José Serra, Developer in Porto, Portugal
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José Serra

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Computer Graphics Developer

Location
Porto, Portugal
Toptal Member Since
December 4, 2019

José has considerable experience decomposing complex problems into smaller manageable ones, primarily in the areas of computer graphics, Computer Vision, and machine learning. His solutions intertwine concepts from multiple fields to achieve comprehensible and straightforward solutions. Most of his work has focused on applying state-of-the-art approaches and tailoring them for the specified task.

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Python, C++, Dlib, OpenCV, MATLAB, PyCharm

The most amazing...

...project I've developed was an intelligent facial animation system designed to create unique character motion with minimal input from the author.

Work Experience

R&D Engineer

2018 - 2019
Industrial Light & Magic (London)
  • Worked on linear and non-linear optimization for character animation models.
  • Tasked with researching and implementing state-of-the-art research and tailoring it to the company's needs.
  • Created modular code using C++ and Boost that integrated into an existing pipeline.
Technologies: Maya, Python, C++, Linear Optimization

Studio Engineer, Researcher

2016 - 2018
University of Bath
  • Worked to bridge research projects to industry applications, creating plugins and dealing non-linear optimization for facial animation.
  • Researched state-of-the-art approaches and reproduced them in laboratory conditions.
  • Wrapped existing research into applications that were user-friendly.
  • Tracked and fixed bugs, and implemented validation test suites.
  • Contributed to academic research and published papers pertaining character animation.
Technologies: Visual Studio, Ceres, Unreal Engine 4, MATLAB, Maya, C++, Python

Software Developer

2016 - 2016
Mental Factory
  • Worked as a freelancer for Mental Factory, with the task of creating interactive applications for the Museum of Coin from Banco de Portugal.
  • Created a motion detection application to throw 3D objects based on the motion of the person.
  • Used facial detection and 3D depth estimation model to mint a coin with and individual's face.
Technologies: OpenCV, Unity3D, C#

Teacher Assistant

2015 - 2015
University of Bath
  • Tutored at the laboratories for the course Advanced Computer Graphics, which dealt mainly with concepts related to rendering.
  • Responsible for grading student assignments.
Technologies: OpenGL, C++

Is Anna OK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/is_anna_ok
I worked on capturing body and facial movements for Aardman BBC’s Is Anna OK? [https://www.aardman.com/work/is-anna-ok/]. This was achieved using Vicon Shogun and Vicon’s Cara HMC. Within this project, I was also involved in the implementation of the tools used to drive the facial animation of the characters.
For more information: https://www.camera.ac.uk/cameras-facial-motion-capture-helps-bring-vr-documentary-to-life/

Bandai Namco: 11-11: Memories Retold

https://www.camera.ac.uk/11-11-memories-retold-nominated-for-two-bafta-games-awards-2019/
Captured and previewed the motion for Aardman Bandai Namco’s 11-11 Memories Retold. We used Vicon Shogun to capture the motion of half of the actors and Unity to preview the retargeted motion.

Welsh National Opera Project: Rewind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBW8KVRhZEs&feature=youtu.be&t=18
Captured the motion Karah Son for Rewind/Welsh National Opera’s Madame Butterfly project.
We used Vicon Blade to capture facial and body motion.
For more information, check CAMERA’s blog pos here [https://www.camera.ac.uk/welsh-national-opera-project-rewind/].

Semblance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tclTLKcHFbo&feature=youtu.be&t=26
Internal collaboration (Co-Lab) between different departments of the University of Bath (CAMERA/CS department and The Edge) to create Semblance. We worked on the full project from inception to completion. The project itself takes the form of a VR dancing experience, where the dancer (captured used Vicon) drives an avatar in UE and leaves behind a ghostly trail.
I worked on assembling the Vicon to the UE pipeline and implemented the UE experience.
For more, information check CAMERA’s blog post and video here [https://www.camera.ac.uk/virtual-worlds-dance-event-22-april-2017/].

Golem

Helped develop a visual speech animation system for Golem and LIFEisGAME projects in collaboration with Microsoft’s MLDC in Lisbon. In this project, we implemented a modular speech animation framework that started with speech recognition to identify the phonemes and their timings, and then using a phone-to-viseme map; the animation was assembled and blended. We explored different phone-to-viseme maps and used MFCCs to vary the poses according to the intensity of the speech signal. The framework was also general enough so that different modules (text-to-speech, co-articulation) could be switched without affecting all the other steps required to generate the animation. This led to the iberSPECCH publication and my Master of science thesis.

Other

Computer Vision, Visualization, Data Engineering, Optimization, Algorithms, Statistical Modeling, Research, 3D Animation, Computer Graphics, Pattern Recognition, 3D Visualization, Data Visualization, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Character Animation, Statistical Data Analysis, Mathematics, Data Structures, Numerical Methods, Statistics, Statistical Methods, Clustering Algorithms, Data Analysis, Predictive Modeling, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Linear Optimization, Ceres, Autodesk Maya, Deep Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)

Languages

Python, C++, C#, Python 3

Frameworks

Unreal Engine 4, Unity3D, Boost, Qt

Libraries/APIs

OpenCV, NumPy, Eigen, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, OpenGL, Dlib

Tools

MATLAB, Visual Studio, Jupyter, MATLAB Statistics & Machine Learning Toolbox, PyCharm, Maya

Paradigms

Data Science

Platforms

Windows, Linux

2011 - 2017

Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Graphics

University of Porto - Porto, Portugal

2006 - 2011

Master of Science Degree in Network and Information Systems Engineering

Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto - Porto, Portugal

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