curriculum vitae - Will Vale
Personal details
Full name: William Philip James Vale
Date of birth: 7th June 1975
Nationality: British Citizen, permanent resident of New Zealand
*Marital status:*Married
Educational history
St.John’s College, University of Durham – September 1993 – July 1996
- B. Sc. Mathematics: First Class Honours
- Final year specialisations: Differential Geometry, Topology, Fluid Dynamics, Quantum Mechanics, Dynamical Systems
King Edward VII School, Sheffield – September 1986 – July 1993
- A-Level Mathematics, Physics, and General Studies: Grade A
- A-Level English Literature: Grade B
Other qualifications
- Clean United Kingdom and New Zealand driver’s licenses
Employment history
Software Engineer for MachineWorks Lightwork Design Ltd. August 1996 – July 1998
Will worked in the MachineWorks team, writing rendering technology and tools for a proprietary CNC machining simulation toolkit. His time was split between internal technology design/development and client-facing support work.
He often worked on-site with prospective and existing customers to integrate software components or assist the sales team, and supported customers personally via telephone and email. This allowed him to gain valuable experience dealing with commercially sensitive situations.
- “Portfolio entry for Machineworks(Read about Will’s contribution to MachineWorks):/portfolio/machineworks
Lead Programmer for Independence War 2 – Edge of Chaos Particle Systems Ltd. August 1998 – August 2001
For this project, Will managed a team of five programmers for three years. This involved providing technical direction, mentoring and training new employees, and taking responsibility for producing and tracking the programming schedule.
In addition to this, he wrote the DirectX7 renderer for the game, developed the physics system, and produced code and art assets for many of the special effects.
He also liaised with the art and game design departments, negotiating pecifications
for technology and helping people to use the tools.
Throughout the project’s life, Will was actively involved in demonstrating and
promoting it to press and publishers, including running stands at trade shows.
Project Lead/Lead Programmer for Powerdrome Particle Systems Ltd. September 2001 – July 2004
As Lead Programmer, Will scheduled and guided the programmers working on the platform-independent game code, and personally lead the Xbox technology development. He also interviewed and trained new programming staff, and developed the Xbox renderer, vehicle handling model, collision system and many special effects.
As Project Lead, he provided guidance for the art team, and had overall responsibility for the direction of the project in terms of content and gameplay. This included production of thorough game and technical design documents.
Towards the end of the project, Will oversaw the process of candidate building and submission to Microsoft, and coordinated the programming team’s bugfixing efforts.
Other information
Programming language experience
- C (2 years in a commercial environment)
- C++ (12+ years in a commercial environment)
- OO system architecture (10+ years in a commercial environment)
- Cg (4+ years in a commercial environment, emphasis on PS3 RSX)
- PS3 SPU intrinsics (3 years in a commercial environment)
- Intel i386+ assembly language
- Xbox pixel and vertex shader assembler
- Xbox vertex shader assembly language
- Javascript (for web pages and general tool scripting)
- HLSL (High Level Shading Language)
- PHP
- Web development using (X)HTML markup with CSS 1 and 2 layout.
- XML (data definition and storage)
Operating system and SDK experience
- PS3 SDK, SPURS, WWS::Job, Gcm
- Wii SDK, GX
- Direct3D 7, 8 and 9.x on PC
- Direct3D 8.1 on Xbox
- DirectSound 7 on PC<
- Microsoft Windows (all versions)
- OpenGL
- Win32 application development, using the Win32 SDK and/or MFC.
- Windows Installer
- X windowing system
- XTL (Xbox OS libraries)
Application software experience
- Adobe Illustrator CS
- Adobe Photoshop 5.0, 5.5, 7.0, CS (5 years in a commercial environment)
- Apache Web Server
- doxygen
- emacs
- Lightwave 5.6 and Lightwave 7
- Metroworks Codewarrior
- Microsoft Office 2000 and Office XP
- Microsoft Project 2000 (5 years in a commercial environment)
- Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (as user and administrator)
- Microsoft Visual Studio version 6, .NET, 8 and 9
- Nullsoft Install System
- Perforce version control
- PCCTS (Purdue Compiler Compiler Toolset)
- PIX for Xbox and Win32
- RCS version control
- SN ProDG
- SN Tuner
- Subversion/TortoiseSVN version control (as user and administrator)
- Sun/Solaris, SGI/Irix and other UNIX flavours, together with their build tools.
- Wise InstallBuilder
- Xbox Audio Creation Tool (XACT) (programming and content creation)
Skills, interests, and other achievements
- Club fencer with four years’ experience and BFA associate membership. In England, Will spent four to six hours per week fencing competitively, and a further two hours instructing new fencers. He was also a fencing steward for the World Student Games in Sheffield. He is still looking for more fencing clubs in NZ.
- Film fan and DVD collector
- Fluent Dutch speaker
- Lego collector and builder
- Long term and enthusiastic player of computer games of all genres on various PCs and consoles
- Will received the award for “All-round excellence” on leaving King Edward VII School, Sheffield in 1993
References
- Available on request