SIGGRAPH 2005, 31 July - 4 August

  • Mention “SIGGRAPH” and you’ll typically get two responses – an air of excitement, or utter dread. Depending on whether you’re going to SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest computer graphics conference and exhibition, to party all the way as an attendee or work your butt off as an exhibitor or volunteer, the show has something in store for everyone.

    For the second year running, I attended SIGGRAPH as an exhibitor, which meant that I had the privilege of hanging around the exhibition show floor before and after the show, and the trepidation of having to deal with the unreasonable amounts of work that came with it. Carrying books back and forth through the Los Angeles Convention Center at 8AM while my CG counterparts dragged themselves onto the show floor with hangovers past midday showed the disparate chasm between the general SIGGRAPH attendee and people who actually had work to do.

    Nevertheless, this SIGGRAPH past was one of the most successful shows that we have had the honor of being part of as both a media partner and exhibitor. This round-up is intended to be a general sampling or ‘flavouring’ of what SIGGRAPH 2005 showcased from my point of view as a member of the press and exhibitor. It is my hope that this article will give readers unable to attend SIGGRAPH a better idea of what happened at SIGGRAPH and excite you enough to go to Boston for next year’s event!

    Los Angeles and the Convention Center
    The SIGGRAPH conference is usually held alternatively between California and another part of the US, but for the last two years it has remained in the Western film capital of Los Angeles. With George Lucas as the keynote presenter, Star Wars was the theme of this year’s SIGGRAPH, with a full-size X-Wing starfighter in the lobby of the LA Convention Center, and a Star Wars Gaming Bunker in the Exhibition showcasing Alienware systems loaded up with Star Wars Battlefront and storm troopers taking the place of the usual booth babes.


    You know you're at a geek-fest when there's storm troopers and no booth babes.
    		1 23456Next Page >>
  • The George Lucas Keynote Presentation and Awards
    One of the most interesting sessions this year was the George Lucas keynote presentation. Although most people had gone in the hope of seeing George and George only, the session was drawn out as an opportunity to host the SIGGRAPH awards which took the better part of an hour prior to the highly anticipated session. Conference Chair James Mohler presided over the keynote address.

    Tomoyuki Nishita (University of Tokyo) won the Steven A. Coons Award for his lifetime dedication to computer graphics research in the realm of natural phenomena. It was mind-blowing to see Tomoyuki-San’s landmark work on radiosity and the rendering of sub-surface light scattering from decades ago on the big screen, and much of today’s commercial applications owes to his work on photo-realistic rendering. Jos Stams from Alias Systems won the Computer Graphics Achievement Award, also for his work on simulating natural phenomena. Ronald Fedkiw, a researcher from Stanford University and consultant for ILM, took the Significant New Researcher award for his work on fluid dynamics – jokingly referred to later by George Lucas as ‘the water guy’ at ILM.

    Once the awards were over, it was time for the trumpets to sound and the space operatic theme song of Star Wars blast as George Lucas walked onto the stage to a standing ovation from a hysterically cheering crowd. The keynote was unique as it was presented as a “Q&A” with the “Father of Digital Cinema”. Bruce Carse hosted the relaxed Q&A session which included all manner of discussions on Lucas’ ready acceptance of digital film, computer graphics and his new cutting-edge facility at the Presidio (San Francisco) dubbed the “[Letterman] Digital Arts Center”. “Many people make movies, but George Lucas has changed them forever” seemed to be the tagline that rang through the presentation.

    A few notable quotes from Lucas:

    On art and technology:
    "Anyone who works in art eventually faces running into a technological ceiling. Whether you're producing cave paintings on a wall or painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, you're constantly pushing that technological envelope. Art is technology. You need to know how to use the technology."

    On the slow adoption of digital cinema:
    “Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace was the first film to be projected digitally, and Episode II - `Attack of the Clones' was the first film to be shot digitally in its entirety. This should have caused a paradigm shift but we're still sitting here waiting for the revolution to happen. Currently, there are only five of us who've worked with digital (now there's six) -- a very small group of people out of thousands who work in the film industry…I know that it's going to happen - but how long is it going to drag on for before we get to the digital world?"



    The George Lucas keynote presentation was a casual Q&A session with the 'Father of Digital Cinema'.


    The Star Wars gaming bunker.

    1 2 3456Next Page >>

  • The Exhibition
    The SIGGRAPH Exhibition this year was definitely smaller in size than previous years, but this was negated by the huge number of people overwhelming the show floor. Without going into too much detail, a few notable industry players released products at the show:

    Alias Systems
    Alias released Maya 7 to much fanfare from Maya users around the world. Maya 7.0 has been completely re-architectured to optimize render layer’s functionality, which means that multiple versions of objects, including materials, lights and cameras, as well as post processes such as Maya Fur and Maya Paint Effects, can now be managed in a single scene file. Maya 7.0 also has streamlined workflow between Maya and Photoshop - as well as Illustrator, MotionBuilder, and other CAD applications.

    The integration of the full-body IK solver from Alias MotionBuilder makes rigging and posing characters simpler and more precise, as do paintable Blend Shapes and Wire deformers. Other notable enhancements in Maya 7.0 modeling include Edge Loop and Edge Ring tools, UV unfolding, tri-planar and multi-mesh mapping, together with the inclusion of CgFX and ASHLI plug-ins, which allow hardware shaders for next-generation consoles to be previewed within Maya. More

    Autodesk MED (formerly known as Discreet)
    Every year, Autodesk MED/Discreet go with a different booth design. Last year was the hommage to the Rubik’s Cube. This year, they’ve got rustic with a sleek Scandinavian wood finish.

    Autodesk announced 3ds max 8 at the show, the latest version of its venerable 3D animation solution. 3ds max 8 includes new toolsets and feature enhancements including: Maxscript Debugger, which can save users hours of time when creating and testing custom scripts; Microsoft DirectX support, enabling game developers to create real-time scene shaders for an entire game directly within 3ds Max; UV Pelt Mapping, providing advanced methods for quickly generating accurate maps based on UV coordinates of a given piece of geometry; Autodesk Vault, a data management solution that already benefits thousands of Autodesk customers, and a wealth of advanced character development features that simplify complex rigging and animation. More

    Softimage
    Softimage went prominantly BIG this year. Jennifer Goldfinch from Softimage said, “We debated over using several screens and we said ‘screw it let’s just go BIG’” Softimage is credited to having the single largest screen at the show, which faced the entrance of the expo hall and attracted all eyes to it. You couldn’t miss that booth.

    Big screens aside, Softimage released XSI 5.0, a major upgrade in the company’s flagship 3D application. This latest version includes new tools such as Ultimapper, a map generation tool for producing cinema-quality maps in a few clicks; and GATOR, a unique property transfer system for merging fully textured and animated 3D models. In addition to running on standard 32-bit CPUs, Softimage|XSI v.5.0 will also be available in a native 64-bit configuration, allowing users to model, animate and render extremely complex scenes in their entirety with billions of polygons and layers of 3D, film, and video content. More

    In addition, Softimage showed Face Robot, a unique facial animation tool that was co-developed with Blur Studio. Face Robot technology is built on a groundbreaking new computer model of facial soft tissue that mimics the full range of emotions portrayed by the human face. This new technology offers artists a very intuitive way to interact with CG characters while providing precise control over facial details, including wrinkles, frowns, flaring nostrils and bulging neck muscles. More

    Boxx Technologies
    Arguably the largest and most respected workstation provider in the high-end digital content creation industry, Boxx Technologies went all out this year to give away a Chopper (a very cool motorbike) at the show. This wasn’t just any other Chopper either – it was custom-designed and built by OCC Choppers for Boxx. Jared Keller, a cinematic artist, won the Chopper which was mailed to him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t ride it out of the convention center onto the freeway!

    There was some debate about whether this was a waste of marketing dollars, but in retrospect, the value of the Chopper can now be seen. Everyone at SIGGRAPH was talking about it. Regardless of whether it was positive or negative, it drew a lot of controversy and conversation. In terms of branding and mindshare, Boxx scored a home run by doing something out of the ordinary which had everyone talking and mentioning the Boxx brand name. I'd expect to see the Chopper on eBay sometime... More

    The Gnomon Workshop
    Our friends at The Gnomon Workshop commandeered a huge booth again this year selling their stock of high quality training DVDs and hosting many educational presentations from instructors. The workshop released twelve new DVD titles covering a broad range of software packages from Zbrush to Shake, NUKE and 3ds max/Vray. More

    Ballistic Publishing
    This year, we went for a small booth shared with Turbo Squid. Despite a relatively small presence, we had a huge response to our three new book titles: EXPOSÉ 3, d’artiste: Character Modeling and d’artiste: Matte Painting. These books sold immensely well and we ran out of d’artiste: Character Modeling and Matte Painting by the second day of the exhibition. We also hosted a d’artiste: Matte Painting book signing with the three authors Alp Altiner, Dylan Cole and Chris Stoski – but ran out of books during the signing! Of note though, were our shopping bags which were a huge hit amongst attendees. Looking in any given direction during SIGGRAPH, you could see people carrying our bags with the EXPOSÉ 3 girl from SONOV or Francisco Cortina’s photorealistic beauty on either side. More

    Pixologic
    Pixologic presented ZBrush 2.5's most anticipated features: modeling rigs, topology and what it's like to sculpt in 20 million polygons in real-time! Pixologic also announced the release of several upcoming plug-ins designed to augments ZBrush's already powerful toolset.

    The first plug-in presented was ZApp Link which streamlines the connection between ZBrush and Photoshop, Painter or any graphics editing software package. Second was ZMapper. Arguably a software package in its own right, ZMapper increases the functionality of ZBrush normal map generation and adds several new features such as morph UV and the ability to roll your bump map into your normal map. Third was the Displacement Exporter which enhances ZBrush's displacement generation with a 32 bit floating point option.

    In addition, Pixologic had a fantastic line-up of artists presenting and talking about ZBrush. Rick Baker, six time Academy Award winning visual effects and make-up effects artist, Meats Meier, award-winning artist and Pixol-pusher, Aaron Sims, Art Director at Stan Winstons, and Taron, artist extraordinaire, all delivered stunning presentation to a packed house. More

    Other notable announcements at SIGGRAPH:
    - Luxology Modo 201
    - Maxon Cinema 4D XL 9.5, BodyPaint 3D 2.5, new Production Bundle
    - NewTek LightWave 3D 9
    - RealViz MMTrack automated camera tracking for Maya
    - Massive Software – Hardware accelerated rendering
    - SplutterFish Brazil for 3ds max, Rhino and Maya


    Alias Systems out in full force with Maya 7.0


    Autodesk MED went Scandinavian in design this year...


    The Softimage crew share a moment.


    Sony Imageworks hosted live drawing workshops.


    The NVIDIA RV - we felt for the guy that had to drive this from Santa Clara and back!


    d'artiste: Matte Painting book signing - Dylan Cole, Chris Stoski and Alp Altiner.


    Rick Baker drew a packed audience to the Pixologic booth!

    12 3 456Next Page >>

  • Emerging Technologies
    The Emerging Technologies section is always an interesting place to be, showcasing exciting new technologies – many of which may never ever see the light of day commercially, but are novel and demonstrate a concept that can be built on. The Emerging Technologies section was jokingly dubbed as “Little Tokyo” referring to the overwhelming number of Japanese exhibits!

    Some fascinating exhibits:

    - The Galvanic Vestibular Stimulator– “A novel sensation interface device that uses galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) to control balance. The device induces vection (virtual sense of acceleration) synchronized with optic flow or musical rhythms.” Basically, you wear a headset, a guy tells you to walk, and he can remotely control the direction that you walk! This had to be one of the most interesting, and potentially concerning, exhibits this year. More

    - TouchLight– For the lack of a better way of describing this, I’ll refer to the futuristic user interface that was shown in the movie ‘Minority Report’ where Tom Cruise interacts with images and movies using hand gestures. TouchLight showed the beginnings of such an interface where the user was able to use hand gestures to manipulate an image, rotate it, zoom in or out. Extremely impressive, potentially useful and interestingly developed by Microsoft Research. More

    - Straw-Like User Interface– This exhibit was downright bizarre. “An evolutionary interface system that allows users to virtually experience the sensations of drinking. The sensations are created by referencing sample data of actual pressures, vibrations, and sounds produced by drinking from an ordinary straw attached to the system.” Basically, you drink from a straw that simulates the sensation of fluids and drinking, but there’s nothing but air going into your mouth! Is it a new diet fad? More


    TouchLight - coming soon to Microsoft Windows?


    The Guerilla Gallery.

    123 4 56Next Page >>

  • Views from a SIGGRAPH Newbie - By Joseph Tan
     The typical SIGGRAPH day started off with a fat and sugar-laden breakfast at the nearby diner, The Pantry. This diner is 80-year old diner and boasts that it is open 24-hours a day and is never without customers. After downing several cups of coffee, bacon, eggs, breakfast potatoes, and pancakes the size of car wheel hubs, I can say that lunch wasn’t an option that day.

    The SIGGRAPH 2005 conference attracted people to the Los Angeles Convention Center like a swarm of ants around a honey pot. The conference featured lengthy courses, papers, exhibitions, and thousands of attendees packing themselves into the keynote presentation and lunchtime queues. George Lucas’ keynote was an in-depth interview about the nature of the visual effects industry and his gripe against the conservative film industry.

    I liked the range of courses offered at SIGGRAPH. In particular the Quantum Rendering, and General-Purpose GPU talks were the most interesting to me. Both are relatively new topics, with Quantum rendering introduced to SIGGRAPH for the first time. In this course, the speaker remarked that presenting this topic in 2005 was like giving a computer graphics course in 1935.

    The exhibition hall was masses of vendors trying to outdo each other with more innovative booths. NVIDIA featured a dome display showing some fantastic real-time and pre-rendered movies running on their Quadro FX 4500 hardware. Alias and Avid featured massive projector screens at their respective booths. Vendors had chairs laid out to draw crowds as courses were given on their proprietary tools.

    This year BOXX featured two very expensive Chopper bikes at their stand. BOXX made a big showing at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference as AMD also featured some BOXX systems at their booth. In particular a quad Opteron dual-core machine was running which posted some very impressive rendering times. I would have gladly traded a Chopper bike for that! Alienware donated about 30 machines to the AMD “Game Bunker” which ran a Star Wars shooter through out the exhibition days. After notching up quite a number of team kills for the Dark Side I wasn’t very popular.

    Emerging Technologies showcased some new technologies and applications. One was the Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) particularly interesting and slightly creepy device that passes a small current into a person’s vestibular sensor system to create the sensation of acceleration without mechanical means.

    The Electronic Theatre was a most impressive showing of some of the best CG work this year past. All of the shorts were most impressive; some were funny; one had a political bent, and others were quite creepy. The last feature “9” by Shane Acker was an excellent grand finale.

    SIGGRAPH 2005 was an absolute blast! SIGGRAPH 2006 is to be held Boston. I wonder if they have fat-laden breakfasts there?

    Joseph Tan, Technical Editor, CGS



    AMD was out in full force promoting its Opteron processors.


    NVIDIA's booth was a dome - which was impossible to get in unless you were willing to wait in line.


    The Kiwis show off CAT Toolkit.

    1234 5 6Next Page >>

  • Electronic Theatre
    The Electronic Theatre was awesome this year, showcasing the very best CG work from the computer graphics community. My personal ‘hit list’ of great short films from the Electronic Theatre include:

    For those interested, the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater DVD is available from SIGGRAPH here.

    Conclusion
    A question that most people ask when poised with SIGGRAPH is “why should I go?”, needing a justification in terms of what one would get out of it. It would depend on what capacity you attend SIGGRAPH in. If you’re a student, there’s so much to learn from the conference and presentations (which unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to booth duties). For companies, there’s the opportunity to network and meet up with potential new clients and re-establish business relationships. For everyone, it’s a great place to see what’s ‘out there’ in the industry, expanding your horizons to new technologies and commercial products.

    At its core, SIGGRAPH is about the community. It was great to be able to meet so many old friends and colleagues who have worked tirelessly alongside us to help shape the current state of the CG industry. Whether you’re a researcher, artist, student, exhibitor, capitalist, director or enthusiast, SIGGRAPH has something for everyone passionate about CG.

    SIGGRAPH 2006 will be held in Boston, 30 July – 3 August. We hope to see you there!

    Related Links
    SIGGRAPH
    SIGGRAPH 2005 - Los Angeles
    SIGGRAPH 2006 - Boston

    Photographs: Leonard Teo, Joseph Tan and Ali Tezel


    Shane Acker's short film "9".


    Leonard Teo reporting from SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles.

    12345 6 More CGS Articles

© 2002-2013 | The CGSociety - All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced unless for personal use without prior written permission from The CGSociety.