Mark Kouris
Rendering Engineer | Unity Developer | Passionate Game Dev
This ever-growing website works as a portfolio for my best work in the realm of programming and game development. Even after 6 years, both academically and professionally, I am still eager to keep learning and growing as a developer. I hope you enjoy your stay in my little corner of the internet, and please reach out to me if you have any inquiries or employment opportunities!
Contact:
Email:
kourismark@gmail.com
Linkedin:
Github:
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Muddy Robot
Currently, I am a volunteer at Muddy Robot Games, working as a graphics programmer for their upcoming Unity-based mobile game.
As the game is unannounced, I cannot show visuals from it, but I have been working on water shaders and effects in collaboration with the art team.
Shelljump
I was brought on to work on Shelljumps flagship title "Inpulse" as an independent contractor.
My tasks for Inpulse were mainly as a systems programmer. Some of what I did are as follows:
Converted existing assets to their new management system, while optimizing C# scripts.
Developed and implemented the level editor.
Redesigned the replay system to utilize both old data while properly interfacing with new assets and systems.
Proposed and implemented adjustments to platforms and collectibles to improve game feel and player enjoyment.
Please check out the game on steam!
PROJECTS:
PROJECT REDOUBT:
Project Redoubt was my junior year game project at DigiPen. For this project, I wore many hats on the development team, making sure everything went smoothly. Here are some highlights on what I worked on that I am most proud of:
Managed weekly build submissions, involving setting deadlines for content additions and creating an installer.
Produced prototypes of new mechanics and assets in curated levels and normal game settings to show off to instructors.
Coordinated and implemented shaders, including the lava shader shown below. These shaders cut down the art reliance and improved visuals.
Explored various key features, including lighting, reflections and shadows to create a more immersive experience.
Completed a full, 2 semester development cycle, beginning with planning, to implementation, to polish for our final game.
Constructed various features and assets in collaboration with designers to make our game more compelling and involved.
Below you can see the lava shader in action:
And a full gameplay demo:
Ransack Raccoon
Ransack Raccoon was a project I joined half way through development. What they needed was an experienced graphics programmer to rewrite their existing OpenGL rendering pipeline as it wasn't made to be as versatile and scalable as they needed. Utilizing my deep understanding of not only graphics programing, but of game engine design, I was able to fully rewrite it to their desired specifications while maintaining the existing interface utilized in adjacent systems. My next task was to develop a shader (which you can see below) to highlight gameplay elements in accordance to the requirements from both the art and design team.
Please check out the game on steam!
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:
Hip Hoppity is a 2D auto running platformer with musical inspiration and elements that I worked on as part of an 11 person team during my sophmore year at DigiPen. 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.
Below: a snippet taken from the Digipen game showcase of Hip Hoppity.
OpenGl Rendering Engine
Below you will see 2 visual demos for the OpenGL rendering engine I developed, beginning with the course I took in advanced graphics at DigiPen, which I then iterated upon more in my own time. 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.
Object and Camera movement Demo:
Reflections and Skybox 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. Our final project was a short game named Marbleu, which you can watch our demo of below. Sound, graphics, motion controls, input detection and a physics engine are all present.
During the project, I:
Actively gained experience working on console game development and deployment.
Learnt about the process of familiarizing myself with console SDKs and utilizing unique systems.
Remodeled example NX projects including gyroscope and audio for our game.
Collaborated with 2 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.
Marbleu Gameplay Demo:
Education:
DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA (2023)
BS in Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation
Minor in Mathematics