SIGGRAPH 2015: Full Coverage of Computer Graphics Show

This years SIGGRAPH was held in downtown Los Angeles. What is interesting about the Convention Center Location is the changes that are coming to the Los Angeles skyline as it evolves.

You can see the skeletons of multiple construction projects litter the skyline near the Convention Center that will change the skyline forever. I counted over 20 new buildings in the next year.When you think of SIGGRAPH people sometimes forget this is a convention/tradeshow about innovation in the space of computer graphics.

Architecture, Design, & Art are all finding new tools to help visualize their ideas, concepts, and designs with real time interaction.  Remote Cloud based rendering means not having to have as many CPU’s locally. As with every year, visual effects & animation dominate the conversation at SIGGRAPH. I wanted to focus on new core technology rather then platforms, so this will tell you what is available and if these are the tools you need to adapt to your workflow.

MORE: SIG: Final Complete Siggraph 2015 Event Photos & Notes

The Exhibits floor was smaller this year with vendors like Pixologic, New Tek, Autodesk, Apple, and Adobe absent on the show floor. This year only 14,800 people attended SIGGRAPH 2015, down 6400 from the last time it was in Los Angeles in 2012. A serious discussion needs to happen about these numbers, and the change in the market place as comic conventions attract a growing number of artists & geeks interested in tech & content including animation and visual effects.

SIGGRAPH coverage for this year begins here:

Robotics and the iPad—Paulo Henrique Machado

One of the first things I saw at SIGGRAPH was a robotic creation nicknamed R2D2 (homage) created by Double Robotics using an Apple iPad that allowed a man named Paulo Henrique Machado, a computer animator paralyzed living in a hospital in San Paulo, Brazil since he was a baby. He has always dreamed of going to SIGGRAPH. Double Robotics came to his aid with a robot they created, allowing him to participate at SIGGRAPH through telepresence.

He could view all the events of SIGGRAPH through the iPad screen & communicate with attendees. He participated in sessions at SIGGRAPH even though he contracted polio since birth and was hooked up to an artificial respirator 24 hours a day.  His official badge hung from the robot. He was fun to talk to. I exchanged a conversation with a laugh. This made my SIGGRAPH, meeting this wonderful man. Technology a catalyst of change that allowed someone who couldn’t be there in person, to accomplish a dream. It made me see my iPad & technology in a whole new light.

NVIDIA—The Show Stopper

NVIDIA was the showstopper on the show floor this year with their new software development design tools to help clients customize real time visualization of their work with their DesignWorks suite of tools for developers and artists. NVIDIA is the leader in the high-end visualization Physically Based Rendering technology with their Quadro Graphics cards, iRay technology, and this new suite of DesignWorks tools that streamline development.  Demonstrations of Cloud Based Rendering with comparisons of a 3-D object rendering remotely in Santa Clara and the real object in real time was indistinguishable.

I attended the Press Conference for NVIDIA Product Announcements, people were blown away with presentations from key partners including Hao Ko Designer Director, and Principal at Gensler he was showing off the New NVIDIA office building in Santa Clara designed by his team using Physical Based Real Time Rendering to walk through the building.  He showcased the use of the NVIDIA new software suite of tools that gave him real time feedback on the building in 3D and it’s interiors including how the light would feel at different parts of the day, as day lighting the building was a focus of the design. When you consider the sheer size of the file with all the heavy geometry, it was impressive to watch the real time changes happen as we watched taking advantage of the new DesignWorks suite. Imagine not having to wait to render frames & see some of the detail that has previously been difficult to distinguish in real time rendering. Cloud Rendering means not having to buy the hardware locally, with Broadband Internet connection you can render at a Remote Render Farm & not have to buy & manage hardware.

MORE: Wrap-Up: NVIDIA Launched DesignWorks VR at SIGGRAPH 2015

NVIDIA announced on Friday, August 7^th that Pixar licensed NVIDIA’s technology for accelerating feature film production. NVIDIA’s GPU rendering technology was key in creating the PIXAR short ‘Lava’ (seen in theaters before ‘Inside Out’

ESRI and its CityEngine

ESRI City Engine showed how easy it is to build or design a city with their City Builder tools. The software runs on both Mac, PC, & Linux. It has easy to use editing tools that make creating a 3-D blueprint fast & efficient, Using standard 3D format you import assets into several software packages. ESRI provides training materials for Architects, Urban Planners, GIS professionals, Game Developers and Motion Picture Artists. City Engine was used to create the world of ‘Big Hero 6’.

SimLab Soft and Composer 6

SimLab Soft was doing demos of a cool stand alone 3D application used for presentation (not a CAD application) that is very useful for Architects & Interior Designers called SimLab Composer 6. Pro Edition.

It is designed to cover all the needs of an Architect or Interior Designer by giving them all they need from lighting to rendering with extensive architectural materials libraries, with an easy to control sun & sky system. IES data support with realistic lighting & special interior renderer. It has easy to use camera system. You can turn any 3D model into an interactive environment, export to 3D PDF, Web GL, & iOS/Android. It has real time rendering, and a feature called Billboard that allows you to create geometry that is camera aligned and Billboard will rotate on the Z axis to face the viewer so you can add as many trees as you want. It runs on both Mac & Windows.

next page: Houdini, Pixar, the new Mari 3 and more…

[Editor’s note: If you have arrived on this page first, you can click here for the first page of this article. Much good news and info on page one as well. Thx. ]

 

Side Effects Software and Houdini

The Houdini Booth was packed with hundreds of users who came by to learn new methods of using Houdini and to see a preview of the new release of Houdini 15 that will run on the OS X, Windows, and Linux OS. Houdini 15 introduces new modeling, animation, and rendering tools that make using Houdini easier for those who don’t want to script to get something done. It is faster, more efficient, & easier to navigate while handling large data files. The booth had several specialist, partners, & customers who answered questions about the product.

Robert Meyers Product Marketing Managers for Side Effects Software was doing a demonstration on a Mac laptop for the crowds. He said that he recommended laptops larger than the 11 inch MacBook to run Houdini efficiently.

Cinema Displays, Macs and Autodesk Shotgun

Shotgun booth was filled with Apple Cinema Displays running on MacBook Pros running Shotgun demonstrations. Users could get a demonstration of Shotgun with some of the new improvements to the software including a new set of features to review, approve shots or provide feedback on creative pipelines. Shotgun Pipeline Toolkit is being updated with Shotgun Panel that will allow artists to communicate directly to other artists with only information relevant to the tasks in Maya or Nuke. Shotgun runs on OSX, Windows, & Linux.

The Foundry and how Flix works

Youtis Katsambas from The Foundry using a MacBook Pro was at the Toon Boom booth showing off how Flix works with Toon Boom’s Storyboard Pro in a collaborative pipeline beneficial to artists. The announcement of the collaboration of the two companies made sense when watching how the pipeline works. You can feed storyboard panels directly into Flix, manage & review assets while different departments can make changes, while Flix keeps track of the versions including Pre-Production assets without confusion. Flix runs on OSX & Windows.

Pixar Arts & Science Fair at the Nokia Club

I attended the Pixar Arts & Science Fair at the Nokia Club on Wednesday, August 13th. Pixar announced at the Renderman Art & Science Fair that RenderMan would have support for Cinema 4D & Blender. Chris Ford and presenters used a MacBook Pro to illustrate all the new features in Renderman. Pixar talked about the new Renderman 20 featuring Renderman’s RIS architecture. Pixar talked about the collaboration with the studios in the Disney family that led to some technical advancement in RenderMan.

Features including Denoiser, Visualization Integrator, Marschner Hair, and Physical Camera. Denoiser developed by Disney for Big Hero 6 is helping cut render times by 10X plus for their pipeline by helping to cut down noise in the rendering process. Visualization Integration means seeing the geometry the way Renderman sees it showing wireframes, normal, & surface parameterization plus. Marschner Hair is a special RIS Bxdf hair and fur developed by Pixar. Physical Camera embraces the imperfections real world cameras that add creative value to scenes. Tractor & Cloud Rendering was a cool demo. Attendees were treated to a new short film by PIXAR called ‘Sanjay’s Super Team’ & clips from ‘Finding Dory’. Monsters took about 6.8 hours a frame to render & the pipeline was using 13,400 cores. RenderMan runs on OSX, Windows, & Linux.

MORE: SIG: Pixar RenderMan’s News at SIGGRAPH 2015

Autodesk Exhibitor Sessions

Autodesk hosted a series of educational & panels on their new Autodesk products though they didn’t host a booth this year. Maya received an update extension a new tool for flying logos to make it easier and straightforward, Scalable Vector Graphics that would allow users to import files from Illustrator & bring it to life in a 3D environment, Game Exporter to make it easier to export to Unity, Unreal, and Autodesk’s Stingray game engines. You can get a lot more detail & more. Live linking between Maya and Stingray with real time updates without having to reexport.

MORE: Autodesk intros Stingray Engine for new level of visualization in AEC industries

Max updates include Geodesic Voxel & Heat map to create better skin weighting more efficiently, Max also has a plugin improvement for exporting to Game Engines. ShaderFX has been improved support for physically based Shaders in Stringray insuring visual consistency. Max has a new powerful 3D tool to build engaging visualizations, adding and animating data driven information has never been easier. Creative Market 3D Opened it’s doors where artists can sell or buy content…it can help artists who have tight production schedules & can use some help by purchasing in the Creative Market.

Blender demonstrating Cinema Display

Blender was doing demos in a booth using a Mac Pro and Apple Cinema Display. Blender shared a viewing of ‘Cosmos Laudromat’ open movie. ‘Cosmos Laundromat’ was released online August 10, 2015.

 Pipeline FX runs on OS X & PC

Pipeline FX creates a render management tool that runs on OSX & PC hardware. No major new announcements, but they gave great demonstrations & help to those using Pipeline FX. It was cool watching the software on a MacBook Pro.

Epson presenting Live Coding Sessions

Epson had Award Winning App Developer Seth McCraken Present Live Coding Sessions on Moverio Smart Glasses Platform. Seth did these presentations using a MacBook Pro. Seth demonstrated some of the latest consumer and enterprise applications for Moverio BT-200. Epson also announced the SureColor F-Series Dye Sublimation Printers…

The Foundry using Mac Pro

Mauricio Van Hasselt from The Foundry was at the AMD Booth demonstrating The Foundry Products on a Mac Pro. Mauricio stated that he had never used a Mac before this…and enjoyed the reliability and ease of use on the Mac. He had no problem recommending the Mac Pro.

Introduction of Mari 3 by The Foundry

The Foundry introduced Mari 3 giving artists the ability to paint higher quality images with complexity with faster results.

Mari 3 brings support for widely used Unreal Shaders. Prior to Mari, 3D Paint Texture programs could only handle a handful of paint textures at a time, in Mari 3 they can work with thousands of high-resolution textures. MODO’s rendering technology is integrated with Mari 3. Exposed NODE graph has been added which allows artist to edit channels & layers. Other key updates include OpenSubDiv support, Color Space Management, Arnold, V-Ray, Unreal, Redshift Shaders, FBX Geomerty Support, Session Scripts, Developer API update, Enhanced Texture Transfer, Entity Locators, Safe Mode, and Extended access to selection groups. It will be available in Fall 2015.

Ultimate scalability of Deadline 8 by Thinkbox

Thinkbox introduced the new version of Deadline 8 with on demand metered licensing is scalable across platforms & clouds. Easily link local to cloud based resources. In BETA at the Thinkbox booth was new software called Sequoia, a Point Cloud Rendering and Visualization solution. New updates in the BETA made it much more efficient. Krakatoa has added support for Cinema 4D.

OTOY Octane 3

OTOY had the next generation Octane 3 renderer running in their booths for users to try the new version. Octane 3 does support Graphisoft Archicad & most 3D software packages.

MORE: SIGGRAPH 2015: OTOY improves economies of scale, speed and cost with powerful next-generation production pipelines

WACOM Cintiq 27 QHD

WACOM showed their 27-inch Cintiq tablet at their booth that gives a huge canvas for artists to exercise their imagination. It was originally introduced at CES this year. WACOM was also at SIGGRAPH Art Studio so attendees could create art for a contest.

Chaos Group V-Ray and Maxon Cinema 4D

The Chaos Group had a full exhibits floor schedule at SIGGRAPH. Tuesday, August 11th, they announced V-Ray for Nuke, giving Nuke production quality rendering. Maxon announced Cinema 4D Release 17 that will ship in September for Mac and PC Windows systems. New features include new Spline tools, Lens Distortion Support for video and photos, animation workflow enhancements, sculpting improvements, Houdini Engine integration, and Sketch Up integration.

Luxion’s new KeyShot News

Luxion’s Keyshot, a real time ray tracing & global Illumination software announced free plugins for Maya and Cinema 4D. Google was at SIGGRAPH talking about Google Cloud & Cardboard…their VR glasses made of cardboard & applications for VR. uSens showed off two major breakthroughs in VR technology with hand recognition tracking for VR Headsets & Super Reality, a combination of AR and VR.

PluralSight on Digital Tutors

PluralSight buys Digital Tutors (actually it was months ago…) and wants the creative professionals who have been using Digital Tutors to know the user experience will remain the same though the name will change. PluralSight will also add an option for you to chat with a mentor if you need additional help that the tutorial can’t give you. Digital Tutors will double the size of the training courses available on PluralSight. Companies that use Digital Tutors include Nike, Dreamworks, EA, and Pixar.

SIGGRAPH 2015

SIGGRAPH didn’t have a huge amount of new announcements, as the show was much smaller this year with real estate shrinking on the Exhibits floor. The focus on Virtual Reality brought a new creative energy on the show floor for exploration into a new frontier. Different types of artists were illustrating VR in architecture, video games, and for motion pictures. Panels, Courses, Technical Papers, & Talks featured a variety of technology with many Presenters using MacBook Pros to present while covering a variety of subjects. Apple, Blizzard, Dreamworks, Deluxe, Stereo D, Method Studios, Double Negative, Framestore & Scanline and Pixar were among some of the recruiting companies at SIGGRAPH. The Art Gallery featured Hybrid Craft pieces, pieces with patterns for pedestals or walls.

The VR Village had a lot of cool tech that was packed with attendees. Emerging Technology has a lot of cool tech for VR. When you registered for the show you could not miss the Giant Skull with the changing dynamic light projection. I think the panels and courses is where most of the attendees were as the Exhibits Floor was quieter. Wednesday was the peek of attendance at the Conference but just at first glance the show felt smaller then previous years. A lot of vendors opted for meeting rooms & parties to target specific audiences rather then Exhibits. When you consider that Production has shifted to a Global Market, this shift is being felt at tradeshows.

SIGGRAPH’s audience is evolving, as the industry itself is so dynamic with change, the question with the lower attendance numbers is how will it find a way to stay relevant in a changing market place. We shall see in Anaheim next year. I hope to see you next year.

MORE: SIG: Final Complete Siggraph 2015 Event Photos & Notes

 

[Editor’s note: If you have arrived on this page first, you can click here for the first page of this article. Much good news and info on page one as well. Thx. ]