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Christian Daniel Caamano

Founder, Quam Magnum
Systems Engineer
Game Developer
christian@christiancaamano.com | Tampa, FL | christiancaamano.com | linkedin.com/in/christian-caamano-caachr | github.com/caachr

Summary

Creative, systems engineer, and game developer working across programming, 3D art, and music. I go deep in each discipline and synthesize unique cross-domain connections that let me move fast, produce higher-quality work, and pick up new tools quickly. Currently in the research phase for Quam Magnum's first game.

Quam Magnum

Founder — December 2025–Present. Independent game studio, currently in foundational research ahead of engine and infrastructure work. Design philosophy centers on "perceptual realism": considering how an experience feels to inhabit, beyond standard photorealism. Building a custom engine instead of a licensed one to avoid vendor dependency and keep full creative control.

Technical Projects

CORE: Limited Proof of Concept

OCT–DEC 2025
Small-scale tech demo, Unreal Engine 5 — 1 of 5 planned environments, single-semester window
  • Solo-built a UE5 tech demo for Quam Magnum's flagship project CORE, integrating Unreal, TouchDesigner, Figma, and After Effects into one pipeline
  • Built a custom equip/unequip inventory system via Control Rig wired into the first-person AnimBP state machine; modeled the equippable compass in Blender with always-north needle logic
  • Built an ambient forest environment with wind-animated trees, distance-falloff bird audio, and footstep SFX synced to foot-ground contact using self-recorded foley
  • Designed a dynamic main menu with a TouchDesigner-authored background video and a custom Niagara-driven UI cursor trail

Proximity Optimization

FEB 2025
Godot GDExtension — Game Engine Design — GitHub — demo video
  • C++ GDExtension optimizing game-loop performance via proximity-based selective processing around a reference node; validated with a custom test scene confirming only in-radius objects were processed

OmniFolder

MAY–JUN 2025
github.com/caachr/OmniFolder
  • Solo-conceived, designed, and built a self-hosted distributed backup suite in 7 weeks — ~5,800 lines of C++
  • Built a client-server architecture from the socket level using TLS, a Protocol Buffer wire protocol, and custom message framing
  • Implemented Argon2id credential hashing and ChaCha20-Poly1305 encrypted config storage
  • Designed a GitHub Gists-based disaster-recovery beacon for full server-failure recovery

Coilgun Physics

FEB 2025
Godot / Jolt physics — Game Engine Design — GitHub — demo video
  • Built a custom Godot physics module extending Jolt with magnetic dipole simulation, attraction/repulsion forces, and pole-alignment torque
  • Built a real-time debug visualizer for active magnetic fields and forces; applied it to a working 3D coilgun demo

Core Meltdown

JAN 2025
Godot — Game Engine Design, Vanderbilt — github.com/caachr/cs3891-assignment1-core-meltdown — gameplay video
  • First-person puzzle game; 5 levels built around a nuclear-meltdown theme with a 4-minute timer
  • Modeled all assets from scratch in Blender: levers, a hinge-rotating hatch, caution tape, a password keypad
  • Wrote a custom native C++ GDExtension for a fading alarm-light effect

Displace and Dissolve Shader

MAR 2025
Godot shader — Game Engine Design — GitHub — demo video
  • Wrote a custom two-part Godot shader (vertex displacement + fragment dissolve), both noise-driven
  • Added an interactive mouse-driven displacement/dissolve feature, demoed on a decaying sun object

Beyond the Uncanny Valley

APR 2026
UE5 digital human — Immersion Culminating Project
  • Built a custom digital human in UE5 via a hybrid Daz3D + Metahuman Creator/Identity pipeline, after Metahuman's adult-only templates proved unsuitable for a young-adult character
  • Diagnosed and fixed a head/body conform bug traced to a mispositioned neck bone
  • Directed a full motion-capture pipeline: facial (LiveLink Face, Metahuman Animator) and full-body (Move.ai, after Rokoko Vision failed)

Spider Boss Fight

APR 2025
Godot 4.3, C++ GDExtension — team of 4 — GitHub — gameplay video
  • 3D action survival game with an AI-driven spider boss; my role covered 3D modeling/rigging and audio systems
  • Modeled, textured, and fully leg-rigged the spider boss for IK-driven animation
  • Wrote a custom audio GDExtension managing positional audio streams via a GDScript-callable play API

DeathSpire Codex

SEP–DEC 2025
Meta Quest 3 — Project in VR Design, Vanderbilt — team of 5
  • VR card auto-battler; composed original adaptive battle music and assembled the arena environment
  • Retargeted a knight model to Meta VR IK targets for full-body avatar embodiment; modeled a medieval book asset in Blender, cloth-simulated 60+ pages, then baked to a low-poly proxy to keep it game-ready

Simple Emergent Behavior

SEP 2025
Unity — ARTS 1810, Vanderbilt
  • 2D artificial-life simulation as generative digital art; procedurally generated terrain via layered Perlin noise
  • Built state-machine-driven AI for prey, predator, and balancer agents, with a custom A* pathfinding system (line-of-sight smoothing, BFS fallback)

Personal Website

ONGOING
christiancaamano.com — raw HTML/CSS
  • Hand-coded multi-page site with a custom design system across Home, Anthology, Gallery, and Blog
  • Built a custom vertically-alternating branching Anthology timeline with embedded media, responsive across two breakpoints

Music Production — Spectral Elements

Producing for 9 years in FL Studio. I handle the full creative pipeline on every release: composition, sound design, mixing, mastering, visuals, and branding. 19 songs released across dance, house, dubstep, and orchestral genres — soundcloud.com/spectralelements.

Dustborn — link
  • First track fusing orchestral and electronic styles, built around the idea of a person "born from dust"
  • Created the cover art from scratch in Blender and built a sound-reactive visualizer for it in FL Studio's ZGameEditor
VALHALLA — link
  • Most technically complex release to date — a year in production, a 6-minute Viking-themed fusion of tearout electronic and full orchestral (Spitfire Albion Colossus)
  • Built an original particle-based music visualizer in TouchDesigner, self-taught over roughly a month

Photography — Spectral Visual

Shooting since 2020, starting with self-portraits for music branding before expanding into a broader practice spanning wildlife, architecture, and candid work. Moody, abstract, minimalist style with a focus on light, shadow, and composition. Shot on a Sony a7R III — instagram.com/spectral.visual.

"God's Vinyl" — Exhibited Work
  • Abstract macro photo of a wall-clock face, exhibited with the Vanderbilt Photo Society; paired with a short reflection on the second hand resembling a vinyl needle
"Nectar of Creation" — Exhibited Work
  • Abstract gold/liquid photo-art piece, exhibited with the Vanderbilt Photo Society; later reused as cover art for VALHALLA

Skills

LanguagesC++, C#, Java, SQL/MySQL
Engines / Dev ToolsGodot (incl. native C++ GDExtension), Unity, Unreal Engine 5 (incl. Blueprints), Blender, TouchDesigner, FL Studio, Qt6, CMake, vcpkg
Systems / SecurityC++ networking (TLS), Protocol Buffers, Argon2id, ChaCha20-Poly1305, GDB, disassembly-based analysis
3D Art & Asset PipelineModeling, UV unwrapping, texturing/material authoring, baking, rigging, cloth simulation, game-ready optimization
Character PipelineDaz3D Studio, Faceform Wrap, Metahuman Creator/Identity/Animator
Motion CaptureMove.ai, LiveLink Face, Rokoko Vision, Chaos Cloth
VR DevelopmentMeta Quest 3 — IK avatar embodiment/retargeting
Music ProductionComposition, sound design, mixing, mastering, adaptive game music, foley
Post-Production / DesignDaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Figma
Analytical FrameworksSpiral Dynamics, Integral Theory

Education

B.S. Computer Science — Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN  |  August 2021 – May 2026  |  GPA 3.505
Relevant coursework: Algorithms · Principles of Operating Systems I · Computer Architecture · Database Management Systems · Programming Languages · Artificial Intelligence · Intermediate Software Design · Program Design & Data Structures · Discrete Structures · Game Engine Design · Project in Virtual Reality Design · Cyber Security · Creative Coding for Visual Art · Electronic Music Production & Sound Design · Transformation Geometry