Check out the offerings from technology developers at SIGGRAPH 2015, including product demonstrations, Exhibitor Tech Talks & Sessions and User Group meetings taking place throughout the show.
SIGGRAPH 2015, to be held August 9-13 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, CA, promises a full program of panels, presentations, technical papers and production sessions, as well as the Computer Animation Festival, the world's leading festival of the most innovative and accomplished computer graphics.
The annual SIGGRAPH conference is a five-day interdisciplinary educational experience in the latest computer graphics and interactive techniques including a three-day commercial exhibition that attracts hundreds of exhibitors from around the world. See below to get a taste of what some of the industry’s leading technology developers have on tap for the SIGGRAPH 2015 Exhibition, including product announcements and demonstrations, Exhibitor Tech Talks & Sessions and User Group meetings taking place throughout the show.
At SIGGRAPH 2015, Allegorithmic is debuting Substance Share, a new platform that enables the simple exchange of Substances, smart materials, meshes, shaders, and mesh-adaptive presets between game artists. Available exclusively to Substance Live members for the first month, Substance Share works through the browser, with Substance Designer and Painter integration to be unveiled in the fall.
Head over to booth #807 to find out about Substance, Share, updates to Substance Designer including Iray integration, and more.
AMD may not have any new products to announce at SIGGRAPH 2015, but that doesn’t mean the hardware manufacturer doesn’t have a full lineup of events planned for the show:
Monday, August 10
Tuesday, August 11
- An Overview of Next Gen APIs – AMD’s Graham Sellers – 9:00am to 12:15pm
- Exhibitor Tech Talk - The Future of AMD’s GPU-Accelerated Rendering Solutions with AMD’s Sean O’connell – Room 501 2:00pm - 3:00pm
- Real-Time Live! – West Hall B – 5:30pm to 7:15pm
Wednesday, August 12
Autodesk’s speaker series is returning to SIGGRAPH this year from August 11-12 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Hosted in room 408A, the sessions, presented by industry thought leaders, will provide an in-depth overview of industry trends and emerging developments driving the future of 3D visual effects and production in film and television. Members of the Autodesk development team will also provide insights and updates on Autodesk software, including upcoming innovative applications of the technology in Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and virtual production. Sessions range in focus from Terminator Genisys and Jurassic World VFX breakdowns to cloud computing and more. A few highlight sessions include:
- Modeling
Tuesday, August 11, 3:45-4:15pm
Hear about the future of modeling with Andrew Camenisch, an Academy Sci-Tech Award winner for the concept and design of Mudbox digital sculpting software. - Procedural Content Creation
Tuesday, August 11, 4:30-5:30pm
Autodesk 3ds Max team members Martin Coven and Christopher Diggins explore the impact of procedural content creation on the media and entertainment industry. - Virtual Production
Wednesday, August 12, 2:30-3:00pm
Ben Guthrie and David Morin from Autodesk discuss the effects of emerging technologies on the future of virtual production, including AR, VR, reality capture, photogrammetry, laser scanning and game engines.
For a full list of sessions and the latest information about Autodesk at SIGGRAPH 2015 visit area.autodesk.com/siggraph2015.
Join Blackmagic Design in booth #1019 as product specialists provide daily demos of Fusion Studio, its advanced VFX and motion graphics solution, DaVinci Resolve Studio, its professional editing and color correction software, and brand-new digital film cameras such as the URSA Mini, which features a 4.6K Super 35 image sensor with global shutter and 15 stops of dynamic range.
During the demos, SIGGRAPH attendees will learn more about VFX in Fusion 8, which will be available for Mac OS X and Linux soon, and editing and new color grading features in DaVinci Resolve 12, which was just made available for public beta.
In addition, Blackmagic Design will be featuring special guest presentations on working with DaVinci Resolve Studio and Fusion Studio:
- 11:30 a.m. with colorist Alexis Van Hurkman, whose work has been in the Telluride, Sundance, Tribeca, Hamptons and Amsterdam film festivals.
- 1:30 p.m. with VFX artist Damian Allen, who has worked on such films as 22 Jump Street, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and This is the End.
- 3:30 p.m. with VES Award winner and Flash Film Works compositing supervisor Jeremy Nelson, who has worked on such films as Spy, Barely Lethal and TV’s The Librarians.
At SIGGRAPH 2015, Chaos Group will explore new applications for V-Ray’s advanced Virtual Reality tools. Booth #807’s VR Bar will feature installations from Steelblue, Nurulize, and Legend3D, giving attendees a chance to immerse themselves in architectural and film projects crafted for the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard.
The popular “V-Ray Days” series returns August 11th and 12th with special presentations from Method Studios (Guardians of the Galaxy), Legend3D (Crimson Peak VR) and independent filmmakers Ruairi Robinson (The Leviathan) and Kevin Margo (CONSTRUCT).
Both “V-Ray Days” will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Room #510) starting at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday (8/11) and 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday (8/12). Additional presentations from Atomic Fiction’s work on The Walk and “The Ningyo"'s Miguel Ortega are also expected.
In the Chaos Group booth, guest speakers from Google Cloud Platform and Autodesk will present their V-Ray workflows. First looks at upcoming products like V-Ray for NUKE, V-Ray for MODO, as well as recent additions to V-Ray for 3ds Max and Maya will also be on hand, and shown each morning starting at 9:30 a.m. Chaos Group will also be guest speaking at NVIDIA's booth (#500) to showcase advances in GPU rendering.
To see the full booth schedule, including times for The V-Ray Theater, visit the Chaos Group’s SIGGRAPH website.
The two-part Designing Epic Experiences production session features Epic Games Senior Animator Gavin Moran, Senior Environment Artist Ryan Brucks, and Senior Graphics Programmer Brian Karis discussing the virtual reality game cinematic, A Boy and His Kite, as well as Epic Games Lead VR Engineer Nick Whiting, Weta Digital Head of R&D and VR Supervisor Alasdair Coull, and Weta Digital Software Developer Daniel Smith.
The Advances in Real-Time Rendering, Part I course, led by Epic Games Senior Engine Programmer Daniel Wright, will present state-of-the-art and production-proven rendering techniques for fast, interactive rendering of complex and engaging virtual worlds. The Unreal Engine: Level Design for Unreal Tournament course, hosted by Epic Games Senior Technical Artist and Designer Alan Willard and Educational Evangelist Luis Cataldi, will provide hands-on experience in Unreal Engine level design workflows and best practices for asset creation by building a level for Unreal Tournament.
The Convergences in Film and Games Technologies panel, moderated by FXguide’s Mike Seymour, will see Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri and peers from Pixar, ILM, Side Effects, The Coalition, Crytek and EA discuss the relevant convergences in film and game production processes and technologies.
Epic Games will also present a Dailies presentation on A Boy and His Kite with “Real-Time Open World Challenges,” narrated by Epic Games Senior Environment Artist Ryan Brucks, and a Real-Time Live! session, Pushing Photorealism in “A Boy and His Kite,” presented by Epic Games Lead Rendering Engineer Nick Penwarden.
Fabric Software is hosting a SIGGRAPH user group at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Room 405) on Tuesday August 11, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. Sessions include Fabric Engine 2, a preview of what’s coming next in Fabric Engine 2.1 as well as customer presentations from Double Negative, Hybride, MPC and Psyop. See the full schedule and register at www.fabricengine.com/siggraph-2015.
A joint invitation-only party, hosted by Fabric Software and Isotropix, follows the Fabric user group on Tuesday evening. Double Negative chief technology officer Graham Jack is presenting how Fabric Engine and Clarisse fit into the Dneg pipeline.
Visitors will have additional opportunities on Wednesday, August 12 to see how MPC is using Fabric Engine in production:
- 12:40 pm As part of NVIDIA’s Best of GTC Theater (Booth #500), MPC global head of VFX operations Damien Fagnou will present Dekko, a real-time preview framework built with Fabric and the NVIDIA OptiX ray tracing engine.
- 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm Fagnou will also present on the MPC and Fabric Engine pod at Pixar's RenderMan Art & Science Fair. Register here to attend.
During the event, leading industry professionals will be on hand at the Isotropix booth to share their experience with Clarisse iFX and talk about how they used it in some of their most recent projects:
- Massive environments in Clarisse: How Tippett Studio is using Clarisse to dress and render environments for 180 degree dome rides
With Alex Hessler, CG Supervisor at Tippett Studio
Tippett Studio is creating a 100% computer generated film for an immersive dome ride. Clarisse's ability to handle massive amounts of geometry has made it a central tool for the entire production process. - Clarisse gets physical
With Emmanuel Turquin, R&D Lead – Rendering at Double Negative
Discover how Clarisse has become Dneg's main renderer. Learn how Clarisse's SDK allowed DNeg's RnD to create a fully proprietary physically plausible rendering framework seamlessly integrated to the Clarisse application. - Scattering and Referencing to Simplify Pipeline at Double Negative
With Kai Pedersen, Generalist/Lighting TD at Double Negative
A look inside how Double Negative is leveraging Clarisse' procedural nature and powerful referencing to allow lookdev and lighting to handle tasks that would often rely on Layout animation and FX departments.
Click here to see the full presentation schedule at the Isotropix booth.
In addition, this year Isotropix will hold a joint user group meeting and party with Fabric Software on Tuesday, 11th August 2015 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Double Negative CTO Graham Jack will join the event and make a presentation on how Clarisse and Fabric Engine fit in Double Negative pipeline.
Drop by booth #715 to see presentations from iconic 3D artists, including feature and indie filmmakers, visual effects artists and motion graphic designers, who will share fresh perspective, the latest techniques and a behind-the-scenes look at the Cinema 4D workflow for award-win
ning feature films, television shows and commercials, video games, and medical/architectural visualization.
Check www.C4DLive.com for a list of the guest presenters, presentation schedules, and more.
NVIDIA will be showcasing its rendering and light simulation software, and the company’s latest suite of design tools that make it virtually impossible to tell the real from the rendered.
Live demonstrations will show how users can visualize their creations with physically-based rendering, as well design and collaboration workflows. In addition, attendees can see how Ford Motors is using virtual reality in product design, or strap on a headset to experience how WETA Digital is using VR to create immersive cinematic entertainment.
Next door, in the Visual Computing Theater, NVIDIA will present a dozen talks each day, featuring experts, partners and customers like Allegorithmic, Audi, Blue Marble 3D, Blur Studio, CATIA, Daz 3D, ESRI, Immersive Design Studios, Lightworks, Moving Picture Company, Pixar, Saatchi & Saatchi, and SpaceX. They’ll share how they are incorporating NVIDIA’s latest tools and technologies for design visualization. NVIDIA’s Visual Computing Theater is open to all attendees Sunday through Thursday; get the full schedule here.
‘Holojam,’ a nomadic VR experience developed by Dr. Ken Perlin and his students at NYU made possible with tracking by an OptiTrack motion capture system.
Participants will be tracked at wrists and ankles, in addition to the headset and wand, with their positioning captured by OptiTrack Prime 13 cameras in a 32’ x 34’ area and tracked using rigid body solves in OptiTrack’s Motive software. The OptiTrack system’s real time tracking data will be multicast via Wi-Fi into the Unity game engine running on each headset. Bystanders will be able to view the evolving virtual sculpture, and even scrub through it in time, on a large monitor next to the exhibit, and the interactive virtual sculpture will remain on display until the conclusion of the conference.
For more information, visit OptiTrack on the show floor at booth #515.
Additionally, PipelineFX has organized a Birds of a Feather panel on cloud rendering that will feature representatives from Google Cloud Platform, Scalar Studios, and Arc Productions.
The “Straight Talk on Cloud Rendering” panel will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Room 507 at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 11, 2015 and will cover everything from the options around utilizing premise, private and public cloud resources to the costs and gotchas that are usually discussed behind the scenes.
The format of Pixar’s RenderMan Art & Science Fair will consist of ten demonstration areas where SIGGRAPH attendees can explore different aspects of rendering related technology from both Pixar and RenderMan partners including Pixar’s production pipeline and research department, while also mixing with colleagues from the industry. Highlights will include the latest updates on RenderMan’s connectivity to Blender, Cinema4D, Houdini, Katana, and Maya, Pixar’s support of open interchange standards, a preview of metered licensing technology plus new cloud features in Tractor, and more. The main Feature Presentation of the evening will focus on RenderMan's RIS architecture along with an announcement of upcoming developments. Also presented will be a special screening of Pixar's latest animated short film, Sanjay's Super Team.
Pixar’s RenderMan Art & Science Fair begins on Wednesday, August 12th at 5:30pm in the Club Nokia at LA Live, 800 W Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles 90015. For more information, visit the Pixar booth (#945) on the show floor.
Shotgun Meetup
August 11, 10:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
This year's client “board meeting” combines Shotgun, Pipeline Toolkit and RV in one jam-packed session. Shotgun will be unveiling the latest updates, tools and features, giving a sneak peek into the company’s future plans, and holding an open Q&A with Shotgun CEO Don Parker and his team to address everything from uber-technical pipeline topics to general challenges facing studios.
Pipeline Awards
August 11, 10:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M. (During Shotgun Meetup)
The Shotgun Meetup will wrap up with the 2nd Annual Pipeline Awards, where the users can celebrate the pipeline community and get inspired by examples of excellence in tool development, integration, engineering and usage.
The Foundry booth theatre schedule can be downloaded here.
Guest speakers at Vicon’s booth will take attendees behind-the-scenes on their latest projects and include:
- Gary Roberts, virtual production supervisor at Digital Domain
- Matthew Brady, virtual production department supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic
- Jay Hosfelt, lead animator at Epic Games
As a finalist in the Real-Time Live Immersive Realities (VR/AR) Contest, Vicon customer Artanim, a non-profit foundation dedicated to the development and promotion of motion capture, has been selected to demonstrate its "Walking through a pharaoh's tomb” project, showcasing an immersive platform that combines Vicon motion capture systems with virtual reality headsets. SIGGRAPH attendees will have the opportunity to try the platform at the VR Village, as well as at the Vicon booth.
The Real Virtuality demonstration during the Immersive Realities Contest and at the VR Village will use 16 Vicon Bonita cameras to power a number of virtual reality applications. In south hall G, the VR Village will showcase real-time immersion in tomorrow’s virtual and augmented realities with live performances and demonstrations. Some of the contributors at the VR Village include Artanim, Dr. Ken Perlin from NYU and the S3D Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Real-Time Live! also features the work of Hsin-Chien Huang, who used Xsens MVN on The Inheritance, a performance art piece that took dancer movements and turned them into a narrative of visual sculptures.
Interactive Performance ‘The Inheritance.’
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
