Corrinne Yu
Corrinne Yu at Hotel W Dallas in 2009
Born	Hong Kong
Nationality	American
Occupation	Game programmer
Employer	General Motors
Title	Graphics Programmer
Spouse	Kenneth Scott

Corrinne Yu is an American game programmer. She has worked on games including King's Quest, Quake II, and Halo 4. Her engine work included Unreal Engine 3, Microsoft's Direct3D Advisory Board, and CUDA and GPU simulation at Nvidia. She has also designed accelerator experiments for nuclear physics research.

Biography

[edit]

Early life

[edit]

Yu attended California State Polytechnic University, Pomona to study electrical engineering before beginning her career as a professional programmer.^[1]

Game development

[edit]

Yu's early career was as a programmer for the King's Quest series for the Apple II, although she had her own 3D engine projects that she sold to various companies.^[2] She programmed for QuickDraw 3D, an early rasterisation API.^[2] She worked on the game Zombie, and created the video game engine used in Spec Ops: Rangers Lead The Way.^[3] In November 1997, she was employed by video game developer Ion Storm.^[1] She worked on the 2001 video game Anachronox and served as Director of Technology at the studio.^[1]^[4] While at Ion she was responsible for the Quake 2 code base used in their games and any games based on that engine.^[5] In November 1998, she left Ion Storm and later became the Lead Technology Programmer at 3D Realms.^[1] Yu worked as an engine programmer at Gearbox Software, creator of Brothers in Arms and Borderlands. Yu worked to heavily modify the Epic Unreal Engine 3 with an emphasis on lighting, shadows and physics.^[6] Yu was a founding member of Microsoft's Direct 3D Advisory Board. She participated in CUDA and GPU simulation at NVidia.^[7]

In 2008, Microsoft Studios hired Yu as the Principal Engine Architect for an internal studio, 343 Industries.^[8]^[9] 343 Industries was established in 2007 to oversee the Halo franchise following Bungie's separation from Microsoft. Yu programmed lighting, facial animation, and developed new technology for the 2012 video game Halo 4.^[10] While coding on Halo team, Yu researched new lighting techniques, and invented new dynamic radiosity algorithms. Microsoft applied a software patent for Yu's Halo lighting work.^[11]

In November 2013, Yu joined video game developer Naughty Dog, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, to work as a graphic programmer on PlayStation 4 projects, like Uncharted.^[12]^[13]In November 2014, she left Naughty Dog and joined Amazon.com to work on their Amazon Prime Air program.^[14] In March 2018, she left Amazon and joined General Motors as a VP of Engineering.

Other works and awards

[edit]

In 2009, Corrinne Yu won Best in Engineering internationally at GDC (Game Developers Conference) WiG nominated and judged by a panel of her industry peers for the last 2 years in a row, for her work in programming.^[15] In 2010, Yu was identified by Kotaku as one of the 10 most influential women in games in the last decade. She is the only director of technology, and the only engine programmer, on this list.^[16]

Development style and influences

[edit]

Yu is driven by her interest in how complex pieces can be made to fit together, and compared every day to playing a game of Minecraft, only more flexible and with greater real world applicability.^[17]

Work

[edit]

Halo 4 (2012) Graphics Engineering
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway (2008) Programming
Anachronox (2001) Programming
Spec Ops: Rangers Lead the Way (1998) Programming

References

[edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Corrinne Yu biography". Allgame. Rovi Corporation. Archived from the original on April 10, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ ^a ^b "Corrinne Yu: Principal Engine Architect, Halo Team Microsoft". Channel 9. November 23, 2009. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ IGN Staff (November 20, 1998). "Ion Storm Exodus Continues". IGN. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
^ Chadderon, Lisa (September 30, 1998). "Demons Over Dallas". Fast Company. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ Wu, Andrew (April 24, 1998). "The 8th Annual Women in Gaming Awards". Quake Wiki. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
^ Kristoffer Keipp (June 12, 2008). "PCGH interview about Borderlands". PC Games Hardware. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
^ Nutt, Christian (June 16, 2008). "Analysis: Gearbox, Gas Powered Talk Tech With Nvidia GTX 200". Gamasutra. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ Ashcraft, Brian (August 27, 2008). "Why All This Gearbox Halo 4 Talk? Here's Why… (Maybe)". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ Ashcraft, Brian (August 28, 2008). "Microsoft Confirms Corrinne Yu Hire, Internal Halo Team Expansion". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
^ "8th International Annual Videogames and Interactive Entertainment Show - Speakers". Gamelab. Archived from the original on 2013-03-30. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ "Corrinne Yu Halo lighting software patent". Archived from the original on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2013-09-17.
^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (November 25, 2013). "Halo programmer Corrinne Yu joins Uncharted dev Naughty Dog". Eurogamer. Eurogamer Network. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
^ Rose, Mike (Nov 24, 2013). "Halo veteran Corrinne Yu makes switch to Naughty Dog". GameDeveloper. Retrieved Apr 1, 2025.
^ Crecente, Brian (April 28, 2015). "Halo 4's former principal engineer is now helping with Amazon's drone fleet". Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
^ Randhawa, Karen (August 14, 2009). "The 8th Annual Women in Gaming Awards". Game Developers Conference. Archived from the original on November 14, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ Schwimmer, Trina (January 1, 2010). "The 10 Most Influential Women in Games of the Past Decade". Kotaku. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
^ GG-AngelThanatos (January 1, 2012). "Women in Gaming: Halo's Corrinne Yu". Girl Gamer. Archived from the original on January 9, 2012. Retrieved March 26, 2013.

External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Corrinne Yu.

Corrinne Yu at MobyGames
Corrinne Yu on Twitter

v t e Ion Storm
Video games	Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3 Daikatana GBC Deus Ex Anachronox Deus Ex: Invisible War Thief: Deadly Shadows
People	John Romero Tom Hall Mike Wilson Warren Spector Stevie Case Corrinne Yu Harvey Smith

v t e Halo Studios
Halo	Combat Evolved Anniversary Halo 4 Forward Unto Dawn Spartan Assault The Master Chief Collection Spartan Strike 5: Guardians Halo Wars 2 Infinite
People	Josh Holmes Bonnie Ross Kiki Wolfkill

Naughty Dog

Video games

Early games	Ski Crazed Dream Zone Keef the Thief Rings of Power Way of the Warrior
Crash Bandicoot	Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back Warped Crash Team Racing
Jak and Daxter	The Precursor Legacy II 3 X: Combat Racing
Uncharted	Drake's Fortune 2: Among Thieves 3: Drake's Deception 4: A Thief's End The Lost Legacy
The Last of Us	The Last of Us Left Behind Remake Part II
Others	Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

People

Current	Neil Druckmann Halley Gross Emilia Schatz
Former	Andy Gavin Amy Hennig Vijay S. Pande Bob Rafei Jason Rubin Josh Scherr Bruce Straley Evan Wells Hirokazu Yasuhara Corrinne Yu Charles Zembillas

Related

Category