Interview with Thiago Costa: Lagoa Technologies

Thiago Costa
A native of Brazil, Thiago Costa created Lagoa Technologies (lagoa means small lake in Portuguese) to generalize physics formulas into one unified formulation. Thiago's physics framework Lagoa Multiphysics became widely popular with over one million views in less than one week. Prior to creating Lagoa he has worked extensively in the post-production industry in Brazil, the United States and Canada and have participated on films such as "Predators", "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and "Assassins Creed Lineage" and found Softimage ICE the ideal platform for developing tools.


The Area:
THIAGO! Welcome to the AREA. This year so far, must have been undoubtedly a hell of a year for you. As the creator of Lagoa, the powerful multiphysics engine that is now integrated into Softimage 2011.5, how has the response been these past few months since the major announcement was made?  
Thiago:
Thank you for receiving me at the AREA! Yes this year was special for me. The work was largely done before the announcement was made and with the help of the great Softimage staff the integration was very successful. Since then I’ve been busy writing a lot of code, giving support to new customers and following up with users.  

Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies 1280x720
Image Description: Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies
Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies 1280x720
Image Description: Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies
The Area:
There are over 1.5 million views and counting, on your jaw-dropping Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 Teaser! But… before we get into Lagoa, let's talk a bit about your background. Growing up in Brazil, how did you get started in the CG industry?
Thiago:
My CG story started with 3D modeling and animation for advertising.... Then I got into TV, design, opening titles for tele-novelas, character animation, motiongraphics... I had the luck to work in a lot of different areas and with a variety of people. The fact that I had to apply my work in a various ways got me very confident that I could change and work on pretty much anything I had fun. Was always for the fun of it and usually a lot of Brazilians that work on the CG industry carry the same diverse background. The exception with me is that I went a lot to the tech side, which doesn’t happen often in Brazil.
Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies 1280x720
Image Description: Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies
The Area:
What was your first 3D app…share any fond memories <:-)?
Thiago:
3ds Max was the first real production tool I used. I still open it and hit Shift+q to render, and it still works :)
But before that (to be fair) I had touched Blender when I only had a Linux system, it was the only thing there was for 3D... I have lots of memories of using Gimp(2D) and Blender to do ugly stuff...:) Not because of Blender but because I pretty much sucked at that time in 3D.
Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies 2072x905
Image Description: Image courtesy of Lagoa Technologies
The Area:
How long have you been using Softimage?
Thiago:
I’ve tried it when 3.0 was out, that was like 8 years ago? I remember it was complaining about my monitor resolution... Then when 4.0 was out I really got into it and never let go :).
Readmore...