Mark Kouris
Software Engineer
I am an associate programmer who graduated from DigiPen Institute of Technology. I am always eager to expand my knowledge and gain experience in the field I love. Currently, I am looking for employment opportunities. I'm eager to find a role where I can put my existing skills to work while also learning from industry professionals to grow into an excellent engineer.
SKILLS:
Languages: C (5 Years), C++ (5 Years), C# (4 Years), GLSL (4 Years), Python (2 Years).
API: OpenGL, Vulkan, Keras, Tensorflow, SVN, GIT, JSON, NVN, IMGUI.
IDE: Visual Studio, IntelliJ, VScode, Jetbrain, Spyder, Jupyter.
Game Engines: Unity, Custom.
Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, WSL.
Education:
BS in Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation
Grad Apr 2023
DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA
● Minor in Mathematics
Contact:
Email:
kourismark@gmail.com
Linkedin:
Github:
Number:
860-202-8398
ACADEMIC PROJECTS:
PROJECT REDOUBT:
First semester tasks include taking up the role of build master for the project. Gave me experience communicating to an entire team of programmers and help us meet deadlines for weekly build submissions. This role also gave me experience documenting a build and testing guide on how to build our game, and how to run said game and test for bugs and crashes.
Second semester has me take the role of artistic lead on our team, which has given me experience in the technical artist role. I have been making use of shaders and lighting effects in unity to help make our game look the best it can be. The material for that floor in the platforming section is a static color of red. But using shaders, I was able to apply the glowing, gradiant effect to it and add the textures on top.
RANSACK RACCOON:
Ransack Raccoon was a project I joined half way through development. While they had a completely serviceable engine at their disposal, they were lacking someone with experience in graphics systems to help streamline the production phase. The teammate who had written the system originally had left our school, leaving them struggling to understand said system. That was why they brought me on originally. By utilizing my experience in openGL render pipelines, I was able to help increase productivity on the project as a whole, especially in the department of integrating our artist's assets into our project in a quick manner.
Bugs I faced in this project:
The UI was having problems lining up properly when the play would take damage, due to inconsistencies in the art assets.
To fix this, I scheduled a meeting with the art team to let the issue be known so they could assist in fixing it, keeping inter-discipline communication high.
The outline shader's pulse was inconsistent in terms of speed and displacement based on the original texture.
To fix this, you would iterate the change to the outline based on dt, to guarantee the pulse is consistently changing, independent of clock speed.
Above: An isolated demo of the outline shader in action.
Below: an example of the outline shader in game, notifying the player they still have items to collect.
HIP HOPPITY:
A 2D auto running platformer with musical inspiration and elements.
This is an 11 person DigiPen game project. My role on the team was as lead graphics and systems programmer. Some of my contributions are as follows:
Implemented our OpenGL pipeline 50% faster than normal, utilizing GPU-based computation for increased performance.
Crafted managers and extended systems with scalability and readability in mind, allowing for ease of future expansion.
Assisted teammates in identifying causes of bugs in our engine, while providing support in resolving the issue.
Determine areas of performance bottleneck in our project with a custom made, multi-threaded logging system.
HIP HOPPITY Demo: a snippet taken from the digipen game showcase.
CS 300/350:
Advanced Computer Graphics.
These classes taught me all about the implementation techniques of the more advanced techniques with opengl, including reflections, different methods of lighting including phong and blinn, deferred rendering, forward rendering, and skyboxes. The following are some visual demos from the projects I have made for the class. Each project builds off of the previous in an engine we made from scratch.
CS350 Engine demo:
CS300 Reflections Demo
CS 388: Nintendo Switch Development
With this class, I was able to work hands on with the Nintendo Switch codebase and develop my own projects that all ran locally on the Nintendo Switch. Due to my NDA I am unable to go more in-depth with specifics of said code base, but it was a fantastic experience developing on a new platform.
During the project, I:
Actively gained experience working on console game development and deployment.
Remodeled example NX projects including gyroscope and audio for our game.
Collaborated with 3 fellow programmers for this project.
Consistently attended code reviews and made additions to our GIT repository.
Built in C++ for express use on the Nintendo Switch system.
Here is my final project two teammates and I made over the course of a few weeks. Sound, graphics, motion controls, input detection and a physics engine are all present.
Switch Final Project: