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AI Technical Director · Sony Interactive Entertainment
AI Technical Director
Designing intelligent systems that redefine how digital content is created, captured, and brought to life in real time.
[ photo ]
20+
Years
3
Continents
Avatar · TLOU2
Credits
About me
Creative + technical leader with 20+ years across AAA games and film VFX — from Weta Digital (Avatar) to Naughty Dog (The Last of Us II) to leading AI & Pipeline Innovation at Sony Interactive Entertainment. Originally from Madrid. Now building the future in Santa Clarita.
I build intelligent production systems — pipelines, tooling, and AI integrations that work for any asset type and any content domain. Characters, environments, VFX, real-time — the methodology transfers. Off the clock I build RC jet turbines from raw metal, chase light with a camera, and dig into Neo Geo MVS boards. The engineer and the tinkerer are the same person.
Systems
Designing scalable pipeline architecture that operates at production scale — USD, Maya, Houdini, Qt, C++.
Research
Translating emerging ML and rendering research into deployable production tools — not just proof of concepts.
Direction
Aligning artists, engineers, and researchers around a shared technical vision and workflow.
Selected credits
Naughty Dog
Character Shading Technical Director
Weta Digital · James Cameron
VFX Textures & Shading
Double Negative · Marvel
Lighting TD & Look Development
Framestore
VFX Texture Painter
Framestore
VFX Texture Painter
Tequila Works · Microsoft
Co-Founder & Line Producer
Weta Digital · Peter Jackson
VFX Textures & Shading
Ilion · Paramount Animation
Senior Shading & Look Development
Selected work
[ ML ]
ML-powered system providing live spatial feedback during multi-camera capture. Enables real-time depth-of-field validation, reduces capture iteration cycles, and improves on-set decision making.
[ ML ]
Workflow integrating generative models into production environments — focused on controllability, consistency, and scalability. Bridges the gap between research experimentation and real-world deployment.
[ Engineering ]
Portable tool for processing and interacting with high-density capture environments. Interactive camera array visualization, efficient data retrieval, and cross-platform architecture (Windows/Linux).
[ Engineering ]
Modular applications for analyzing complex visual data — real-time depth maps, diagnostic overlays, extensible UI systems. Designed to support both development workflows and production use.
[ Pipeline ]
Custom strand data ingestion and processing pipeline with a full override system — optimized for large datasets and integrated into artist-friendly DCC workflows.
[ Pipeline ]
Cross-platform pipeline tooling spanning USD integrations, batch asset processing, and DCC automation — deployed across global studio teams.
Capabilities
Direction
The next shift will come from intelligent systems that combine physical accuracy, data-driven methods, and real-time feedback.
My goal is to help define that shift — by building tools and pipelines that not only improve production, but fundamentally expand what teams are capable of creating.
Driving the evolution of next-generation content pipelines
Translating emerging research into production-ready systems
Aligning artists, engineers, and researchers around shared vision
Reducing iteration time and expanding creative control
ML-augmented tools as a core pillar of future production
Beyond the screen
Dad first. Tinkerer always. What I build when I'm not building pipelines — and why it feeds directly back into the work.
Building miniature gas turbines from raw metal and composites — full compressor stages, combustion chambers, thrust vectoring.
Why it matters
Understanding real fluid dynamics and thermodynamics from scratch makes simulating them in Houdini a completely different conversation.
Deep in MVS slots, import cartridges, and the golden age of coin-op. CPS2, Neo Geo MVS, supergun setups.
Why it matters
Feeling what makes a game respond correctly before 'game feel' had a Wikipedia page is still the best benchmark for real-time quality.
Chasing practical light — natural, street, motorsport. Obsessed with the moment the exposure is exactly right.
Why it matters
Every hour spent reading real light outdoors makes the next look development session sharper. You can't fake what you haven't studied.
Long climbs, mechanical precision, marginal gains. The kind of sport where the system matters as much as the effort.
Why it matters
A reminder that performance is always a system — every component interaction matters, nothing is isolated.
If it can be built from first principles, it should be. Electronics, mechanical assemblies, custom tooling, whatever the problem demands.
Why it matters
The mindset that makes a good pipeline engineer: understand the constraints, reduce the tolerances, ship something that works.
Optimistic about
the future we're building
— Lauren Garcia Carro
AI-driven content pipelines and real-time validation tools at Sony Interactive Entertainment — shipping tools that fit actual production constraints.
Neural rendering, inverse reconstruction, and the convergence of ML with physical simulation in production — where the next big shift is.
How to make advanced production tech repeatable and scalable across any content domain. The hard problem isn't the research — it's productionization and adoption.
A new RC turbine project — miniature gas turbine from raw components. Because understanding thermodynamics from first principles keeps the simulation work honest.
Thoughts
Technical depth, lessons learned, and thinking out loud about where the industry is going.
When offline rendering and real-time finally converge, the bottleneck shifts from compute to iteration. Here's what that means for how we build pipelines — for any asset, any domain.
Sixteen years later, the lessons from working at Weta on James Cameron's Avatar still shape how I approach look development, material systems, and rendering at scale.
The most impactful technical artists I've worked with weren't just tool operators — they were systems thinkers. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Career
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Leading innovation across art + tech — streamlining asset and content pipelines through automation, driving applied AI/ML integrations for content creation and validation. Own R&D from exploration to delivery: evaluate emerging tech, prototype rapidly, productionize, and document best practices for adoption at scale.
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Led digital human look development (skin, hair, eyes, teeth, blood flow). Defined UE5 & PS5 shading pipeline adoption. Led cross-functional AI/ML integrations and global R&D synergies. Built and mentored the shading team delivering AAA quality.
The Initiative · Microsoft
Developed internal shading pipeline and Master Materials framework. Extended shader models in Unreal Engine, oversaw outsourcing, and debugged GPU bottlenecks on Xbox.
Naughty Dog · The Last of Us II
Wrote shaders and developed the look of skin, fabric, hair, eyes, leather, metal, and blood on one of gaming's most acclaimed titles. C++, PSSL, Python, Substance Painter, Mari. Drove frame-rate and memory optimization for character art.
Reel FX · Double Negative
Look development for Scooby Doo (Reel FX). Lighting TD and LookDev on Marvel's Captain America: Civil War (Double Negative). Characters, vehicles, and environments in Maya, Clarisse, Arnold, Mari.
Framestore · Ilion Animation Studios
Texture painter at Framestore London on 47 Ronin and James Bond Skyfall. Senior Shading & LookDev at Ilion on WonderPark (Paramount Animation). Mari, Arnold, Maya.
Tequila Works · Weta Digital
Co-founded Tequila Works in Madrid — pitched Deadlight to investors, assembled the core team, negotiated with Microsoft, defined the pipeline. Prior: VFX Textures & Shading at Weta Digital on James Cameron's Avatar and The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson).
Mercurysteam · ISBAN · PyroStudios
Castlevania Lords of Shadow pre-production at Mercurysteam. C++ Programmer Analyst & Project Manager at ISBAN (financial trading systems, Linux). Started career at PyroStudios — now Ilion Animation Studios.
Contact
Available for VFX supervision, art direction, ML engineering consulting, and collaborative studio projects. Based in Los Angeles, working globally.
Or email directly
hello@loganvfx.com