About

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Zisen Ling at work

Background

My name is Zisen Ling. I'm 28 years old, born and raised in Shenzhen, China. I initially planned to pursue Fine Arts, but ultimately chose Computer Science, finding my niche at the intersection of technology and artistry.

I maintain a strong practice in traditional and digital art, exploring concept design, photography, and UI. This artistic background allows me to communicate effectively with art teams, understanding their visual goals while providing the technical solutions to achieve them.

On the technical side, I have a CS degree and over three years of Unity development experience. I'm hands-on, preferring to solve practical implementation problems rather than just theorizing. I also bring a competitive gamer's instinct to development—having ranked in the Top 500 (North America) in Overwatch during university, giving me a sharp intuition for game mechanics, responsiveness, and balance.

Experience

Technical Artist

Insomnia Development · Contract Full Time

Jun 2025 – Present

Project: Spriggan (Unity HDRP)
  • Established a hybrid terrain workflow by mapping Gaia ecological data to Storm FeatureSets.
  • Fixed render pipeline compatibility issues between legacy Boxophobic shaders and HDRP.
  • Re-architected the lighting system from baked lightmaps to a fully dynamic APV + SSGI pipeline with Volumetric Fog.
  • Engineered a Texture-Based LOD system and Split Shadow Rendering to reduce draw calls.
  • Handled on-site technical support for the Gamescom 2025 exhibition demo.
Localization QA Specialist

GlobalStep · Casual / On-call

Jan 2025 – Sep 2025

  • Traditional Chinese LQA for confidential AAA titles.
  • Executed full testing workflows: test planning, string reviews, and regression testing via JIRA.
  • Ensured linguistic consistency across CHT and English builds.
Gamification Developer (Intern)

Concordia's Next-Generation Cities Institute

Apr 2023 - Jul 2024 (Total: 8 mos)

CityPlayer: Voltage (Digital Twin)
  • Created a realistic digital twin of Montreal’s downtown using Unity 6 (APV).
  • Replaced legacy procedural geometry with Interior Mapping Shaders, drastically reducing GameObject overhead.
  • Designed an automated texture pipeline (360° Photo -> ShaderMap -> Unity) to process 60+ buildings efficiently.
  • Trained the design team on ProBuilder for modular adjustments.

CityPlayer: Chinatown
  • Implemented procedural window generation for variable facade details.
  • Used ChatGPT to classify and consolidate 100+ urban vegetation assets into a manageable library of 10 reusable prefabs.
Front-end Development Intern

Chiwan Oriental Smart IOT Technology

Apr 2022 - May 2022

  • Built and deployed report pages using Vue.js.
  • Implemented modules for a WeChat Mini Program, ensuring successful deployment.

Education

Bachelor of Computer Science

Concordia University (Computer Games Option)

Cumulative GPA: 3.2 / 4.3

(Demonstrated strong upward trajectory with a 3.60 GPA in the final two years.)

Skills

Development

C# / Python / Java

Unity (HDRP/URP)

HLSL / Shader Graph

Open GL

Git / Perforce

Web (JS/Vue/CSS)

Art & Tools

Blender

Photoshop / Lightroom

Substance / ShaderMap

Digital Painting

Photography

Figma / UI Design

General

Native Chinese

English (Professional)

Agile / Scrum

VR Development

Stable Diffusion / AI Workflow