More from SIGGRAPH 2014

SIGGRAPH 2014 continues to amaze us – here we share with you some more from the conference including photos from Emerging Tech, the Pixar RenderMan User Group and parties with Image Engine and ILM.

Emerging Technologies and other parts of the conference

Walking the floor of the Emerging Tech exhibition, the Studio area, Art Gallery and other parts of SIGGRAPH can often feel like walking in the future.

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Interactive experiences.
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Controls.
Design your own t-shirt...
Design your own t-shirt…
...and print it!
…and print it!
An analog printer - the
An analog printer – the Makeangelo Art Robot.
Sharpie.
Sharpie.

 

Real-time Live!

This has to be among the main highlights of each SIGGRAPH conference, where presenters demo their work in real-time applications. We saw destruction sequences from Call of Duty: Ghosts, sculpting by hand gestures with Leap Motion, Real-Time Fire sims from NVIDIA, making your own Avatar with just a few poses captured on a Kinect, real-time animation of cartoon character faces, and Kevin Margo’s virtual filmmaking setup for CONSTRUCT. And then there’s Birdly – literally a bird flight simulator. It uses an Oculus Rift setup with the user lying on a moving platform with real-time feedback from sound and wind. SIGGRAPH attendees can even partake in Birdly at the Emerging Tech exhibition.

Birdly. Copyright SIGGRAPH 2014.
Birdly. Copyright SIGGRAPH 2014.

Production Sessions 

Copyright SIGGRAPH 2014.
Copyright SIGGRAPH 2014.

This year there seems to be more production sessions than ever – and it’s one of your only chances to catch breakdowns you’ll never see anywhere else. fxguide’s very own Mike Seymour was the chair for the Godzilla session, and will also be chairing a look at X-Men: Days of Future Past on Thursday.

Weta Digital’s talk about their groundbreaking work on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes began with a comprehensive discussion on taking their existing indoor mocap setup and what was required to bring it outdoors – we’re talking wifi, waterproofing and hiding cameras in greenery. We were then treated to breakdowns covering all aspects of the mocap work, digital fur and environments – this was an incredible presentation.

Meanwhile, ILM’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles presentation was a blast, racing through that studio’s Imocap and new MUSE facial capture systems developed for the film. One thing ILM found particularly useful out of the whole process was flexibility – re-working mocap as the edit evolved and being able to piece different shots together. Stay tuned to fxguide for an in-depth interview with ILM on Turtles, too.


Pixar’s RenderMan Users Group

This is always a fun event with Pixar. Once attendees had received their teapots, we heard from the RenderMan on new developments with RIS, delved into Tractor 2.0 and watched some hilarious Stupid RenderMan Tricks, including an ASCII art inspired teapot and SSS face.

At Pixar's RenderMan User Group.
At Pixar’s RenderMan User Group.

More parties!

Check out some pics from the Image Engine and ILM Vancouver parties.


Image Engine party


ILM Vancouver party


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1 thought on “More from SIGGRAPH 2014”

  1. Pingback: More from SIGGRAPH 2014 | Occupy VFX!

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