Dr. Chris Miles

San Francisco, CA 94123
cell:    (732) 331-4708
home: (732) 331-4708
email: enkiduo@gmail.com
website:www.enkiduo.com

Top shelf C++/Python programmer

Extensive experience across the spectrum of game development - AI, gameplay, animation, core, audio.

Cross Platform PC - Next Gen Console experience - X360 / PS3.

Very sharp and adaptable,  with experience in virtually all aspects of computer science

Excitable, and un-jaded

Skills

Experience with Tcl, D, Java, X86, C#
3D graphics - DX9 shaders, OpenGL
Virtual Reality Technology,  full immersive 4 sided cave development
Physics - Numerical Stability Methods
High Performance Networking
Agile Development Methodologies
Cross Platform development - Linux / XP
Compiler Development
Boost Libraries - Template Meta Programming

Prototyping Engineer on an upcoming Star Wars game.

Legwork chasing random people down all over the company to hammer out good ideas,  which I consolidate and prototype for upcoming games.

Lots of engineering all over the engine, as well as significant design and production responsibilities.

5/08 - 9/08 LucasArts

Combat AI Engineer

Rebuilt core combat AI engine to get a fun and dynamic gameplay working in a super dense and challenging environment.

10/07 - 5/08 LucasArts
Audio / Gameplay Engineer on "Star Wars - The Force Unleashed"

TFU is one of the best selling games of 2008, and its audio has received almost unanimous critical acclaim.

4/05 - 8/07 University of Nevada, Reno
Lead architect on the Lagoon project, full 3d game engine used in US Navy testing systems.

Lead developer of Lagoon-Craft a real-time strategy game built on the lagoon engine for AI Research.

Developer of the Influence Map based Artificial Intelligence (IMAI) system, the first evolvable high-level Real Time Strategy player.

6/02 - 9/02 University of Nevada, Reno
Research / Systems Administrator
Worked with genetic algorithms, text to speech systems and administration of a lab and a heavy processing cluster.

9/01 - 1/02 University of Nevada, Reno
Systems Administrator
Ran a lab for chemistry students - general maintenance / upgrading / ghosting.
Tech support for the department.

Entropy Game Engine - 9 / 2007 -> Present
Research oriented game-engine
C++ / Python
Lead architect and developer,  the purpose of the entropy engine is to provide a testbed for the development of a range of video games and AI techniques.  Entropy is highly modular, and can be integrated with a variety of open source graphics engines such as Ogre and Irrlicht.  It runs cross-platform,  and supports clean interfaces for AI module integration.  Entropy has integrated testing systems, including unit testing and AI driven feasibility testing.I am the lead architect and core developer on the project,  which has already attracted some attraction within the AI community.

Influence Map Based Artificial Intelligence - 9 / 2005 -> 8 / 2007
Co-Evolved Real-Time Strategy Game Playing AI
C++ / Python
The goal of the IMAI project was to develop a general AI capable of representing a wide range of effective RTS game-playing strategies.
To do this we developed several novel techniques,  including a generic spatial reasoning system,  an emergent planning system, and a combat prediction system.
The IMAI provided a container for RTS strategy, I then developed a co-evolutionary genetic algorithm to co-evolve these players: creating hundreds of initial random strategies,  playing those strategies against one another on a cluster of computers, and then using genetic operators to create new children from those that have performed well.

Lagoon Game Engine - 10 / 2003 -> 8 / 2007
Research oriented game-engine
C++ / Python
Lagoon was developed over 4 years with a team of 5 core developers to meet the needs of several research projects, including a major one funded by the US Navy.  I was the lead architect and programmer,  developing the core game systems and providing the necessary functionality for the other developers who concentrated primarily on the AI research.
This involved the development an integration of a wide variety of systems, including physics, networking, graphics and user interfaces.
I also completed my Phd. work inside lagoon, which involved the development of a Real-Time Strategy game and the construction and co-evolution of a very good RTS game AI.
The core lagoon engine is written primarily with c++, but the external modules are written in Python.
I have extensive experience developing on both sides of the boundary, as well as in integrating the two.

LagoonCraft - 4 / 2005 -> 8 / 2007
Co-Evolved Real-Time Strategy Game AI
Ph.d. Dissertation Work
Developed a complete modern 3d, networked, real-time strategy.
Developed a complex real-time strategy game player.
Developed a distributed co-evolutionary genetic algorithm to co-evolve players.
Results showed the development of significantly superior players,  with significantly reduced development costs.

Strike Ops - 10 / 2003 -> 3 / 2005
Evolve Real-Time Strategy game plan
Developed a simple 3d real-time combat simulation.
Developed a distributed genetic algorithm.
Evolved near-optimal game-playing strategies capable of finding and optimizing obscure plans.

Ph.d. Dissertation: Co-Evolving Real Time Strategy Game Players

Masters Thesis: Case-Injected Genetic Algorithms in Computer Strategy Games.

14 Conference Publications

1 Journal

Session Chair at Several Conferences

Ph.D. Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno 2007
Master of Science, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno 2006
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno 2004

Other