Alberto Menache is a visual effects, animation, and gaming developer, supervisor, and advisor. He has contributed founding technology across the industry in performance capture, virtual production, remote collaboration, real-time rendering, facial animation, tracking and replacement, machine vision-based camera tracking, GPU-based embedded devices, robotic controls, and others.In 1988, Alberto founded TSi Inc., where he pioneered optical motion capture by adapting a medical system to create animation data. TSi sold its software to Motion Analysis in 1997 and as such, Motion Analysis became the first company to offer an animation solution for optical motion capture. At TSi, Alberto directed the development of several videogames, plus the first 3D engine to run on Windows 95, and the data capture for the first video game to use optical motion capture (Soul Edge).In 1997 Alberto joined PDI. He was responsible for rigging technology and workflow in the VFX department and authored several tools, including a feather simulation system that was used on several films, such as Shrek, Forces of Nature and Mission Impossible II, and a facial animation system that was used in commercial and VFX projects.In 2000, Alberto joined Sony Pictures Imageworks. On “Spiderman” (2002), he developed a muscle-based deformation system. He also developed a muscle based facial system, the motion capture pipeline, and others. He was the DFX Supervisor for “The Chubb-Chubbs”, which was used to develop the initial pipeline for Sony Pictures Animation and won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 2002. He was also the DFX Supervisor for “Superman Returns” and “The Polar Express”, where he also designed the film’s pipeline.In 2009, he pioneered Virtual Production by introducing the first toolset to allow rendering and real-time mocap streaming to a game engine (Unreal 3). A few years later, Alberto and his team developed PiStage, a complete virtual production solution.In 2012 Alberto started VisionData. VD clients include Lightstorm Entertainment (Avatar Sequels), where he developed an AI markerless facial tracker and many other tools; Electronic Arts, Meta, Verizon Media, Method Studios, Saatchi & Saatchi, Lucasfilm, Microsoft and many others.Alberto is also a founding member of NPCx, a startup company that is developing NextGen Artificial Intelligence tools for storytellers.Alberto has written several books and holds several patents. Some of his developments in virtual production, digital characters, motion capture and other areas are widely used in the industry.