About me
Hello friends, and welcome to my personal space! I'm Riccardo, a most-definitely-not-Italian-looking Italian with a big passion for games. I've spent my whole career being a bridge between the coding world and the pure arts, and I love to serve as bridge between two worlds that rarely speak to each other.
Technical designer & full-stack developer.
A few things about me:
- Birthday: 12 Dec, 1990
- Telegram: The_Gametist
- Born: Pisa, Italy
- Degree: Ph.D.
- Email: riccardo.galdieri@gmail.com
- Freelancing: Available
I am a technical designer that helps companies design, prototype and balance game systems and game mechanics so that they can validate and test ideas effectively. I have several years of experience working with both Unity and Unreal Engine, with a particular focus on VR, Multiplayer, and tools development.
And now? I'm looking for my next adventure!
Tech skills
If you're too lazy to read the rest of the website, I really don't blame you. Time is precious and visualization tools can help us save a lot of it. You should also know that I am a perfectionist (or so I like to believe) and I would never set anything to 100%, there's always margin to improve.
Resume
Education
Ph.D. in Emerging Digital Technologies
2017 - 2021
Ph.D. cum Laude
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
The last act of my academic career was a Ph.D. For over three years I worked on understanding how players approach uncertainty in games. I designed and conducted experiments on how implicit narrative, non-standard input designs, in-game user interfaces, game peripherals and even real-world events affected players' perception of unknown virtual environments.
Master's degree in Digital Humanities
2014 - 2016
110/110 cum Laude
University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
For my master thesis, I worked on an Unity plugin to simplify the creation of virtual cultural heritage exhibits. The tool helped plan any kind of event by procedurally generating buildings, showing the position of the Sun on any given day and time, and even came with a default assets pack!
Bachelor's degree in Digital Humanities
2010 - 2013
110/110 cum Laude
University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
For my bachelor thesis I used computational linguistics' tools to perform authorship's attribution on fictional characters. Literature already existed on real authors, but no one ever thought about using the same metrics to evaluate how unique individual characters are in any work of fiction.
Study abroad experiences
I've been a study-abroad student at King's College London in 2012-2013 and at National Taiwan University in 2014-2015
Awards
Salento AVR best short paper - 1st place
2020
Lecce, Italy
In 2020 I presented a paper titled “Exploring players’ curiosity-driven behavior in unknown videogame environments” at the SalentoAVR conference in Lecce, Italy. I didn't even know that they'd have awards, but I am glad I won, all the other papers were as valid!
WorldHaptics Student innovation Challenge 2019 – 1st Place
2019
Tokyo, Japan
In 2019 I was the Lead designer in “The Island” project, a VR experience that won the 1st price at the Student Innovation Challenge during the 2019 WorldHaptics conference in Tokyo, Japan. In our project, we were able to collect enough data to suggest that one of the reasons why haptics is still not as popular as VR is due to the fact that they are often marketed the wrong way.
Professional Experience
Unreal Engine Developer
2021 - Present
realworld-one, remote
- Develop VR applications for third-party customers using our core code-base.
- Standardize, redesign and implement multi-purpose tools for our internal shared library.
- Create a shared guidance system to complement our state-of-the-art custom step-graphs.
Visiting Staff
2019 - 2021
Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, Netherlands
- Creation of a remote data collection plugin for Unreal Engine (C++)
- Unreal Engine developer on the EscapeTower Game
- Teaching research methodologies to students.
Game Designer
2019
Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, Netherlands
- Co-Design of a rapid idea prototyping card game that requires no pre-defined cards or concepts to be used!
Full Stack Developer
2017-2021
PERCRO Laboratories, Pisa, Italy
- Full time developer for third party customers. During my time there, we developed digital experiences to help children with autism, to digitally preserve cultural heritage, and even worked on a full-scale 4 walls CAVE!
Technical Artist
2017
ARTechs London, Freelance
- Using photos provided by a third party, I created a mesh representation of a statue that was temporarily displayed at St. Paul's Cathedral, in London.
- Retopologise the mesh to reduce polygons to the bare minimum.
- Re-balance texture colours so that the mesh could be used in any lighting condition
Junior Unity Developer
2016
PERCRO Laboratories, Pisa, Italy
- Implement artworks created by a local high school.
- Create and upload the buil from Unity to a specific HTML domain (The experience was exported for HTML embedding).
Quest Designer
2005-2012
Online, Volunteer
- Design and implement quests for the biggest Ultima Online Italian grey shard, Venus.
Portfolio
I’ve done my fair bit of development in my life, mostly linked with the production of virtual environments (VR and desktop). Having a Ph.D. in Emerging Digtal Technologies, I’ve split my time between pure programming and design, reaching a good level of proficiency in both. I have also taught a few courses, which you can find in the dedicated section below. For the past two years I've worked with the German-based company realworld-one, but most of the work is covered by a very strict NDA, sorry!
- All
- Design
- Code/Blueprint
- Graphics
- Personal Projects
Teaching
2021
Virtual Environments - COURSE PAGE
2019
Unicorns and Dead Ducks, a Practical Workshop in Accelerating Game Design Concepting (Develop:Brighton)
- SLIDES (By Thomas Buijtenweg)
2020
Science! A semi-serious introduction
From Zero to hero – How to prototype in less thana a Jam Time! (UniTBv)
2018
Controller-free grasping in virtual reality, A problem of colliding worlds (eHeritage Conference)
Virtual applications development pipeline (eHeritage Workshop)
Virtual Environments (UniPi)
- Introduction to Unity - Slides
Publications
During my time in the academic world, I wrote quite a few things about the digital world, and I'm quite happy about most of them *coughs*. Here's a list of my favourite ones, a more comprehensive one can be found on my google scholar profile.
- Galdieri, Riccardo, Cristian Camardella, and Marcello Antonio Carrozzino. "What makes a circuit likeable and how different input devices can influence the perception of tracks in racing games." Computers in Human Behavior Reports 3, 2021: 100072.
- Galdieri, Riccardo, Mata Haggis-Burridge, Thomas Buijtenweg, and Marcello Carrozzino. "Exploring Players’ Curiosity-Driven Behavior in Unknown Videogame Environments." In International Conference on Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics, pp. 177-185. Springer, Cham, 2020
- Galdieri, Riccardo, Mata Haggis-Burridge, Thomas Buijtenweg, and Marcello Carrozzino. "Users’ Adaptation to Non-standard Controller Schemes in 3D Gaming Experiences." In International Conference on Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics, pp. 411-419. Springer, Cham, 2020.
- Galdieri, Riccardo, and Marcello Carrozzino. "Natural interaction in virtual reality for cultural heritage." International Conference on VR Technologies in Cultural Heritage. Springer, Cham, 2018.
- Carrozzino, Marcello, Chiara Evangelista, and Riccardo Galdieri. "Building a 3D interactive walkthrough in a digital storytelling classroom experience." Informatica 40.3, 2016.
Contact
Location:
Currently based near Pisa, Italy.
Email:
riccardo.galdieri@gmail.com
Telegram:
The_Gametist