About me

My name is Yang Shan and I am currently a Software Engineer at Google working on the Chromecast team. I supported partner developers for releasing Chromecast games such as Just Dance Now and CONNECT 4 Quads. Before Google, I worked at Electronic Arts on the Sims 3 Expansion Pack team and on Sims 4. I have a Masters in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). I have a B.S in Computer Science with a minor in Art from CMU as well. My main interests are game programming, game design, and concept art.

I first became interested in game programming during my senior year of high school. Since that time, I have taken courses on software design, computer graphics, and 3D animation. I have also created games as a member of Game Creation Society (GCS), a club dedicated to the creation of games. As a member of GCS, I have joined teams as both a concept artist and a programmer. I have enjoyed drawing 2D art since I was young and I try to utilize both my artistic and programming abilities when creating games.

As a student at the ETC, I took a course called Building Virtual Worlds (BVW) during my first semester. Students in BVW work in teams of 4 and are given 1-3 weeks (maximum) to create each world. When I was a programmer in BVW, I had to cooperate with a modeler, a texture artist, and a sound designer to form each of these worlds. The BVW worlds I helped create, along with some games I've created as member of Game Creation Society, are shown in the portfolio section.

During my second semester at the ETC, and I worked on the Electric 4 Education (E4E) team. The team's client was The Electric Company in collaboration with Sesame Workshop. For our project's final product, we gave a vertical slice of a 3D intergenerational literacy game, built in Unity 3D, that children 6-9 could play with their parents.

During summer 2010, I interned at Electronic Arts as a gameplay engineer for The Sims 3 Expansion Pack Team.

During my third semester at the ETC, I was the lead programmer for a project called Asymmetrical Cooperative Gaming (ACG). The goal of the project was to allow players to play different genres of games to play together in the same game world. We used Unity 3D to combine a first person shooter, a racer, and a puzzle game into a single team-versus-team competitive game. ACG was featured on Gamasutra in January 2011.

When I am not programming, I like to draw in my spare time. I draw on the computer with a tablet pen. My other website, Forbiddenrain.net, displays my various computer and traditional artwork.