Team – A² Studio

Xiangming “Rick” Ka

Programmer, Technical Artist

Xiangming Ka is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center. He has a demonstrated work experience in the video game industry as a Technical Artist. His interests lie in the interdisciplinary area in the game industry, including Computer Graphics, 3D Modeling, Lighting, and Texturing. Xiangming’s past professional experience includes internship at Bungie on Destiny 2 team. His duty mainly includes Graphics System and Workflow development and improvement, Shader Graph System development, Performance Optimization, and Cross-disciplinary Troubleshooting. He also interned at Unity Technologies focusing on Render Feature development, Shader creation, Asset improvement, and Physically-Based Lighting. With a Computer Graphics programming background, he has a great understanding of the render pipeline and shader creation. He has strong knowledge of Physically-Based Rendering principles in texturing and shading. Also, he is familiar with DCC packages such as Maya, Zbrush, Houdini, and Substance.

Kayi “Shirley” Ng

Artist

Kayi Ng is a current Master of Entertainment Technology graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. She graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2021,with a bachelor of Fine Art in painting, and has a deep understanding of human anatomy, art fundamentals, design principles, and color theory.

Kayi’s main focus is concept art design and illustrations based on her interest in Chinese fantasy. Other than traditional painting and digital painting, she is also proficient in major 3D modeling software such as Maya, Fusion 360, and Cinema 4D.

Zhiqi Zhao

UX Designer

Hi! This is Zhiqi Zhao. I’m a second-year Master’s student studying Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University.

As a designer, I would never cease my pursuit of creativity, since it is the soul of design. The rapidly developing technology has also brought designers plenty of opportunities for innovation. With the belief that design with humanity in mind is equally important as skills and techniques, I would like to bring innovative design and intelligent technology to daily life experiences.

Jingyu Zhuang

Producer, Programmer

Jingyu is a Game Producer with multiple award-winning student game projects. He began his game dev journey as a Designer / Programmer, but has shifted from creating content to now coordinating creative talents to solve problems and deliver meaningful experiences. His multidisciplinary background equipped him with knowledge of the full spectrum of video game development. It empowers him to support his team by understanding each team member’s successful goal, and making sure they have everything they need to excel.

Instructors

Scott Stevens

Scott Stevens has extensive experience in the areas of games, and augmented and virtual reality for education. He has been involved with multimedia research and development for over forty years. Scott began his career at CMU in 1987 in the Software Engineering Institute where he and his research team created the world’s first digital video CD-ROM, a virtual reality learning system that allowed users to carry on conversations with simulated personae.

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Brenda Bakker Harger

Brenda Bakker Harger is a theatre director (MFA Carnegie Mellon University), improviser, and professor of Entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center where she teaches improvisational acting and leads diverse interdisciplinary projects. As an improviser, Brenda has performed with Pittsburgh Theatresports and SAK Theatre, and has led improv workshops nationally and internationally from theatre improvisers to executive leadership training (Carnegie Bosch Insititute) to video game companies.

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