Last Fall, then-LMU seniors Megan Reyes and Michael Elias entered an augmented reality Hackathon organized by Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook. Reyes and Elias worked more or less around the clock for four days and nights, and submitted their work.
The duo figured they had a decent chance to win a prize, thinking that they were competing solely against other students. They weren’t. The hackathon was open to industry professionals, as well. “I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t know if we’re going to win this – they’re pretty legit, they have full LinkedIns,” Reyes said recently, with a laugh. “But since we’re so passionate about it, we wanted to keep going.”
And go they did, soon learning that they were among the winners in the Hand & Body Tracking Performance AR Effects category, for their project, “Stunt Doubles.” The win came with a $10,000 prize. Participants were asked to “leverage hand & body tracking enhancement capabilities to create innovative content,” per the Meta for Developers announcement of the winners.
Watch this short video on Reyes’ “Made by Megan” website to learn more about her and Reyes’ process and to view the end result – a filter where one person appears to turn into three, and an electrical effect pulses through the trio’s hands.
Reyes and Elias went on to graduate as computer science majors with minors in interactive, gaming and immersive media. IGI is a joint program of LMU Frank R. Seaver College of Science & Engineering and the School of Film & Television. Elias also added an animation minor; and both students took courses in LMU College of Business Administration’s M-School.
Reyes and Elias first worked together as juniors, on a semester-long team app development project in an interaction design course. The two have now collaborated six times. “We work really well together,” Elias said. (Visit his website.)
“It’s gotten to the point where whenever we would have individual presentations, we’d be like, ‘This feels so weird that we’re not presenting together,’” said Reyes.
Whether they will work together again soon is an open question – both would like to. In May, Reyes and Elias were interviewing for jobs: Reyes looking at front-end development or AR production positions; Elias, a technical artist or virtual production spot.
Reyes grew up in San Jose, familiar with Silicon Valley, playing online games but not yet coding. She was interested in art and 3D animation, and came to realize that Pixar’s roots were in part in computer science. At LMU, her interests expanded to include AR and virtual reality. Silicon Beach, relatively nascent, isn’t as venerable nor large as Silicon Valley – but Reyes and Elias noted that Snap Inc. is headquartered there, TikTok moved in, YouTube is close. The pair’s AR class visited Verizon 5G Labs, and Elias raved about a trip to Sony, home of a “ginormous” motion capture stage.
Elias hails from Manhattan Beach, close to LMU. He too grew up a Pixar fan, and also spent time at a Southern California theme park known for nightly fireworks displays, where his father served as a head pyrotechnic. “I went to Disneyland a lot growing up,” Elias said, “and I really was inspired how [my dad] managed to combine science and art together.”
As a high school sophomore, Elias took AP Java. That put him on his computer science path; as did the three-week Google CSSI Extension Program offered by LMU to rising freshmen. “I got acquainted early with the department,” Elias said, “and one of our favorite professors, Josh Morgan, who knows a lot about Unreal Engine” – which powers gaming and other 3-D content. Reyes, meanwhile, mentioned Professor Ray Toal – who was chair of the Computer Science Department – as a favorite; and both shouted-out Ana Carolina Estarita-Guerrero, their AR instructor and the Cosgrove Family Distinguished Visiting Artist in the Animation Department.
Put it all together and it’s easy to see how these two Lions found their way to the Bluff and succeeded there. “One of the main draws for me to go to LMU was because it’s in LA, and they have a very strong animation and CS department,” Elias said. Adds Reyes: “If you want expertise in both backgrounds, I would say, go to a place like LMU.”