Jingtao Huang

My name is Jingtao Huang (黄景涛). Currently, I'm a graphics engineer at Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine, California.

I graduated as of August 2022 with a master's degree in Computer Science from University of Southern California, where I have been fortunate to be advised by Prof. Jernej Barbič.

My interests lie in computer graphics, including but not limited to real-time rendering, character animation, and virtual reality. Previously, I completed two graphics internships at Adobe Research and Activision Central Tech.

Email (jinhuang@blizzard.com)  /  LinkedIn  /  Github

• [2023-10] Blizzard 2024 US Summer Internship Program application has opened. Apply now!
• [2023-07] SIGGRAPH 2023 is around the corner. See you there!
• [2023-06] BlizzCon is coming back this year!
• [2023-01] Happy New Year!

We give a method to simulate the volumetric shape of hand's musculoskeletal organs to any pose in the hand's range of motion, producing external hand shapes and internal organ shapes that match ground truth optical scans and medical images (MRI) in multiple scanned poses.

Researching and developing rigging and animation tools for Blizzard Cinematics.

Game credits: WarCraft Rumble (2023), Diablo IV (2023).

Game credits: Call of Duty: MWII - Modern Warfare II (2022).

Ben-Day dots was a technique developed in the late 19th century to print colors onto newspapers. Given an input image, this program simulates the physical process of printing and produces a similar effect in screen space.

Prime Engine is a low-level game engine made by Artjoms Kovalovs, in which I expanded and implemented a couple of systems (animation, physics) and rendering effects (reflection, toon shading).

A ray tracer capable of rendering opaque surface (triangles and spheres) with lighting, shadows, and reflections. Anti-aliasing and soft shadows were implemented to improve the image quality. BVH and OpenMP were utilized to improve the performance. Toon shading is for fun.

Given a character skeleton and its skinning weights. This program can animate the skin mesh through forward kinematics (FK) and inverse kinematics (IK).

My implementation and evaluation of different interpolation schemes (linear vs. Bezier) to interpolate human mocap data with different representations (Euler angles vs. Quaternions).

Jell-O is a physically-based simulation of a jello cube inside a cornell-box force field. It's modeled with a mass-spring system, capable of handling collisions, and rendered with OpenGL.

To Infinity is a roller coaster simulation implemented with OpenGL and shaders. The track was based on splines and the player will "ride" the coaster on it. The environment was inspired by Andy's room from Toy Story .

Detour Bus is a VR game where players build ridiculous winding highways around themselves to take the dysfunctional Flowers family on a road trip across Post-Infrastructure America.

Kingdom of Nature is a VR archery game for the Oculus Rift where the players will immerse themselves in a rich fantasy world. Different encounters and people will expose the player to the importance of protecting the environment .

MS Thesis: Jingtao Huang, Volume Rendering of Human Hand Anatomy, University of Southern California, August 2022.

• Spring 2022: CSCI 520 Computer Animation and Simulation (Course Producer), taught by Prof. Jernej Barbič.
• Spring 2022: CSCI 420 Computer Graphics (Course Producer), taught by Prof. Jernej Barbič.
• Fall 2021: GAMES 103 Intro to Physics-Based Animation (Teaching Assistant), taught by Prof. Huamin Wang.
• Spring 2021: CSCI 420 Computer Graphics (Course Producer), taught by Prof. Jernej Barbič.
• Fall 2020: CSCI 420 Computer Graphics (Grader), taught by Prof. Andrew Nealen.

Some lovely people have been asking me advice on finding a graphics internship, so here is my two cents:

• Do a lot of graphics projects. It could be course assignments, Siggraph papers that you want to implement from scratch, or involvement in open-source projects. What really important is that you improve your skills along the way and have something to show off to the recruiters. If it is a course assignment, go the extra mile as recruiters have seen tons of these types of course projects.
• Set up job alerts. In graphics, the most important skill is C++, but depending on the job you want to apply for, you may need to learn extra things like OpenGL, GPU programming, USD, Objective-C, or various DCCs like Maya, Blender, Houdini, and RenderMan. I suggest you set up job alerts on LinkedIn or your dream companies; look at the requirements of those specific roles, and start to include those skill sets while you are planning your next project.
• Make a portfolio website. You can start building your portfolio while you're doing those projects. It needs to be well-organized and attractive. Recruiters and interviewers like to see something visually, not just words on your resume. For each project, you could showcase WIP, bloopers, various results, etc. in an appealing way. In addition, you should organize your code for each project and put them into Github. Once you have a portfolio, you can look into the S3 program to have people in the industry review it for you so that you can keep polishing it.
• Take advantage of the resources in your program. Take one or all of the graphics professor's courses in your school, find your interests and perform well. It may lead to opportunities as a teaching assistant or a research assistant with the professor, both are valuable experiences! Also consider joining the Siggraph chapter at your school if there is one.
• Connect with people in the industry. You should consider volunteering for the Siggraph conference if you could find the time. It provides an awesome opportunity for you to see the most advanced research and technology in graphics (free of charge). You will meet a lot of like-minded people and it's very possible they will become your connections for your next job.
• Don't give up. Unfortunately, it's very likely that you will get rejected from your dream company for the first time, or the second time, or the third time... But try to learn from the past, improve your skills and keep applying. You will thank yourself later for not giving up.

Feel free to email me if you want to chat. Best of luck :D

This website template is adapted from Dr. Jon Barron.