Dustin Biser
Game Design & Programming
Games Worked On
Details Below
March 2020 - Aug 2021
Blizzard Entertainment
Design
Formal Design Pitches
Presentations given to department leads on:
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Open World Progression with emphasis on meaningful Player Impact
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Difficulty Tiers and Reward-based Difficulty Scaling
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Gameplay Systems that emphasize skill and strategy over grinding
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Strengthening Ludo-Narrative relationship through player choices
Item Affix System Mockup
System that allows items to better synergize with large number of character builds with emphasis on experimentation.
Potion System Mockup
Adding skill and tactical depth to healing that reinforces engagement with core combat loop.
Programming
Volumetric Clouds
Rendering system and authoring tools for artists to create realistic real-time skyscapes with wide range of parameters.
Specular Anti-Aliasing
Rendering solution using baked roughness maps to reduce lighting noise with zero run-time performance cost.
Area lights
Implemented new light type to allow lighting artists more control in creating softly lit environments.
Omni-Directional Soft Shadows
Soft shadow filtering of player light to help readability of enemy mobs in darkly lit dungeons.
NPC Randomization Tool
System to generate large set of in-game NPCs from static library of body parts.
July 2017 - Jan 2020
Respawn Entertainment
Design
Planet Holomap
Design and implementation of 3D map system for helping players navigate levels, discover unexplored areas, track exploration progress, and plan routes toward objective locations.
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Creation of editor tools for creating 3D Maps from simplified level meshes.
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Collaboration with Level Design in sectioning levels into discrete parts for exploration pacing.
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Implemented camera controls and animation transitions for responsive feel.
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Unreal Blueprints, UI Scripting, and C++
Programming
Instanced Static Geo
Extension to Unreal Editor for grouping static environment meshes and combining them for faster rendering on the GPU.
Foliage Painting
Editor tool to allow environment artists to paint flora and fauna directly on top of environment meshes.
Texture Density Visualizer
Validation tool for checking texture density of visible scene assets based on specific detail presets.
Feb 2017 - July 2017
Respawn Entertainment
Programming
Particle System SIMD Optimizations
CPU side performance improvements allowing artists to author greater number of particles for special effects such as sparks, explosions, fire and smoke.
Screen-Space Reflections
Dynamic indirect lighting for adding greater visual fidelity throughout environment levels.