Here’s an Overview of current and past Projects

• Realistic Atmospheric Rendering System
• The Monkey Space – 48hour Game
• Rapid Prototyping
• GameDev Project Tankdogs
• FlowPlay – Visualization of Flow Datasets using Game Design Techniques
• MDI 3D Sphere Editor with XML Serialization
• Nintendo DS Homebrew: Kung-Jum-Ping
• GameDev Project: Radical Scorcher

For some of my art-stuff look here. (DeviantArt)

Realistic Atmospheric Rendering System

During Internship at Reality Twist I had the task to create a Realistic Atmospheric Rendering System and integrate it into the Vision Engine by Trinigy. Most of the calculation is precomputed on the graphics card and saved to textures.
Through this it is possible to render accurate hazing and light scattering (Rayleigh and Mie) fast enough to be used in complex interactive environments, like games.
I also adapted the shaders to shade terrain and objects.

My atmospheric rendering system is currently in use in the most recent product of Infocopter, open to public at the Museum of Transport in Luzern, Switzerland.

The Atmospheric rendering is calculated entirely on the GPU and is written in HLSL. I cannot distribute the code freely, but if you would like to now more, I’d be happy answer your emails.

The Monkey Space: Deception Edition!

This game was created as part of the Global Game Jam in Munich, and the main theme was Deception. In Addition we had to include at least one of the following: Monkey, Donkey and Key. (You can find all of them in our game, if you look carefully)

I worked as a coder on this game and created the special effects and features, mainly through shaders. There were tons of minor tasks and we even managed to do some voice acting (I’m the Monkey). Everyone worked on the game design together.

It was created by 3 coders, 3 artists and 1 game designer / project manager and they proved to be the awesomest team ever.
We laughed hard, almost all the time. If the game that came out of this is only half as much fun as we had making it, it will be the game of the century!

you can download the game or test it directly on the site http://www.themonkeyspace.de.
There’s even a release with source and it’s all for free!

Even though we had only 48hours, we did voice acting, intro video, cutscenes, awesome glow, and 2 levels!
Creating this has made me remember what game development is all about and why I enjoy it so much.

Rapid Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping is a new project I lead and organize at Acagamics. Here small groups of max. 2-3 Students are supposed to create a game prototype every 2 weeks, following a certain given theme. This course is tought by me, at the Institute for Simulation & Graphics at the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg.

Through this we want to teach and gain experience in game design and development. The students should learn what works in a game, and what is sucessful in a game concept and what is not.

At the same time, they are supposed to learn the difference between necessary elements and superflous features.

Games will be shown here as they are finished.

Game Development Project Tankdogs (XNA / C#)

Game Development: Programming / Project lead

This Project was started in October 2008 and is planned to finish at the end of September 2009. In this Project I am member of the programming team and and also lead and organize it. The Students involved can work on various different tasks in either the art or programming team.

The Game is a multiplayer shooter with top-down view. The player can chose a type of dog, a means of transportation (wheels, chains, hovercraft, etc.) and a weapon. All of these choices have an impact on the gameplay. Through this the player can form and use different strategies.

We started this project using the Quake 3 engine, but soon switched to XNA as it is better suited for Projects this size and proved to be a lot easier to work with / learn.

more Information can be found on the Clubs website, where the game will also be available for download, as soon as a playable beta is ready.

FlowPlay – Visualization of Flow Datasets using Game Design Techniques

This is a currently running project I’m working on together with a fellow student. In this project we want to let the user / player experience complex datasets such as flow data. The user should be able to get a “feel” for these datasets, not only through visual but also through other feedback, most commonly used in games. This includes the use of vibration and 3D sound.

Also the resulting 3D environment should be explored in a playful manner, guiding the user with simple goals or just letting him roam free to experiment.

We have finished working on the 2D Prototype and are now working on the full 3D version.

The 2D prototype executable and source code is available for download [ZIP]. (please read the included readme file)

MDI 3D Sphere Editor with XML Serialization (C# / Direct3D / XML)

This was a Test Task I finished in 2 days. It has all the basic functionality requested, except highlighting the spheres on selection.

You can create, load, edit and save multiple documents, which have a certain amount of spheres in them. The mouse picking method is done entirely by hand, only with the help of math classes (matrices, vectors). Saving is done through XML serialization, with which the camera settings and the scene are saved.

You can >download< the program and sourcecode and use it as you like. Be careful though, because it was done in only 2 days, it will be far from perfect!

The sourcecode is commented and should be rather readable. should you have any questions, please ask!

Nintendo DS Homebrew: Kung Jum-Ping

Nintendo DS Homebrew: Art Team
Description of the Project:

In this Project we work with the PA Library to run our own games on the Nintendo DS Hardware. Every Year we plan and realize a new Concept. This happens in a small Group of about 15 People each assigned to the programming or art team.

We started out with Kung-Jum-Ping a tactical Jumping game. Our Prototype consists of a two-player game, one player attacks, the other one defends. They both have different rules on which of the red or blue spaces they are allowed to jump.

We used the Touch-screen for controls, a lign is draw away from the charakter, in the opposite direction of where he is to jump, similar to a slingshot. The straighter the line, the more accurate the jump.

The art of the game consists of comic-style pixel-art.

Of course, everything from code to art & sound was made by students.

My Role in this Project was Organization at first and later on the art team, mainly creating the menu graphics.

GameDev Project: Radical Scorcher (C++ / PhysX)

Game Development: Programming Physx
Radical Scorcher is a game create during the Game Development Workshop. Similar to the DS Project we worked in a small team of about 15, split up into programming and modelling.

Radical Scorcher is a sci-fi future-racer with the goal of realistic physics using the Ageia PhysX engine and modern-looking graphics with the help of shader-programming.

In this Project I mostly worked on the physics part of the game, where I had to start from scratch, since noone, (even on the developer forums at Ageia) knew anything like what we wanted to accomplish.

The vehicle, or glider, now glides along every surface and reacts accordingly to edges, walls, in accordance to our newly created physics model.