Technical Artist · Shaders & Real-Time Systems

YEN CHIANG

Unreal Engine technical art, shaders, and interactive systems. Explore my work by discipline.

Explore selected work About me
Based in Los Angeles / Taiwan Focus Unreal Engine · Technical Art · Gameplay
Isometric geographic context model of Xindian and Xiaobitan
Realtime world / 01
Currently building

Interactive Architecture & World Systems

A unified Unreal Engine experience for exploration, simulation, and cinematic visualization.

01 / WORK

Choose what to explore.

Select a category, then open a project's breakdown or video.

Rephrased game cover
PROJECT 01 · IN DEVELOPMENT

Rephrased

USC AGP · Technical Artist

Stylized Water & Sky System

View my work →

A painterly real-time environment system inspired by graphic, readable shapes. The water combines layered noise, shoreline behavior, reflections, and controlled highlights while the sky is designed around a complete day–night cycle.

Unreal EngineMaterialsBlueprintAGP · Work in Progress

Challenge

Translate a highly stylized reference into a system that stays readable across lighting conditions and scales.

Approach

Layered water functions, shaped specular response, depth-aware color, and modular controls for fast iteration.

Next

Integrate weather presets, wind response, clouds, and a production-ready time-of-day controller.

Xindian Xi riverside urban panorama
PROJECT 02 · REAL-TIME ARCHVIZ

Xindian Xi / Architectural Visualization

Watch project film →

Project views connect the riverside cityscape, building composition, landscape, and shared spaces. Explore the image gallery and my context preparation work.

View my work →
World BuildingArchvizData PipelineUE5

Scale

City-scale context with roads, rivers, green space, transit corridors, and estimated building heights.

Goal

Create an explorable environment that can move fluidly between planning context, human-scale views, and cinematic shots.

Role

Real-time pipeline, visual integration, optimization strategy, and interactive presentation direction.

PROJECT 03 · SHADER STUDY

Asteroid Crater Shader

A custom Unity HLSL surface that generates cratered asteroid detail through procedural noise. It combines Worley patterns, FBM, domain warping, parallax, displacement, normals, emissive rims, and art-directable controls.

Unity URPHLSLProcedural NoiseRendering

Core

Worley/Voronoi crater placement, FBM surface breakup, and distortion controlled through a compact material interface.

Depth

Parallax and vertex displacement strengthen the silhouette while derived normals keep lighting consistent.

Integration

Built as part of a four-person rendering project and integrated with lighting, shockwave, lava, and terrain effects.

Cemented Dreams game cover
PROJECT 04 · ENGINE SYSTEM

Cemented Dreams

USC MFA · Technical Artist

Shaders, VFX & Weather

View my work →

Animated materials, particle and energy effects, and a C++ / Blueprint weather manager. Explore selected clips and the development process.

Unreal C++MaterialsBlueprintNiagaraData Tables

Architecture

A C++ manager owns time and weather state while Blueprints expose iteration-friendly controls to artists and designers.

Content

Presets include multiple rain and fog variants with coordinated lighting, tint, wetness, and atmosphere values.

Production

Developed for Cemented Dreams, then extended as a modular personal portfolio system.

02 / FOUNDATIONS

The projects that shaped my practice.

Earlier work is presented here for the decisions and systems it demonstrates: leading small teams, solving production problems, and turning technical constraints into playable or interactive experiences.

Vixerunt key art featuring its protagonist
Sole Unreal Developer · Team Lead

Vixerunt

A graduation 3D action RPG set after a world war fractures society among humans, biohumans, and androids. I shaped the core concept, assembled the team, and integrated gameplay systems in Unreal Engine.

  • Enemy behavior built with AI Controller, Behavior Trees, and EQS.
  • Combat and interaction work including a returning weapon, traps, water, animation, and effects.
  • A complete eight-minute gameplay reel showing the playable systems in context.
Watch gameplay ↗ View repository ↗
Blind steampunk puzzle RPG key art
Sole Unreal Developer · Team Lead

Blind

A narrative-driven steampunk puzzle RPG and my first major Unreal Engine collaboration. As team lead and programmer, I connected the story, puzzles, art, and technical pipeline into one playable experience.

  • Combined different narrative proposals into a coherent game direction.
  • Worked directly with artists to resolve severe mesh and Unreal integration issues.
  • Received Silver in the school game-design competition.
Watch full playthrough ↗ View repository ↗
Professional Work · Unreal Engine Integration

Digital Twin

Three professional digital-twin projects spanning a residential site, a high-rise building, and an airport. I integrated architectural models, Blueprint interactions, UI / Web UI, and weather into interactive Unreal Engine platforms.

  • Imported architectural models through Datasmith; source modeling was not my contribution.
  • Implemented Blueprint interactions and integrated UI / Web UI with the scene.
  • Integrated weather functionality and coordinated the overall Unreal experience.
Explore the three projects →
01 · Residential site
Equipment & interactions 02 · High-rise building
Floors & weather 03 · Airport
UI & visualization
03 / CAPABILITIES

Across code, art, and play.

I work best in the space between disciplines: building tools and systems that give teams more expressive control without losing performance or clarity.

01 — REAL-TIME SYSTEMS

Unreal Engine Development

Gameplay architecture, C++ and Blueprint integration, AI behavior, reusable actor systems, editor-facing tools, and production debugging.

02 — RENDERING

Shaders & Materials

HLSL, GLSL, procedural noise, lighting models, stylized materials, post-processing, and visual performance analysis.

03 — VISUAL SYSTEMS

VFX & Atmosphere

Niagara effects, weather, water, sky, fog, lighting, and effects that communicate gameplay as clearly as they establish mood.

04 — WORLDS

Interactive Architecture

Real-time architectural experiences that combine explorable spaces, vehicles, simulation, environmental response, VR, and cinematic output.

04 / ABOUT

Builder, designer, teammate.

I’m Yen “Robert” Chiang, a game developer from Taiwan pursuing an M.S. in Computer Science (Game Development) at the University of Southern California.

My background spans game design, programming, real-time visualization, and technical art. I have led and integrated student game teams, built Unreal and Unity projects, worked on multiplayer VR, and created interactive digital-twin experiences.

Baseball taught me to read the field, communicate early, and make the next play easier for the team. I bring the same mindset to development: understand the whole system, own the details, and keep the work moving.

Education
University of Southern California
M.S. Computer Science — Game Development
05 / CONTACT

Let’s build a world worth exploring.

Open to technical game development, gameplay engineering, technical art, shader/VFX, and real-time visualization opportunities.

Back to the top