Carlos Monteagudo Mañas

Carlos Monteagudo is R+D Engineer at ToolChefs LTD, a London-based company that is developing a crowd simulation system; in other words, a system to reproduce in 3D the behaviour of thousands of agents (such as humans, creatures, etc.) in virtual environments. The program enables planning, for example, for films that typically depict battles with huge armies and the like. The system, called Crowd atoms (for VFX and animation) and Realtime atoms (for video games) is marketed and distributed to companies in different countries that are active in the VFX and video games industry.

Based on his work experience, Carlos is clear about the most important and notable aspect of the master's degree from a professional point of view: "My work basically involves developing new functionalities and extending and improving the system. In this context, the most important aspect that I have learnt about during this master's degree has to do with optimisation; that is, the need to ensure that the code we develop is as efficient as possible, because it is crucial for enabling clients to reduce simulation times. The types of tasks I carry out are very demanding in terms of geometry, numerical methods, etc. "

Carlos considers the hybridisation of disciplines offered by the Master's degree to be highly useful: "Mathematics and computation go hand in hand in the field of graphics, which is why I specifically chose this Master's degree. My intention is to continue specialising in simulation subjects for 3D Animation and VFX, for example, simulations of fluids, telescopes, fractures, deformable objects in general, and also simulations of creatures that involve muscles, skin, skin, hair, hair and so on."

For Carlos, both disciplines complement each other and have been useful to him in his work as a software engineer: "In order to be able to design and implement systems that solve these problems in an efficient and integrated manner in an audiovisual production environment, it is necessary to study and understand complex mathematical models and then implement them using the appropriate computational techniques to achieve a usable product. For this reason, I see the combination of the two disciplines in a research and development environment for graphics as highly valuable. The visual effects we see in cinema today are possible thanks to the spectacular work of 3D artists and professionals, which in turn is ultimately possible thanks to mathematicians and engineers who are constantly innovating and developing new and better software solutions. "