DigiPen R&D - Zero Engine

During my senior year at DigiPen, I was hired as a part-time intern in DigiPen Research & Development and earned course credit while working alongside the team throughout the year. I joined the Zero Engine project: a custom game engine built from scratch with an emphasis on complete configurability—powered by a bespoke scripting language designed to let teams customize core engine systems, including the rendering pipeline itself.

Project: Zero Engine (Fully Programmable Pipeline)

Zero Engine’s architecture was built around a pipeline framework that exposed rendering as a set of composable, scriptable building blocks. That meant the work wasn’t just “implement a renderer” — it was translating low-level GPU concepts into an engine-level abstraction that could be configured, extended, and swapped by the engine’s scripting layer.

Contribution: DirectX 11 Renderer Implementation

On the graphics team, I helped implement the DirectX 11 renderer. I worked close to the metal — understanding DirectX 11’s device model, resources, state, and pipeline behavior — and then exposed those capabilities through Zero Engine’s scriptable pipeline framework so engine users could meaningfully configure the rendering path rather than being locked into a fixed implementation.

I worked side-by-side with the lead graphics developer, collaborating on renderer integration details and the design decisions needed to make a low-level backend feel coherent and extensible at the engine layer.

Contribution: UWP / Windows Platform Support

Alongside DirectX 11 work, I helped add support for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications so Zero Engine projects could target Windows Store-era deployment and run across a broader set of Windows devices. This leveraged prior experience I’d gained on the Xbox team working on UWP platform support — I brought that context into DigiPen R&D and applied it directly to Zero Engine’s Windows build and platform pipeline.

Contribution: Demos and Launch-Facing Content

To help prepare the engine for public release, I built a suite of demos and examples that validated systems and showcased what the engine could do in practice — especially its “programmable everything” philosophy.

• Graphics demos demonstrating the engine's configurable rendering pipeline, including a water simulation and various lighting effects.
• AI demos, including boids flocking and NPC path finding, showcasing real-time AI use cases.
• Programmable audio demos, including custom reactive synthesizers and audio effects.
• Gameplay scripting demos, including custom character controllers and camera systems.
• Documentation and sample content to support an external-facing launch.