About
Thanks for stopping by.
Background
My name is Zisen Ling. I'm 29 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 specialize in Rendering Pipelines (HDRP/URP), Shader Programming (HLSL), and Toolchain Development. I also bring a competitive gamer's instinct to development—having ranked in the Top 500 (North America) in Overwatch, which gives me a sharp intuition for game mechanics, gameplay programming, and combat responsiveness.
Experience
Technical Artist & Programmer
Insomnia Development · Contract Full Time
Jun 2025 – Present
- Architected a fully dynamic APV + SSGI lighting pipeline and engineered Texture-Based LOD to optimize draw calls.
- Authored highly optimized environmental shaders via HLSL/Graph, including a mathematical Wind Corruption Decal and screen-space Crystal Distortion.
- Deep-debugged third-party plugins (e.g., HDRP Time of Day), refactoring coupled C# code to expose clean APIs for Gameplay Programmers.
- Developed custom Editor tools (e.g., Grid-based Prefab viewer) and decoupled art/tech workflows to streamline level design iteration.
- Profiled and resolved critical rendering artifacts and memory leaks caused by unreleased Render Textures during weather transitions.
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)
- 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# / HLSL / Python
Unity (HDRP/URP) / Unreal
Gameplay Programming & Game AI
Shader Graph / OpenGL
Web (JS/Vue/CSS)
Art & Tools
Blender / ProBuilder
Photoshop / Lightroom
Substance / ShaderMap
Figma / UI Design
Digital Painting
Workflow & General
Iterative Development / Rapid Prototyping
JIRA / Git / Perforce
English (Professional) / Native Chinese
VR Development
AI Workflows (Stable Diffusion)