The Essential Guide to SIGGRAPH 2015

The can’t-miss exhibits, sights and talks for the animation and VFX crowd at this year’s Aug. 9-13 confab at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Computer Animation Festival

The 42nd annual Computer Animation Festival will present the best in computer animation, with more than 100 award winners and nominees – selected from more than 500 submissions evaluated by a jury of industry experts — screening at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Highlights include the winners of awards in 10 categories:

Best In Show

• Citius, Altius, Fortius (Germany) — submitted and directed by Felix Deimann. Citius, Altius, Fortius explores the interplay of abstract shapes and motions. Original footage of athletes in Olympic competitions was digitized into 3D through motion tracking and rotoscoping. The specific character of each sport is reflected in the visual language.

  

Jury’s Choice

• Amir & Amira (France) — submitted by ESMA; directed by Sara Ayoub, Martial Andre, Benjamin Condy, Ariane Dedulle, Cecilia Maturi and Tatiana Tchoumakova. Amir & Amira takes on the topic of gender-strict traditional education through the eyes of two wooden puppets at puberty.

  

Best Student Project

• L3.0 (France) — submitted by ISART Digital; directed by Alexis Decelle, Cyril Declercq, Vincent Defour and Pierre Jury. L3.0 tells the story of Leo, a high-tech “pet” robot that wanders alone in Paris following the mysterious disappearance of nearly all living species. He spends his days trying to entertain himself, but to no avail. Then, one day he meets a new living being.

  

Best Computer Animated Short

• Jinxy Jenkins and Lucky Lou (USA) — submitted by Ringling College of Art and Design; directed by Michael Bidinger and Michelle Kwon. The chaotically misfortunate Jenkins and the monotonously lucky Lou run into each other one morning. Together they find a thrilling and fulfilling change of pace as they hurtle down the hills of San Francisco in an ice cream cart.

  

Best Animated Feature Film

• Home (USA) — submitted by DreamWorks Animation; directed by Tim Johnson.

  

Best Visual Effects For Live-Action Feature Film

• Paddington (United Kingdom) — submitted by Framestore CFC; directed by Paul King.

  

Best Visualization Or Simulation

• Multi-scale Multi-physics Heart Simulator, UT-Heart (Japan) — submitted by Sciement, Inc.; Directed by Hirofumi Seo.

Best Music Video

• League of Legends Music: Curse of the Sad Mummy (South Africa) — submitted and directed by Riot Games.

Best Game

• Assassin’s Creed Unity E3 Cinematic Trailer (Hungary) —submitted by Digic Pictures Ltd.; directed by István Zorkóczy.

Best Advertisement

• Ikea, T-Shirts (United Kingdom) — submitted by MPC; directed by Dougal Wilson.

Animation Production Sessions

• Building San Fransokyo: Creating the World of Disney’s Big Hero 6 —Cinematography and technical supervisors from Walt Disney Animation Studios will explain the creation of the rich and vibrant metropolis of San Fransokyo. {Monday, Aug. 10, 2-3 p.m. West Hall B]

• Disney-Pixar’s Lava: Moving Mountains — From designing the main character to integrating new lighting tools, the panelists will explain how “Lava” came to life and how each member was inspired to create this vision. [Tuesday, Aug. 11, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., South Hall K]

• Inside the Mind: The Making of Disney•Pixar’s Inside Out —Pixar Animation Studios will describe the process of designing, building and bringing the world from inside a young girl’s mind to life. [Tuesday, Aug. 11 2-3:30 p.m., South Hall K]

• From Post-it to Post Production, The Uncompromising Journey of The Book of Life — Award-winning director Jorge Gutierrez and the art, animation, CG and VFX leads behind the feature present a behind-the-scenes look at this visually inspiring film. [Wednesday, Aug. 12, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., West Hall B]

• DreamWorks Animation Presents: HOME: Just Another Post-Apocalyptic-Alien-Invasion-Buddy-Road-Movie? — Director Tim Johnson and the creative team from the animated feature will discuss their research, the technology and techniques behind this feature film. [Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2-3:30 p.m., West Hall B]

• The Peanuts Movie: From Comic Strip to Feature Film — The Blue Sky Studios team will share insight into their design and animation style for the upcoming feature. [Thursday, Aug. 13, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., South Hall K]

  

Visual-Effects Production Sessions

• Weta Digital Presents: Over 20 Years of Creativity and Innovation — From the visual effects team behind The Hobbit trilogy, Weta Digital will examine the undertaking of ground-breaking CG character development to battle sequences to fire and water effects. [Tuesday, Aug. 11 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., West Hall B]

• Double Negative Presents: The Visual Effects of Interstellar — Double Negative will talk about all aspects of the visual effects work on the film, from the use of traditional, practical techniques to the role of how theoretical physics played in the design of the visual effects. [Tuesday, Aug. 11 2-3:30 p.m., West Hall B]

• Image Engine Presents: Breathing Life Into CHAPPiE — The team behind director Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi comedy will discuss how a small production team brought a digitally created childlike robot, to life. [Wednesday, Aug. 12, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., South Hall K]

• The Park is Open: Journey to Jurassic World with Industrial Light & Magic — The ILM team shares the on-set visualization tools used during production, as well as the new visual effects techniques. [Wednesday, Aug. 12 2-3:30 p.m., South Hall K]

• Fix the Future: Industrial Light & Magic and Visual Effects of Tomorrowland — The ILM team will talk about the production challenges and workflow solutions that were developed to deliver this first-ever, 4K release. [Wednesday, Aug. 12, 3:45-5:15 p.m., South Hall K]
• The Making of Marvel’s Ant-Man — Creatives from Marvel, Double Negative, Luma Pictures and Method Studios will explore the visual-effects in the making of Ant-Man. [Thursday, Aug. 13, 2-3:30 p.m., South Hall K]

  

• The Making of the Characters of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron — The teams from Marvel, ILM and Lola VFX will discuss everything from animation to visual effects teams and the technologies and processes. [Thursday, Aug. 13, 3:45-5:15 p.m., South Hall K]

ACM SIGGRAPH Award Recipients

• Significant New Researcher Award: Johannes Kopf, Microsoft Research. The Significant New Researcher Award is awarded annually to a researcher who has made a recent significant contribution to the field of computer graphics and is new to the field. The intent is to recognize people who, though early in their careers, have already made a notable contribution.

• Computer Graphics Achievement Award: Steve Marschner, Cornell University. The Computer Graphics Achievement award is given each year to recognize an individual for an outstanding achievement in computer graphics and interactive techniques

• Steven Anson Coons Award for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics: Henry Fuchs, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This award, presented during odd-numbered years, recognizes long-term creative impact on the field of computer graphics through a personal commitment over an extended period of time.

• Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art: Lillian Schwartz, independent artist. awarded annually to an artist who has created a substantial and important body of work that significantly advances aesthetic content in the field of digital art

• Outstanding Service Award: Mike Bailey, Oregon State University. This award, presented for the first time at SIGGRAPH 98, is given annually to recognize outstanding service to ACM SIGGRAPH by a volunteer. It recognizes persons who have given extraordinary service to ACM SIGGRAPH, both in the trenches and in positions of more responsibility or visibility, over a significant period of time

Exhibit-Floor Shortcuts

3dMD #316

4d View Solutions #737

akeytsu #737

ALp4CE MultiCreation #240

Animation Magazine #913

Autodesk #317

Blackmagic Design #1019

Blender Foundation #1111

Chaos Group #807

Dimensional Imaging #1007

Fabric Software #214

Formlabs #652

Imagineer Systems #312

Isotropix #1001

Legend 3D #1145

MAXON #715

Massive Software #1037

Mikros Image #737

Motion Analysis Corp. #636

Nolabel #251

PipelineFX #801

Pixar Animation Studios #945

Reallusion #236

Shotgun Software #317

Side Effects Software #901

Smith Micro Software #919

The Foundry #309

Thinkbox Software #329

Unity Technologies #544

Vicon #729

Wacom Technology #628

Xsens Technologies #337