# Ali Z.

> Oculus Studios / Reality Labs

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/ali

I create visually compelling and engaging game worlds. 🌍 With 20 years of experience in the gaming industry, I love bridging the gap between art and design, and delivering high-quality visual and gameplay experiences for players.I have contributed to multiple AAA titles, such as Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Halo, as well as an unannounced IP at Deviation Games. I have expertise in lighting, terrain sculpting, BSP, Nanite, Lumen, and world metrics, as well as problem-solving both artistic and technical aspects of world building. I also have experience in previsualization, asset creation, collision, navmesh, player flow, storytelling, pacing, composition, and performance optimization. I enjoy collaborating with other artists, designers, and engineers, and supporting the project overall.

## Work Experience
### AI Product Designer - Reality Labs @ Meta
Jan 2024 – Present | California, United States
- Making cool things with cool people

### Senior World Designer III @ Tencent America
Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 | Irvine, California, United States
-Crafting visually compelling game worlds while filling in the blanks for Art and Design
-Helping spearhead overall metrics for scale and feel. Doorways, stairs, elevation changes, verticality, and rhythm between intimate / breathable spaces. 
-Lighting, terrain sculpting, BSP, Nanite, Lumen, metrics knowledge and experience.
-Utilizing Maya alongside Unreal Engine to help get my team simple custom assets/UCX collision we need quickly without clogging the ENV ART pipeline.
-Authoring foundational building blocks, such as proxy meshes, white box materials, world metrics, and asset collections for the team.
-Problem-solving both artistic and technical aspects of world building, such as lighting, atmosphere, collision, navmesh, player flow, storytelling, pacing, composition, and performance.
-Striking a balance between concept art and game-play needs, and the conflicting goals those two sometimes introduce.
-Being a Team Player: Collaborating with numerous teams, taking pressure off leadership, being proactive in communication, validating and listening to others, giving constructive feedback, and supporting the studio as a whole.
-Seeking to constantly grow on both design and art fronts.

### Principal Artist - World Builder @ Deviation Games
Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Santa Monica, California, United States
-Bringing ideas to life: Crafting visually compelling game worlds while filling in the blanks for Art and Design
-Authoring foundational building blocks, such as proxy meshes, white box materials, world metrics, and asset collections for the team.
-Utilizing Maya alongside Unreal Engine to get assets in and out of the game, authoring collision, setting up source files, and cleaning up geometry.
-Problem-solving both artistic and technical aspects of world building, such as lighting, atmosphere, collision, navmesh, player flow, storytelling, pacing, composition, and performance.
-Striking a balance between concept art and game-play needs, and the conflicting goals those two sometimes introduce.
-Being a Team Player: Collaborating with numerous teams, taking pressure off leadership, being proactive in communication, validating and listening to others, giving constructive feedback, and supporting the studio as a whole.
-Seeking to constantly grow on both design and art fronts.

### Level Designer / World Builder - Fortnite @ Armature Studio
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | Austin, Texas Area
- Creating levels using modular kits to design visually appealing and fun locations that follow gameplay rules
- Focusing on visual quality of the game levels while making sure it plays just as well
- Utilizing content in creative and new ways to tell stories, pushing the ambient storytelling in the world
- Using art and design sense to make the worlds come alive
- Supporting with Art pipeline assistance

### Level Designer / Level Artist - Black Ops 3, Black Ops 4 @ Treyarch
Jan 2014 – Jan 2018 | Greater Los Angeles Area
-Texturing, 3d modeling, and designing AAA game spaces for co-op, singleplayer and multiplayer experiences.
-Striking a balance between concept art and gameplay needs, and the conflicting goals those two sometimes introduce.
-Working across numerous departments and individuals to ensure map exceeds gameplay and visual bar
-Ensuring level stakeholders are all on the same page by keeping communication constant and ongoing.
-Working as middle management, or point person, attending high level meetings with directors and delegating feedback and concerns to other assigned builders
-Participating in the interview process for new design candidates
-Problem solving design and art issues. Making sure game designers and artistic vision are aligned.

### Sandbox Systems Designer - Halo 4 & 5 @ 343 Industries - Microsoft Corp.
Jan 2011 – Jan 2014
Caretaker and System Designer for all Halo Vehicles. When 343 changed their art pipeline from MAX to MAYA, it was up to me to get all the vehicles feeling close to what Bungie had laid out. Almost everything was animation driven and hardcoded like the Warthog's suspension and classic feel.

At the same time, I worked hard with the sandbox team to improve on the vehicles systems, adding small quality of life improvements where I could, while respecting what Bungie established for the Halo Universe.

Few Bulletpoints:
-Pitching, prototyping, and designing new Forerunner vehicles, and making improvements to existing Halo universe vehicles both for UNSC and Covenant.
- Improving gameplay aspects, for example, designing and proposing air control for UNSC vehicles such as the Warthog and Mongoose, giving players an option to correct their landing from a jump if they wanted.
-Tuning, polishing, and balancing all aspects of vehicle systems, including camera, health, weapons, effects, collision, and vehicle physics systems
-Working closely with multiple departments in getting new assets into the game
-Prototyping new ideas and functionality with 3d software and proprietary tools, such as prototyping and designing the UNSC Gun Goose.
-Authoring physics and collision geometry for numerous assets in Maya
-Kit-bashing the effects and particle systems to quickly get temp visual feedback on new weapons and ideas
-Setting up and balancing all systems and subsystems for vehicle damage states, including separating geometry in Maya and using exported geometry to create new physics based garbage pieces
-Maintaining up to date vehicle documentary and vehicle specs for the team
-Utilizing Maya to setup asset hard-points, regions, materials, and damage channels
-Creating levels and generating unique assets with Maya / 3dMax

### World Builder - Lost Planet 3 @ Spark Unlimited
Jan 2010 – Jan 2011
-Building out playable areas and cinematic spaces, as well as carving out player paths and flow
-Working heavily with matinee to setup complex animation sequences and vignettes
-Setting up and polishing player and camera collision for a smooth experience

### World Builder - Yar's Revenge @ Killspace Entertainment
Jan 2009 – Jan 2010
Yars Revenge (XBLA PSN PC)
-Designing and building more than half of the game's level content.
-Whiteboxing and paper mapping detailed level layouts
-Setting up manual occlusion for the majority of the levels in Gamebryo.
-Laying out fun and complex camera splines
-3d modeling and implementing art assets
-Working closely with the art team in setting art direction and maintaining correct assets throughout the game.
-Set-dressing all maps and bringing them to shippable visual quality

### Associate System Designer - Mercenaries 2 @ Electronic Arts / Pandemic
Jan 2007 – Jan 2009
I tune vehicle physics parameters and take ownership of how vehicles drive and feel for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. I also utilize what the engine has to create and prototype new creative ideas and mechanics. Being template oriented helps me work with component systems to make sure seat, camera, physics, wheel, suspension, and weapon systems are hooked up correctly on vehicles. 

Besides vehicles, I contribute to game design, level design, world building, and sharing ideas on how to make the game more enjoyable for consumers. One of my many passions is crafting worlds I can immerse myself in, while making sure they play out well and are fun from a design perspective.

I was first inspired by the Build Engine, (Duke Nukem 3D) and spent years mastering that and creating renditions of people's houses, schools, apartments, etc. Creativity is one of my strongest traits.

### Production QA Tester - Mercenaries 2 @ Pandemic Studios
Jan 2006 – Jan 2007
Helping developers find crashes and asserts.

Aiding the marketing team by supplying screen-shots and video capture for the majority of the project's game trailers and advertisements.

### Quality Assurance Tester @ THQ
Jan 2004 – Jan 2006 | Agoura Hills, California, United States
Testing games for bugs and archiving them in a bug database. Primarily focused on reproducing critical bugs such as crashes, hard locks, soft locks, and critical game-play issues.

- Dawn of War
- Titan Quest
- Supreme Commander
- Smackdown vs RAW 2006
- Tak 3: The Great Juju Challenge
- Saint's Row


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/zandi
- Website: http://www.alizandis.com
- Website: https://www.zandiphoto.com/

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Source: https://flows.cv/ali
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/ali/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-02-23