SIGGRAPH Gaming Director Previews Content

SIGGRAPH 2010 offers an unparalleled bounty of information related to game development in all conference programs:

Courses with significant game-development content include Advanced Techniques in Real-Time Hair Rendering and Simulation; Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games (I & II); An Introduction to 3D Spatial Interaction With Videogame Motion Controllers; Beyond Programmable Shading (I & II); Color Enhancement and Rendering in Film and Game Production; Gazing at Games: Using Eye Tracking to Control Virtual Characters; Global Illumination Across Industries; Perceptually Motivated Graphics, Visualization, and 3D Displays; Physically Based Shading Models in Film and Game Production; Recent Advances in Real-Time Collision and Proximity Computations for Games and Simulations; and Stylized Rendering in Games.

Talks of direct interest to game developers include A Deferred-Shading Pipeline for Real-Time Indirect Illumination, Curvature-Dependent Reflectance Function for Rendering Translucent Materials, How to Get From 30 to 60 Frames Per Second in Video Games for "Free", Irradiance Rigs, Screen Space Classification for Efficient Deferred Shading, Split-Second Motion Blur, Practical Morphological Anti-Aliasing on the GPU, REYES Using DirectX 11, and User-Generated Terrain in ModNation Racers.

Live Real-Time Demos showcase cutting-edge real-time rendering applications, including games such as Blur, God of War III, and LOVE.

The Computer Animation Festival also features game-related content; one of the Production Sessions discusses The Making of God of War III, and the Electronic Theater and Commercials & Cinematics screening include several game commercials and cinematics.

In the Exhibition, various game-technology vendors show their latest products and many present Exhibitor Tech Talks of interest to game developers.

Several Birds of a Feather sessions focus on topics of interest to the game industry, such as COLLADA, OpenCL and OpenGL.

Beyond the content directly related to game development, film production topics are also often relevant to game developers. One example is the use of spherical harmonics and precomputed occlusion in “Avatar”, as discussed in two Talks and one Technical Paper . Other examples can be found among the many film production presentations by the makers of films such as “2012”, “Alice in Wonderland” , “Avatar”, “How to Train Your Dragon”, “Iron Man 2”, “Shrek Forever After”, “Tangled”, “The Last Airbender”, “Toy Story 3”, and “TRON: LEGACY”.

In addition to practical production techniques of short-term interest, SIGGRAPH 2010 also presents forward-looking research that is likely to guide future developments. The Technical Papers program presents advanced graphics research, Panels speculate on future research directions, and Emerging Technologies features hands-on demonstrations of novel interaction methods and devices.

And opportunities for informal collaboration and exchange are everywhere. Throughout the week, SIGGRAPH 2010 attendees meet, network, and talk shop with the world’s top computer graphics talents.

See you in LA!

Troy Dunniway
SIGGRAPH 2010 Director of Gaming
GlobeX Studios