SIGGRAPH 2015 – what not to miss

SIGGRAPH 2015 in Los Angeles starts on August 9th, and fxguide will be there covering all the action. Here’s your preview of some of the ‘not to miss’ events. And if you’re heading to the conference, please say hi to the fxguide and fxphd team.

Next week we’ll publish our look at some of the most interesting technical papers in a special focused story, below are all the other things not to miss in LA starting August 8th.

DigiPro

From the DreamWorks Animation Facial Motion and Deformation System talk.
From the DreamWorks Animation Facial Motion and Deformation System talk.

We’ve been champions of DigiPro, a symposium held the day before SIGGRAPH begins (on the Saturday, Aug 8th) and always with unique and interesting talks from industry professionals. Check out our latest fxpodcast for a teaser of one of the presentations from DreamWorks Animation on their facial motion and deformation system. There’s also talks there on deep compositing, crowd sims, particles, hair, pipelines and rigging.

Dailies

SIGGRAPH is now an incredibly diverse conference – there’s complex academic papers on show, production sessions from the biggest Hollywood films and in-depth talks on computer graphics techniques. One session manages to combine almost all of them in rapid-fire succession: Dailies. Some highlights are talks on Pixar’s Inside Out, Dneg’s Jupiter Ascending chase sequence VFX and Epic Games on its open world developments. These are short (very short) talks from researchers to industry heavyweights. Put Tuesday 3.45pm in your diary.

Real-Time Live!

You should also block out Tuesday 5.30pm to 7.15pm in your schedule for one of the more casual and fun, but still informative and cutting edge, sessions at SIGGRAPH. This is Real-Time Live!, which explores the world of interactive visuals. The video below previews the presentations – the one you don’t want to miss in our view in particular is Mark Sagar’s Auckland Face Simulator, plus check out the Disney Infinity 3.0 Physics-Based Animation talk and the talk on Real-Time Cinematic Shot Lighting in The Order: 1886.

Job Fair

Are you actively looking for work in CG and visual effects? Or want to find out what kind of skills you’d need to get a job in the industry? The Job Fair at SIGGRAPH is a great place to sound out studios and get honest advice. Many of the visual effects studios will be taking reels and resumes. One such studio is Animal Logic, who recently announced the opening of a Vancouver studio in addition to their Sydney location. We got an early preview from recruiting supervisor Patricia Kung about how to get a job at the film who most people will know from being behind the brilliant LEGO Movie. Other studios at the Job Fair include Double Negative, Framestore, Method, LAIKA, Imageworks, DreamWorks Animation and more.

Emerging Technologies

Got some spare moments at SIGGRAPH? Then head to the Emerging Tech exhibition for hands-on exhibits showcasing research in robotics, displays, input devices and more. Highlights include ICT’s life size auto-multiscopic projector, this is a great example of technology that needs to be witnessed, and SIGGRAPH is one of the few places, other than inside the Labs of USC’s ICT research center, where you can do that. The seemingly lifesize ‘hologram’ is remarkable as it is simple, requiring not glasses but being run by an array of over 150 simultaneous synced projectors.  It is remarkable and just one of the impressive installations you can interact with in LA.

Production Sessions

Ant-Man.
Ant-Man.

With so many Hollywood films and animations using the latest CG and VFX tech, it’s no wonder that the Production Sessions events at SIGGRAPH have become a major drawcard. The best thing is, the presenters will show you breakdowns and behind the scenes content you WILL NOT see anywhere else. There’s talks on Inside Out, The Hobbit, Interstellar, The Book of Life, Big Hero 6, HOME, Chappie, Jurassic World, Tomorrowland, Ant-Man, Age of Ultron, The Peanuts Movie and a session on ILM’s 40th anniversary, which will be attended by senior visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren and other ILMers.