Matthias Ewald / interactive systems & realtime 3D
Freelance technical artist and developer working where code, realtime graphics and interaction meet: Unreal Engine and Unity, VR/AR, visualization, game systems and AI-assisted workflows. I advise teams on AI and automation, build prototypes and support realtime productions.
Unreal Engine, Unity, shaders, VFX, visualization and the technical work that keeps interactive scenes responsive.
Gameplay, prototypes, VR/AR experiences and spatial applications designed to be explored instead of merely viewed.
Ongoing independent research into AI agents, development workflows and automation, and consulting that puts it to work for teams.
Selected work / past projects and current direction
Browser game / personal project
A 90-second shooting gallery for the browser: goofy pirate birds cross an alien desert at three depths, and the farther a bird, the more it is worth. It follows the rules of the 1999 German classic Moorhuhnjagd, with every name, picture, sound and joke original.
Evolution simulation game / personal project
An insect colony simulation on a hex map that you watch rather than command. Workers forage, build, breed and defend the nest, and each insect’s behaviour, body and brain are inherited from an evolving genome.
WebGPU audiovisual instrument / personal R&D project
A realtime audiovisual instrument for the browser, built on WebGPU. Eight GPU simulations, from flocking and slime mould to fractals, share one rendering pipeline, and audio, MIDI, OSC and tempo play it like a synthesizer.
Developer tooling / AI coding agents
A Windows wizard that prepares any folder for AI coding agents in one run: an agent manual, safety rules that are enforced rather than just written down, git hooks and automated checks from day one.
Browser falling-block game / AI agent experiment
A flashy falling-block game for the browser. One Claude Opus agent built the playable version from a single prompt in under an hour, with no revisions.
Open-source tool / native Windows app
A deliberately lightweight Windows 11 resource monitor: a single self-contained C++ executable that shows CPU, GPU, RAM, temperatures, network and disk I/O in a compact desktop widget.
Trade-show VR experience
A VR experience for Oculus Quest that shows a rentable event space in all its setups at trade shows. Sales staff run it from an iPad companion app.
Interactive room visualization / sales tool
An interactive realtime visualization of macom’s “future work” room types, for sales laptops and VR. It shows the installed AV technology convincingly in 3D space and gives customers a solid basis for their decision.
Visualization & simulation software
Software that turns spaces, processes and real-world data into interactive realtime 3D: draw and furnish rooms, simulate processes, change parameters and see the effect immediately, on screen or in VR.
InnoGamesJam #12 / Hamburg
A competitive twin-stick shooter for the jam theme “Spooktacular”: little witches hunt for Halloween candy in a stylized world full of effects and physics interactions.
Official TV quiz show game / technical art
The official game of the ARD quiz show, for one to four players alongside Kai Pflaume, Bernhard Hoëcker and Elton.
Cultural heritage / augmented reality
An augmented reality app for iOS marking engineer William Lindley’s 210th birthday: Lindley appears in person and explains the water supply and sewer system he designed for Hamburg.
Cultural heritage / virtual reality
A virtual reality experience of Hamburg’s historic warehouse district around 1900, part of the city’s cultural digitization strategy. Shown at the Dialoghaus Hamburg for five months.
HAW Hamburg / master's project
A cooperative submarine survival game with VR support. Players descend into the deep-sea abyss, gathering resources, handling dangerous encounters and keeping the submarine intact, which only works with strong teamwork.
Roguelike dungeon crawler / personal project
A turn-based roguelike with tabletop rules: seeded floors under fog of war, loot, locked chests, traps and spreading fire, and two action points per turn for every move, strike or potion.
Services
Advise
Finding where AI and automation really save your team time: reviewing workflows, choosing and setting up coding agents and tool pipelines, and getting the systems behind them running reliably.
Build
Turning a new idea into something people can try: playable game and XR prototypes, interactive demos and visualizations. AI-assisted workflows keep iteration fast, so you can learn from a working version before the big decisions.
Support
Support inside an existing Unreal Engine or Unity production, where art meets engineering: shaders, realtime VFX, lighting, performance work and tools that make the team faster.
About
Since 2024: AI and automation consulting, prototypes, realtime development, visualization, VR/AR and games, alongside ongoing independent research into AI agents and development workflows. Based in the Nürnberg metropolitan region.
CEO and technical artist from 2020 to 2022, then technical artist part-time until 2023. Interactive 3D visualization for virtual prototypes and VR/AR planning experiences, including the MINDflow visualization software.
A Hamburg studio for VR, AR and MR, visualization, games and interactive media, with projects such as macomVIZ and William Lindley AR.
Technical art at Strixlab in Hamburg, then freelance. In 2017 also part-time at HAW Hamburg, building a virtual reality project for the city of Hamburg.
Game development, programming and content integration, plus tutoring in technical art, shaders and lighting.
Studies in Multimedia and Communications in Ansbach, internships as a 3D animator in Schwabach and Munich, and product visualization as a working student at Pfannenberg in Hamburg: the visual foundation underneath the engineering work.
Background
My path runs from 3D and game development into technical art, realtime visualization and interactive software. I studied Multimedia and Communications in Ansbach and Games at HAW Hamburg. In Hamburg I co-founded two VR/AR-focused companies, Shape-Shift and mindfine, and led both as CEO. Today I work freelance from Nürnberg and work in tree care on the side. Finding a balance between nature and technology, and between art and science, has always been a goal in my life.
My focus is on Unreal Engine, Unity, C++, C#, TypeScript, WebGL, realtime VFX, VR/AR and visualization — a mix that describes how I like to work: close to both the image and the system producing it. I love experimenting with generative art and procedural systems. Another hobby of mine is producing electronic music, a process that is as technical as it is creative and emotional.
Working principle
Build something people can experience early — then let the prototype expose what the plan was missing.
Open channel
Available for AI and automation consulting, prototype development and technical art.
© 2026 Matthias Ewald. Built with Jekyll + Tailwind + Vite.
Nürnberg · realtime systems
