optimization, Virtual Reality (VR), Game Development, Optimization, Computer Graphics, Extended Reality (XR), Mixed Reality (MR), Mixed Reality Developer, PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation 2
Frameworks
Unreal Engine 3, Microsoft Kinect, Unreal Engine, Unity, Unity3D
Education
Master of Arts Degree in Natural Sciences
Cambridge University - Cambridge, UK