Don Williamson

Real-time Game Technology, Pipeline and Gameplay Lead

I specialise in real-time rendering, GPU driver development across the entire stack, game engine architecture, build and content pipelines, and performance engineering, with extensive experience designing graphics pipelines, GPU algorithms, profiling tools and cross-platform systems. My work also spans custom audio engines, compilers, reflection, code generation, networking, collision detection, physics and gameplay technology; from low-level platform code through to leading engine teams and shipping games.

Commercial projects

ProjectStudio / publisherPlatformRole
Realtime HologramsPacific Light & HologramCustom HardwareHead of Rendering
ProtoverseCeltoysPCCreator / Designer / Programmer
King of MeatGlowmade / AmazonPS5, PS4, Xbox, Switch, iOSLead RHI Programmer
RustbucketsGlowmadePC, Xbox OneSenior Engine Programmer
AI Worlds SimulationGoogle DeepMindPC LinuxUnity Engine Programmer
AI Worlds PrototypeGoogle DeepMindPC LinuxUE4 Engine Programmer
DeepMind LabGoogle DeepMindPC LinuxidTech 3 Engine Programmer
WonderWorldsGlowmadeiOS, Xbox OneSenior Engine Programmer
No Man’s Sky NEXTHello GamesXbox One, PS4, VRSenior Engine Programmer
DauntlessPhoenix LabsPC, Xbox OneSenior Engine Programmer
No Man’s SkyHello GamesPCSenior Engine Programmer
Rome: Total War 2SEGAPCLead Engine Programmer
Fable HeroesMicrosoft LionheadXbox 360Co-creator/Engine Lead
Fable 3Microsoft LionheadXbox 360, PCLead Engine Programmer
Fable 2Microsoft LionheadXbox 360Senior Engine Programmer
Splinter Cell: BlacklistUbisoftXbox 360, PCConviction Engine Reuse
Splinter Cell: ConvictionUbisoftXbox 360, PCEngine Lead Creator
Advent ShadowFull Fat / MajescoPSPCTG/Game Lead Programmer
Black & WhiteFull Fat / LionheadPSP, NDSCTG Lead Programmer
Ms. PacmanFull Fat / NamcoPSPPrototype Lead Programmer
Marvel AvengersFull Fat / EAPSPLead Programmer
AliensFull FatPCLead Programmer
Dinosaur ZooSonyPS2Engine Programmer
Flintstones Viva Rock VegasFull Fat / UniversalDreamcastLead Programmer
Army Men: Air AttackAqua Pacific / 3DOPCPlaystation Emulator Programmer
Army Men: Sarge’s HeroesAqua Pacific / 3DOPCPlaystation Emulator Programmer
Lucky LukeAqua Pacific / InfogramesPCLead Programmer
V-RallyAqua Pacific / InfogramesPC, ArcadeProgrammer
Terminal PacitySharewarePCCreator / Designer / Programmer

Open source

ProjectRole / platformDescription
RemoteryCreatorReal-time CPU/GPU Profiler, 3k stars, used on 100s of games and Universities
clReflectPCLLVM-based C++ Reflection, the original OSS that inspired many more
SHTestAuthor / CSpherical harmonic lighting experiment covering direct, shadowed, indirect and subsurface lighting.
SHRotationAuthor / C++Real spherical harmonic rotation implementations based on Ivanic/Ruedenberg and Choi.
TahitiGameLanguageAuthor / C++State-machine-based game programming language from around 2000, with similarities to C++, Java and UnrealScript.
dcpu16.jsAuthor / JavaScriptIn-browser DCPU-16 machine editor with syntax highlighting, assembler and debugger.
ComputeBridgeAuthor / CIntermediate compute language and source transformation tools targeting both CUDA and OpenCL, built around a lightweight lexer, parser and AST.

Awards, patents & publications

YearRecognitionDetails
2026US Patent 12,579,919Co-inventor — Holographically displaying three-dimensional objects. Granted March 17, 2026. Assignee: Pacific Light & Hologram, Inc.
2016Game Engine Gems 3 — Chapter 6Author of Buffer-Free Generation of Triangle Strip Cube Vertices, pp. 85–90. Edited by Eric Lengyel; A K Peters / CRC Press.
2009BAFTA Games — Action & AdventureFable II, winner. Award credited to the Lionhead Studios development team / Microsoft Game Studios.

Technical experience

CompanyProject / positionWork
Pacific Light & HologramReal-time Holographic Display - Head of RenderingLeading the rendering team on a new class of real-time hardware, a medium with no established rendering practices. Responsible for the complete graphics stack from the hardware interface upward, the tools around it and the API that programmers build scenes with. Research into visibility and image-formation problems that do not exist on a conventional display, alongside direction of all internal engineering infrastructure, build and test processes.
CeltoysProtoverseCustom, real planetary-scale voxel rendering engine (6,000km radius) with multi-user, non-destructive, brush-based editing from the planet’s core to thousands of miles in space. In-world, realtime, iterative coding of behaviours in C#, supporting custom avatars, vehicles or entire new gameplay and world experiences. UDP-networked platform with physics and automatic property replication. Matchmaking and NAT punch-through servers written in Go. PBR environment lighting at planetary-scale with custom atmosphere and post-processing pipeline. Platform and business director. Investment courting and presentation over a period of many months.
GlowmadeKing of Meat (Amazon Games)Custom Render Hardware Interface (RHI) for existing engine, creating the backend implementations for D3D11 (PC), D3D12 (PC and Xbox) and Gnm/Agc (Playstation). Support for other programmers working on OpenGL (Android), Metal (iOS) and NVN (Switch) backends. Main engine core code additions (e.g. shader compiler, material system, lighting engine) and post-processing implementations (e.g. screen-space reflections).
GlowmadeRustbuckets (EA) - Engine Programmer ConsultantReal-time voxel ray-tracing for Ambient Occlusion and Global Illumination with Temporal Reprojection. Multi-platform compute shader backend.
Google DeepMindDeepMind Labs and WIP Projects - Quake 3, UE4 and Unity Performance Programmer (Contract, 2 days per week)Low-level engine performance improvements for many simulations running 1000+ frames per second each. Re-implementations of core simulation code in each engine to hit performance targets. Many performance tools to help myself and others see where each engine and their simulations were spending time. Extension of Q3RAD for adaptive radiosity CPU lightmap baking across many cores.
GlowmadeWonderWorlds - Engine Programmer (Contract, 3 days per week)Mobile-friendly (iOS) PBR lighting pipeline, shadow mapping, decals, wang-tiled auto-segmented unique texturing. iOS9-compatibile real-time voxel cone-traced ambient occlusion and global illumination. Interlaced reprojection rendering for Apple Retina display resolutions. Depth of field and other rendering effects. Performance, bug fixing and engine refactoring. Additions to existing Metal backend renderer.
Phoenix LabsDauntless - UE4 Engine Programmer (Contract, 3 days per week)UE4 technical guidance, training of artists to use modern PBR lighting models. Anisotropic lighting, shell mapping, parallax occlusion mapping, painterly raycast light shafts. Load-time voxel cone-traced ambient occlusion and global illumination to replace UE4 incomplete/slow solutions. Volume ambient occlusion to replace UE4 slow DFAO. Many low-level UE4 performance improvements.
Hello GamesNo Mans Sky - Engine Programmer (Contract, 2 days per week)PC platform performance and compatibility for OpenGL across all vendors. Driver-agnostic shader caching to improve performance on newly-visited planets. General bug fixing and aid to help ship the game.
SEGA / The Creative AssemblyRome: Total War 2 - Engine Programmer / Interim Lead (Contract, full time)Engine programming and interim leadership. Essential contributions to receiving 3rd party funding. Procedural Virtual Texture implementation for landscape. 100x performance improvement with 5x draw distance. Web-based real-time CPU and GPU profiler for quickly identifying performance problems. Many smaller optimisations and lots of multiple platform compatibility work.
Lionhead / Microsoft Game StudiosFable Heroes - Co-creator / Lead Engine ProgrammerThis project was started in our spare time; Microsoft turned it into a key franchise Arcade release. Cartoon shading techniques embedded within the Fable engine to sell the concept to Senior Management. Paint brush style painterly rendering for levels (large scale particle rendering with GPU sorting).
Lionhead / Microsoft Game StudiosFable 3 (and DLCs) - Lead Engine ProgrammerManagement and direction of the Fable engine, scheduling and career management of engine team members. Offline, GPU-driven, distributed GI Lighting pre-processor, lightmap runtime, unwrapping tools and streaming. Temporal super-sampling, GPU Hierarchical Occlusion Mapping, Runtime texture atlasing for texture streaming. Many performance and visual improvements to account for larger levels, extensive debugging tools. Improved communication between engine and other departments, boosting productivity in many measurable ways.
Lionhead / Microsoft Game StudiosFable 2 (and DLCs) - Senior Engine Programmer (Contract, full time)Occlusion culling visibility system and scenegraph, optimal spatial grid, main-light shadow culling. Dynamic light-batching, core renderer implementation rewrites, shader optimisations. Co-ordination with MGS and Lionhead, identifying key performance issues and directing optimisation tasks.
Ubisoft MontrealSplinter Cell: Conviction - Engine ProgrammerOwned the design and implementation of the new SC5 graphics engine with direction for content teams. Multi-threaded interface, UE2.5 integration, visibility system, texture and database tools, various editor views. Direct light caching, Voronoi-based indirect light probes, SH shader lighting, automated cubemap reflections. Texture and mesh data import/conditioning pipelines, serialisation, reflection, network communication. Skin rendering R&D (SSS, self-AO, detail normal maps, eye animation & rendering, etc.) Realtime PIX, realtime editing of renderer C++ code, shader permutation build system, material editor.
Full FatAdvent Shadow - Lead ProgrammerScheduling and team management. Use of internal tech I was also leading: fgs2. TDD and game design contributions, prototype gameplay for main character and 2 vehicles. Asset build pipeline for large teams, Lightwave-based level editor. Collision detection, all physics and animation (platforming, melee, weapons). Wall-running, edge traversal and all jump/grab mechanics evaluated every frame from the collision mesh.
Full FatBlack & White - CTG liaisonTDD and initial game design contributions. Support for all CTG libraries and tools, including the use of the Advent Shadow build system.
Full FatAliens Techdemo - Lead ProgrammerNormal map generation raytracer (high-to-low surface function transfer), portal visibility system. Multi-pass, per-pixel DX8 renderer with stencil shadows, complex shaders and multiple skinning models. Compile-time shader assembler, offline shader language compiler for piecewise construction of shaders.
Full Fatfgs2 Cross Platform Game Engine and Tools (PSP, PC, NDS)Architecture, team management and maintenance, extensive API documentation and wiki pages. Non-intrusive, C++ reflection API and IDL Compiler, object management and persistence systems. Memory manager, maths, templated base types, cross-platform COM, functor/binding and events libraries. Asset conversion pipelines (meshes & images for PSP/DX8), Lightwave object/scene exporters and plugins. Scenegraph, skeletal animation, rigid body animation, DX8 renderer, collision/intersections and FSM libraries.
Dogfish Entertainment / Sony Computer EntertainmentDinosaur Zoo - PS2 Engine ProgrammerMaintenance and extension of existing 3D engine, bug fixing, optimisation support. DMA transfer libraries (using SPR to build VIF0, VIF1 and GIF streams), VU ASM routines for animation & lighting. Memory mapping and mesh export tools, skeletal animation and blending system, post-processing API.
Full FatFlintstones: Viva Rock Vegas - Lead Programmer (published by Conspiracy/Swing)Cross-platform (PC & Dreamcast) game engine, guidance and mentoring of 3 programmers. 3D engine, DX7 renderer, Dreamcast renderer, visibility system, collision detection, car physics simulation. Lightwave object/scene loaders, UView texturing loaders, Win32 and Dreamcast sound engine, particle system. Implementation of all ingame weapons, special effects and game modes. Co-ordinated SEGA submission, solely fixed game bugs, rewrote key AI & front-end code to fix terminal bugs.
Full FatR&D: General purpose Physics Engine - ProgrammerMultiple ODE solvers in rigid body simulation, physically based cloth and particle systems. Collision detection and response, LCP solver for multi-point contact resolution.
Aqua PacificArmy Men: Sarges Heroes - Programmer (published by 3DO)Compile-time, library based PS1 emulator with emulation of the built-in transformation and lighting pipeline. PSX MIPS R3000 ASM to Intel x86 converter (used mainly to convert the landscape renderer). Workflow allowed Aqua-Pacific to port games from PS1 in days and was used on further Army Men titles.
Aqua PacificTahiti, Cross Platform Game LanguageDesign and compiler implementation for a language similar to Java, C++ and UnrealScript. Object-oriented, inheritance, object and state polymorphism, code state, language-native multi-threading. Virtual machine and C++/script interfacing technology, additional tools for pre-compiled script units.
Aqua PacificLucky Luke - Lead Port Programmer (published by Infogrames)Direct3D, 3Dfx and software renderers, MMX-optimised software sound mixer. Game programming, script programming and additional tools development. Extensive compatibility support over a wide array of video/audio cards and installed PC configurations.
Aqua PacificV-Rally - Programmer (published by Infogrames)Script-driven front end and network chat lobby, bug fixing of graphics engine, sound engine and game code. Force feedback joystick and steering wheel support.
Self-Published SharewareTerminal Pacity - Creator, Programmer, Artist, Level DesignerPlatform game with 9 levels and level editor for players. Created in the evenings after high school.