Martin Guay

My background is modeling / AI ML, graphics, vision & simulation. After studying math, I started my career building video games software in Montreal. I realized I wanted to work on the new stuff and did a Master’s on simulating fluids (fire and liquids). Then I moved to France to pursue a PhD on 3D character animation at INRIA. I then joined Disney Research in Zurich where I built simulated character control using deep reinforcement learning, new augmented reality concepts such as virtual try-on, and finally a live AI talking avatar guests can speak with, which ultimately was purchased by NVIDIA.

In 2017, I saw the potential of deep learning and jumped into computer vision for tracking actors in camera for VFX. Today I lead R&D efforts in animation and VFX at Disney Research . Our team is using deep learning to built a full stack best-in-class actor tracking systems for VFX, and motion completion for animation; both of which are now used by ILM and Pixar respectively.