Now that SIGGRAPH is a couple of weeks behind us, I have a little more clarity on this event’s whirlwind of activities, panels, parties, and the well-attended expo floor at the L.A. Convention Center. Here are some of my thoughts in no particular order of importance or preference:
Size: While the show seems to have gotten smaller in scope over the years, and especially since COVID, there is still a lot of depth to it. The expo floor was relegated to the smaller West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center, instead of the South Hall. This resulted in a smaller exhibition space, which wasn’t quite filled. This also meant that talks and panels (including the larger, more popular talks) were held in smaller rooms with less capacity. So, there were lots of lines, with fewer people allowed into each session.
Virtual Attendees, Feeds & Streaming: To counter the problem of overbooked rooms, many of the talks were recorded or streamed to auxiliary rooms. While this solution doesn’t quite match the experience of being in the room, it’s the next best thing. This also benefited those were not able to attend SIGGRAPH in person. This policy started during the pandemic, but it looks like it is here to stay. That said, not all of the panels were recorded. I’m hoping that future events will remove these restrictions and that vendors and studios share the panels with global audiences online, and realize that “protecting their IP” is rather archaic.
Alliance for Open USD (AOUSD): In 2016, Pixar introduced Universal Scene Description (USD), the first open-source software that can robustly and scalably interchange 3D scenes that may be composed of different assets, sources and animations, while fostering collaborative workflows. Since then, the animation/VFX industry has been figuring out the best way to implement it. This has resulted in a variety of solutions based on the studio who is using it. The AOUSD is a collection of companies who are discussing the best practices and attempting to define a coherent methodology to span across the industries. This collective includes Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk and NVIDIA. I’m speaking myopically because I’m viewing things from our industry’s perspective — but USD is becoming ubiquitous in numerous other industries like manufacturing, product development, engineering and architecture. Because of the diversity, the problem is a difficult one to grasp and it’s a conversation that must be had. I hope that the end users will begin to weigh in.
Artificial Intelligence: this is and has been a topic that creates equal parts inspiration, contention, elation and terror. There were numerous talks and panels on AI ranging from utilizing the technology as an aide to artists, which is how I see it portrayed in the media (along with the idea that it will ultimately be the destruction of artists as a population). But SIGGRAPH isn’t only about artists — as much as we like to think it is. There are tons of other beneficial uses for AI and data analysis, such as letter and language recognition (reading Sumerian cuneiform, for example) and assisting in processing motion-capture data. For those who are worried about losing jobs, fellow journalist Mike Seymour phrased it as such: “There were 30 VFX artists on Blade Runner. There were 3,000 VFX artists on Blade Runner 2049. Where are we losing jobs?” Yet, for those worried about the power of AI, I would point to one of the white papers about analyzing audience response, and then adapting animation to elicit that desired response.
The NVIDIA Keynote: NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang’s presentation was thoroughly intriguing, not only in terms of the new Ada Lovelace series of graphics cards — but for the Enterprise level of GPU processing stringing 256 GPUs to act as one, with more compute power, but less power consumption. The high point for me was the presentation of a real-time animation of two RC cars racing against one another. In comparison to the 2018 Storm Troopers Reflections, the RC race is exponentially more complex in terms of polys, rays per pixel, ray bounces, etc. — even if the story is far less engaging. (I’ll have a review of the RTX 5000 in a future issue). Additionally, there is the integration of the Omniverse, which uses USD as a foundation (see above), and NVIDIA is engaging many developers to tap into that ecosphere.
Quantum Computing: Andrew Glassner of Wētā FX + Unity offered an amazing introductory course on Quantum Computing. While it might be pretty esoteric for the common man, this stuff is going to take off, and when it does, it will grow fast. This talk dovetails with IBM’s keynote back in November where they revealed a new quantum computer: the IBM Osprey with 433 qubits. It also paired well with Dr. Dario Gill’s SIGGRAPH Keynote announcement about what’s next in the pipeline for quantum computing. Without getting into the weeds, I’m going to say that this will definitely change computer graphics.
Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs): With all of the talk about VR, AR and 3D worlds, there is a need to populate those worlds with 3D objects — and we, as humans, like familiarity, which means we want our virtual world to reflect our real world. Traditionally, generating 3D models is laborious and time consuming. NeRF, put simply, is a way to generate 3D objects and scenes from 2D imagery using neural networks.
The Electronic Theater: This always popular staple of the event continues to offer some of the best of computer graphics, animation and VFX of the past year. It’s a perfect reflection of how people with talent and artistic vision are pushing the envelope and using the latest technologies available to them. (If you want to revisit the Electronic Theater or you were not able to attend the show, Virtual Tickets are available for $25.)
Of course, this is just a cursory glance at SIGGRAPH 2023. On top of all the panels and talks and papers, I encourage the people in our crazy, fast-evolving industry of animation and VFX to attend — not simply to learn new things, but to meet your peers. Meet the luminaries. Meet those you look up to. Meet those who are younger than you who look up to you. Yes, we are a bunch of nerdy introverts, but it’s a great idea to use this week each year to push ourselves and get out of our shells and away from our computer screens! It’s certainly worth it.
Todd Sheridan Perry is an award-winning VFX supervisor and digital artist whose credits include Black Panther, Avengers: Age of Ultron and For All Mankind. You can reach him at todd@teaspoonvfx.com.
Learn more about ACM SIGGRAPH and its conferences and events at siggraph.org. Coming up: SIGGRAPH Asia in Sydney, Australia (December 12-15) and SIGGRAPH 2024 in Denver, Colorado (July 28-August 1).
