work and Project timeline
cybernautics Podcast
March 2022
Started a podcast about exploring programming and game development for beginners to experienced. The podcast is designed to educate and entertain both listeners generally interested and those seeking deeper knowledge.
Bowling game VR Remaster
Feb 2022
First 3D project worked on in 2018 was a bowling game. Remastering this experience using current knowledge and tools.
AI Assistant: Speech to Text
Jan 2022
Developed an intermediate expertise in Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services to create a Speech to Text script that takes audio files and converts them into text documents. This is the first step towards a larger AI Assistant project using Azure and a variety of AI based tools to delegate work that can be automated to an AI assistant.
WebXr Scene
Jan 2022
Learned Unity Addressables, which is a Unity asset management technology that decouples assets from an app build. In the WebXR Scene that I built, for example, the model assets are all stored in a cloud storage and the app consists only of a script that detects the capabilities of the device running the program and is able to adapt and load lower or higher quality assets as the device is able to handle.
Unity Core: Thought Bubbles app
Jan 2022
Developing an XR note taking and organization app called Thought Bubbles. This can be used to brainstorm at the speed of thought by speaking or writing ideas and presenting them visually. Once ideas are in the app, they can be easily navigated and organized. A future development is to use AI to automatically organize thoughts and assist with the brainstorming process. One example will be to use OpenAI’s GPT to suggest thoughts and ideas to help guide your thought process.
Unity: Core Project
Jan 2022
Developed a Unity Editor environment to create a smooth development pipeline for building apps. This environment leverages a development foundation through Git version control so new projects with shared packages do not need to be set up each time. Designed for the Metaverse, apps developed using this tool can be seamlessly composed together to create an accumulative and customizable end user experience.
Udemy Course: Programming Design Patterns for Unity
June 2020
Completed course that strengthened my programming skills and practices to write deeper and sustainable code for large and long-term projects.
Youtube Channel
Jan 2022
Established a YouTube channel, Cithoreal, to highlight, promote, and provide greater access to my work for those interested in gaining deeper insight into the development process.
Project management
Dec 2021
Expanded learning organizational concepts and established a better foundation to most efficiently manage an expanding workload. This included a detailed time management system and the creation of templates that jumpstart and guide project development.
Unity: Shader Graph Course
Nov 2021
Completed Unity Shader Graph course to create a variety of shaders for a multitude of app scenarios.
Web 3.0 Kernel
Sep 2021
Participated in an online community, Kernel, to learn a variety of Web 3.0 concepts. This helped the development of ideas for how my XR projects will fit into blockchains and benefit the growing decentralized ecosystem.
Calculus 1&2
Sep 2021 - PRESENT
Learning advanced math and physics to strengthen my programming.
Unity Visual Effect graph
Aug 2021
Learned Unity’s VFX graph. First design with this tool was an ethereal flower that can be placed in any scene and can be viewed from many angles.
Game Jam - Disk Golf World
Aug 2021
Participated in VR game jam “Small World” where I created a preliminary VR disk golf course situated on a small planetoid. Learned rapid game prototyping and VR physics interactions, while also discovering where I can improve my knowledge of physics engines.
Procedural Generation
July 2021
Developed knowledge and skills of procedural generation. This includes mesh vertex manipulation, shaders, and biomes.
Thought Bubbles
June 2021
Progressed on the backend functionality of Thought Bubbles, a note-taking and mindmap app. This included working with Hashsets in C#.
3D Printing
Jan 2021 - Present
Extensive experience working with Ender 3 Pro 3D printer. Created and printed 3D models made with Blender and Adobe Medium.
Nvidia Jetson Nano
Jan 2021
Worked with Jetson Nano board and courses in robotics. This included working through Jupyter notebooks and utilizing Machine Learning. Also 3D printed the chassis and assembled the Jetson Nano Bot.
Canopy Sim - VR Skydiving
Jan-June 2021
Hired as a freelance programmer to join a small team to develop the Oculus game, Canopy Sim. Worked independently on large features along with weekly video calls with the project’s creator. Specific features included the user experience of free falling from a plane or rooftop up until canopy deployment, the tutorial scene, and physics improvements to the canopy. Additionally, worked on general scene tune-ups throughout the entire project.
Gained extensive experience working with Git version control workflow collaborating with other developers to meet project deadlines. The game itself was made in Unity 3D with C#.
Auxin Games - Infection Defense
Aug 2020-Present 2021
Initial project as a freelance developer. Hired to continue developing a game about the human immune system. Learned how to work with the existing project code in order to extend it with new features, implement bug fixes, and write new code. A key part of the work was updating the game’s UI and integrating new art assets. Programmed a new enemy asset with unique behaviors to infect the body. This work extended into database integration with Firebase and preparing the project for deployment on WebGL, IOS, and Android.
This game has been tested with High School AP biology students and is intended to be deployed in schooling environments.
Unity Learn: ML-Agents: Hummingbirds
June 2020
Course introduced the process of setting up an environment for training Unity MLAgents, which is a unity package for training Machine Learning Agents with reinforcement learning techniques right within Unity environments. The focus was to train hummingbirds to fly to flowers and drink nectar from them, before moving on to the next closest flower with available nectar.
EDX Courses
Mar-Apr 2020
Completed a string of courses after discovering the EDX platform.
Refreshed basics of computer science with Harvard’s Intro CS course.
Completed several IBM Watson AI courses to gain a significant amount of experience and knowledge using IBM's AI suite of tools.
Udacity Bertelsmann Deep Learning With Python
Nov-Dec 2019
This foundations course by Udacity was the first introduction to working with AI. Covered the core concepts and math on how Deep Learning works. The course covered multiple examples of creating models using Python libraries. For example, using the lessons, created a model that could tell cats apart from dogs, could recognize handwritten numbers and could transfer the style from one image to another. See Example of Style Transfer
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VR Air Hockey
May-June 2019
Air Hockey was the first completely independent project and VR app. It was published on the Oculus store and resulted in getting accepted into the Oculus Start program, which provided access to one-on-one help from Oculus experts, exclusive Oculus Start forums, and priority access to new technologies.
After joining the Oculus Start program, was invited to and attended the Oculus Connect 6 conference in San Jose, CA in September 2019. Attended the Oculus keynote, many seminars, and interacted directly with peers in the Oculus community.
VR High Immersion Developer
Jan-Apr 2019
Learned to develop complex and immersive apps for PC VR headsets. Learned how to use the SteamVR SDK with Unity, and for the capstone project, learned how to use the Unity Oculus Integrations SDK. This course covered immersive lighting, animations, and importantly, performant design. An entire project covered how to debug for performance and optimize in order to keep the experience smooth and comfortable for end-users.
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Udacity Capstone: MyRoom
Feb-Apr 2019
This project marked the completion of the Udacity High Immersion course and earned a certificate. Reconstructed a mesh of my room through the use of photogrammetry, where many pictures of my room were taken at different angles, and stitched together in a program called meshroom to create the final 3D mesh. Using this mesh to create a mixed reality demo, the user can interact with a real space within virtual reality.
Rube Goldberg
Jan 2019
Rube Goldberg was the second project in the Udacity VR High Immersion Developer course. Created a game where the player is challenged to design a path to guide a ball from start to finish using objects provided.
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VR Puzzler
Jan 2019
Puzzler was the first project of the Udacity VR High Immersion course. Learned the basics of good VR design. This includes moving the player in a way that doesn’t make them uncomfortable, and developing a layout so the content of the game is clear to the user.
VR Foundations
Nov-Dec 2018
Completed VR Foundations Udacity course. This was the first introduction to developing for VR. Used the Unity Engine, and learned to create VR apps for phone VR, such as Google Cardboard. Learned the fundamentals of working with Unity to create simple but solid apps for VR.
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VR Maze
Dec 2018
Maze was the final project of the Udacity VR Foundations course. Tasked with designing a maze that the player must navigate with a Google Cardboard. This demonstrated how to keep a project organized with a large number of objects in it.
Complete C# Unity Developer 2D: Learn to Code Making Games
July 2018
First course to learn programming in Unity, which was completed at Udemy. Completed numerous courses on Udemy posted by the GameDev.tv team. In this Complete C# Unity Developer 2D course, developed a bowling game.
DePaul University
2016-2018
Majored in Computer Science at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Coursework included Python, Discrete Math, Data Structures with Java, and Ethics in Technology.
Online CS course in highschool
2016
Completed AP Computer Science online course during senior year of high school.
Codecademy
2013-2016
Completed several courses on Codecademy. Started with HTML/CSS, then progressed to Javascript, PHP, Python, Java, and C#.
ID Tech Camp
July 2013
Attended a tech camp at Roger Williams University to learn Java in the summer of 2013. This was the introduction to programming and computer science.