Siyu (C_U) Zhang

Game Client Engineer at Lightspeed Studios - Tencent

Specializing in Real-time Physics Simulation & GPU Optimization

About Me

I am a CG enthusiast and a Game Client Engineer at Lightspeed Studios of Tencent. Currently, I'm focusing on real-time physics-based simulation and GPU optimization in games and Unreal Engine.

Before that, I received my Master degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley under the track of VCCG and my B.S. degree from the Department of Computer Science, the University of Pittsburgh

With a Computer Science major, I'm fascinated by the Art made and enhanced by technology, including visual effects in films and Augment Reality. As such, I also took film and media related classes in my undergrad and obtained the Digital Media Certificate, focusing on Film Studies.

Experience

Tencent

Tencent America

Game Client Engineer (Physics Simulation)

January 2023 - Present

  • Supporting some physics simulation systems for the AAA game Last Sentinel
  • Supported the development of the fog of war system in the new RTS game Battle Aces
Tencent

Tencent America

Physics Simulation Programmer

May 2022 - December 2022

Light Chaser Animation

Light Chaser Animation Studio

R&D (Physics Simulation) Engineer

January 2021 - July 2021

Skills

Programming Languages

C++ C# HLSL GLSL C Python Java MATLAB R JavaScript HTML CSS

Frameworks & Tools

CUDA NVIDIA Nsight Graphics & Systems OpenGL OpenMP MPI Docker Flask Arduino

Software

Unreal Engine 4/5 Unity Maya Houdini Blender ZBrush Substance Painter 3ds Max Premiere Pro Photoshop

Publications

Real-time Height-field Simulation

Real-time Height-field Simulation of Sand and Water Mixtures

Haozhe Su, Siyu Zhang, Zherong Pan, Mridul Aanjaneya, Xifeng Gao, Kui Wu.

SIGGRAPH Asia (Conference Track). 2023.

Project Page Video
GPU Cloth Simulation

GPU Cloth Simulation Pipeline in Lightchaser Animation Studio

Haowei Han, Meng Sun, Siyu Zhang, Dongying Liu, and Tiantian Liu.

SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Communications. 2021.

Paper Video

Education

University of California, Berkeley

Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences - VCCG Track (Visual Computing & Computer Graphics)

GPA: 3.95 / 4.0; Major GPA: 4.0 / 4.0

August 2021 - December 2022

University of Pittsburgh

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (honors) + Digital Media Certificate

GPA: 3.99 / 4.0

August 2017 - December 2020

Projects

Cloth Wrinkles Synthesis Tool

Cloth Wrinkles Synthesis Tool

Feb 2022 - May 2022

Video
  • Supervised by Professor James F. O'Brien
  • Added a wrinkle synthesis tool and other features for an existing XPBD-based cloth simulator
    • Simulation C++ Houdini
Parallelized BVH Construction

Parallelized BVH Construction for Path Tracer

Apr 2022 - May 2022

Project Report
  • Integrated the GPU parallelized version of BVH (LBVH) construction for an existing ray tracer project
  • Analyzed the runtime and proposed an adaptive method for accelerating ray-intersection test
    • Acceleration Structure Rendering C++ CUDA
Vision Correcting Displays

Real-time Vision Correcting Displays

Sep 2021 - May 2022

  • Supervised by Professor Brian A. Barsky
  • Worked on accelerating the existing algorithms by parallelization
    • Parallelization OpenMP OpenCV
OpenARK

OpenARK: Deep-learning based Keypoint Extraction

Sep 2021 - Dec 2021

Slides Video
  • Supervised by Professor Allen Y. Yang
  • Evaluated deep learning algorithms for key-point feature extraction
  • Adapted better key-point feature extraction algorithm into OpenARK
    • AR Deep Learning C++
ATTT

ATTT - Augmented Tic-Tac-Toe

Oct 2021 - Nov 2021

Video
  • Designed and developed an augmented version of Tic-tac-toe game in AR mode
  • Designed the UI and helper information of the application
    • AR Unity 3D C# AR Foundation
FEM-StVK

Simple FEM-StVK

Feb 2021

Github Video
  • Implemented a simple version of FEM for simulating StVK material
    • Simulation C++ Houdini
PBD-Cloth

Simple PBD-Cloth

Jan 2021

Github
  • Implemented a simple version of Position Based Dynamics method for cloth simulation
    • Simulation C++ OpenGL
C_U Fish

C_U Fish

Sep 2020 - Nov 2020

Github
  • A Blender project led by Professor Brian A. Barsky
  • Designed for illustrating the pros and cons of ray tracing and rasterization in food rendering
    • Rendering Blender ZBrush Substance Painter
PickMe

PickMe

Sep 2020 - Nov 2020

Project Page Github Video
  • A group project finished in "She Innovates 2020" Hackathon
  • Built UI, connected scenes, enabled AR effects and animations
    • AR Unity 3D C#

News

Games

Recent Coverage

Film & Media Essays

Secret Base

Motto

"A CG enthusiast who does not dream to become an animation director is not a good researcher!"

"不想当动画导演的CG爱好者不是个好的researcher!"

More about me

In my spare time, I love playing games, watching films and animations, playing the guitar, and traveling for having good food!

Gaming Highlights

Some highlights from my competitive gaming days.

Film Projects

How the Foodie was Tempered

Final project for FILMST0001: Filmmaking Foundation (02.2019 – 04.2019)

A documentary that presents three typical stages in adapting the American diet that international students may experience when they begin to study in the US

If you are interested in exploring delicious food at Pittsburgh, check out my Yelp reviews

Music

Playing 《偏爱》 (a insert background song in 《仙剑奇侠传3》) in fingerstyle.