Video Games | Ziqi Lu

Off Balance

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Off Balance

In Off Balance, I focused on creating procedural stylized textures using Substance Designer, including metal grates, concrete, wood, and coated metal rust, while optimizing memory performance through texture compression. I also developed stylized VFX using Niagara, such as smoke and fire, and created ocean materials to enhance the environmental visuals of the game world.

Project Titan

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Project Titan

This project is a tutorial-based technical study and validation of Houdini’s procedural workflows, focused on recreating a 3D environment using Unreal Engine 5. The goal was to understand, evaluate, and production-test procedural asset pipelines and workflows introduced in the tutorial series, as well as their integration with modern UE5 technologies. It covers the recreation and optimization of a wide range of digital asset tools, including procedural signage, building generation, rail systems, train destruction FX, VAT characters, trees with wind effects, fences, platforms, shrubs, ivy, trains, cloth, stacking, and cables. Through these exercises, I not only replicated the functionality demonstrated in the tutorials but also gained practical experience in procedural generation, material and VFX creation, simulation optimization, and engine integration, providing a strong foundation for efficiently creating complex game environments.

Offbeat Reprise

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Offbeat Reprise

As a developer, I was responsible for all aspects of the project except for game design and level design, including programming, asset creation, and sound design.

Notably, after the designers proposed the feature of “bullet time combined with physically simulated glass shattering,” the initial prototype I implemented suffered from severe performance issues. By analyzing Unity’s call stack in depth, I identified the performance bottleneck as the repeated creation and destruction of physics simulation objects, as well as the unnecessary participation of glass fragments in the simulation during room geometry movement. To address this, I pre-created the glass fragments at game startup and temporarily disabled their participation in the physics simulation when the environment changed. This optimization successfully resolved the performance problem.

Sherlock Holmes: Perfect Crime

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sherlock Holmes: Perfect Crime

In this large-scale project, I was responsible for more specialized tasks, including scene lighting, as well as the creation of hero assets and materials. More specifically, this involved producing gameplay-driven content closely tied to the gameplay, such as the “chemical laboratory kits” and “poison decal” featured in the game.

Living Strokes

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Living Strokes

My main part is the AI Optical Character Recognition (OCR) plugin system. I integrate PPOCR-v5, the most advanced open-source model, into Unreal engine, supporting the core gameplay.

Besides that, as a tech artist, I also help create the manga stylized shaders, visual effects, environment art design, and all the lighting.