SIGGRAPH 2013 Releases Preliminary Line-Up of Production Sessions

SIGGRAPH 2013, 21 -25 July at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, released an early preview of its impressive schedule of production sessions that will be featured at this year’s conference and are a part of the Computer Animation Festival, which is open to the public.

Jerome Solomon

“The production sessions at SIGGRAPH 2013 are your only opportunity to experience the world’s best talent in one place during one week,” says Jerome Solomon, SIGGRAPH 2013 Production Sessions Chair from Cogswell College. “Major studios share their latest creative work, allowing attendees to experience the newest and most significant achievements.  In many instances this is the first time these particular topics are discussed with the public. Nowhere else but at SIGGRAPH is this type of cutting-edge content available.  There are 'must see' sessions every day at SIGGRAPH.  It’s very exciting for our attendees.  And, this preliminary line-up is just the beginning of what we have in plan.”

The Computer Animation Festival, chaired this year by Jason R.M. Smith, is recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a qualifying festival. Since 1999, several works originally presented in the Computer Animation Festival have been nominated for or have received a "Best Animated Short" Academy Award. This year’s selections will be featured during the Computer Animation Festival through a series of daily Festival Screenings and the iconic Electronic Theater, allowing attendees to get a glimpse behind the making of computer generated effects, visualizations, and animations

In all, there will be more than 15 sessions. Following are the details on just some of the 2013 Production Sessions:

Industrial Light & Magic Presents:  'Cancel the Apocalypse' – The Visual Effects of “Pacific Rim”
Panelists: John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Lindy De Quattro and Eddie Pasquarello

Image copyright: © 2013 Warner Bros. Courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic

From aliens that threaten Earth’s very existence to massive human-piloted robots, this panel will discuss the wide-ranging scope of Industrial Light & Magic’s effects work on Guillermo del Toro’s science fiction epic “Pacific Rim.” The artists will cover creative and technical challenges overcome in the areas of asset development, character animation, lighting, digital environments, advanced fluid simulation work and more.

LAIKA Presents: The Seamless Fusion of Stop-Motion and Visual Effects Technologies in LAIKA's Feature Films
Speakers: Georgina Hayns, Creative Supervisor, Puppet Fabrication and Brian McLean, Director of Rapid Prototype.

Image Credit: LAIKA, Inc.

LAIKA, the Oregon-based animation studio behind the remarkable features "ParaNorman" (2012), "Coraline" (2009) and "The Boxtrolls" (in theaters 17 October 2014) has inspired audiences -- and industry professionals -- with an unprecedented visual artistry. Animators breathe life into meticulously hand-crafted puppets while visual effects artists seamlessly enhance the performance with cutting-edge technologies. This unparalleled fusion of stop- motion and computer graphics has garnered the studio two Oscar nominations and worldwide acclaim. In this session, Georgina Hayns and Brian McLean address the key interdependent and collaborative relationships between these uniquely different but critically important departments.

The presentation will address the following:
•    The use of Maya and Zbrush to enhance practical sculpts;
•    3D Printed material and subsurface scattering to allow puppet builders to break free of previous design limitations;
•    The advancements in color 3D printing and the enabling of puppet builders to evolve beyond prior design limitations;
•    The use of in-house developed silicones which enable character performance previously unseen in stop-motion animation;
•    The utilization of 3D Printers to pre-vis puppet construction issues and control how practical materials perform;
•    The use of laser cutting fabrics to enhance the design and functionality of the puppets costumes;
•    Production puppets will be displayed during the presentation.

OLM Digital Presents the Anime Spirit: From Pokémon, Pac-Man to live action films
Panelists: Koichiro Sato, CGI director OLM Digital, Masashi Kobayashi, CGI Producer OLM Digital, Moto Sakakibara, CEO and creative director Sprite Animation Studios and Ken Anjyo, R&D supervisor OLM Digital

Image Copyrights: ©Nintendo•Creatures•GAME FREAK•TV Tokyo•ShoPro•JR Kikaku, ©Pokémon ©2012 PIKACHU PROJECT, ©2012 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. and ©2012 CAPCOM / "Ace Attorney" FILM PARTNERS

Anime has gained great popularity in the world for its unique expressiveness in contrast to western animation. OLM Digital, a digital production company in Tokyo, keeps trying new anime styles, making the Pokémon movies over 15 years. This session presents the company’s various works in 2D anime, 3DCG and live action films. The showcase focuses on how the anime spirit of OLM Digital is put into various visual forms. The brand-new Pac-Man animated TV series, which is a collaborative work with Sprite Animation Studios, is also one of the highlights of this session.   

Rhythm & Hues Studios Presents: How to bake a Pi

Image credit: © 2012 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
Courtesy Rhythm & Hues Studios.

Learn first-hand about the story behind the Oscar-winning visuals of “Life of Pi” as Rhythm & Hues takes you on a journey from script to screen through a world of vast oceans, carnivorous islands, flying fish, bioluminescent jellyfish, whales and tigers. Leaders from the visual effects team will discuss in detail how they attempted to tackle the project, share the hard lessons learned along the way and explain the complex process used to seamlessly combine live-action with extensive digital environments and hand-crafted character animation in a fully-stereo pipeline that required a total rethink of much of the traditional vfx process.

Sony Pictures Imageworks Presents: Take a Journey Down the Yellow Brick Road
Presenters: Scott Stokdyk, Senior VFX Supervisor; Troy Saliba, Animation Supervisor and Francisco De Jesus, Digital Effects Supervisor

Sony Pictures Imageworks, under the direction of VFX supervisor Scott Stokdyk, created the majority of the visual effects for Disney's "OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL".

© 2013 Disney Enterprises Inc. 

As a cinematic prequel to L. Frank Baum’s first book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the film explores the backstory of the wizard character. The goal of the film was to create a beautiful stylized environment for the land of Oz and bring to life computer graphics characters that accompany Oz on his journey, including Finley the monkey, the porcelain China Girl, and various creatures that surprise them along the way.

Walt Disney Animation and Pixar Animation Presents: Scare School 101: The Making of "Monsters University"

"Monsters University" - Copyright/ImageCredit: ©Disney•Pixar

The filmmaking team will guide attendees through the production process of the summer 2013 Disney•Pixar film, "Monsters University".  Twelve years after the original film, see how creators rebuilt the Monster world; updated familiar characters into college-age versions of themselves; designed, built and lit a campus fit for a monster; and populated the university with a student body of diverse, unique and terrifying monster types.

Walt Disney Animation Studios Presents "Frozen": The Craft of Character and Cold

Copyright/ImageCredit:  © 2012 Disney

The team from Walt Disney Animation Studios gives a first-time, behind-the-scenes look at the their
November 27, 2013 film, "Frozen".  Attendees will learn how the team of artists and technologists created the film's characters through visual development, rigging, animation and advanced rendering tools and discover how the elements of cold - ice, snow and frost - were brought to life through new simulation techniques.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Releases Advance Program and Preliminary Numbers

Once again (for the 40th time actually) attendees can experience five full days and nights of learning the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques this summer in Anaheim, California.  As of today, people can now get a sneak peak at our accepted content by searching through the just released SIGGRAPH 2013 Advance Program.

"We wanted to give our audiences a chance to review our anticipated content as early as possible as they plan their time at the conference," says Mk Haley, SIGGRAPH 2013 Conference Chair from Disney Research. "There will be another release of the Advance Program once the additonal content is finalized."

Here are some of the preliminary highlights offered at SIGGRAPH 2013:

• 152 Technical Papers
• 120+ Posters
• 80+ Computer Animation Festival pieces
• 75+ Talks (includes Studio and SIGGRAPH Mobile)      
• 56+ Birds of a Feather sessions      
• 45 Dailies presentations                            
• 23 Courses  
• 17 Production Sessions
• 15 Art Gallery pieces                                                                
• 11 Studio workshops and 12 Studio projects
• 10 Real-Time Live! demos
• 7 Art Papers
• More than 160 exhibitors
• 16 Emerging Technologies installations
• 25 Job Fair participating companies

Registration is now open.  Click here for more details.

The Volunteer Jury Behind the SIGGRAPH 2013 Computer Animation Festival

Each year a select group is hand-picked to serve on the Computer Animation Festival Jury; the aim is always a variety of backgrounds and perspectives.  The choice is difficult since SIGGRAPH represents such a wide array of industries and professions.  It's also a significant commitment on behalf of the  Jurors who spend many hours and often travel internationally serving in this role.

Jason R. M. Smith

"We are truly fortunate to have such a broad and multi-faceted jury this year," said Jason R. M. Smith, SIGGRAPH 2013 Computer Animation Festival Chair. "Selecting the most relevant, entertaining and ground-breaking CG is no easy task from the hundreds upon hundreds of phenomenal entries each year.  We recently wrapped the 2013 Jury, it was an honor to work with such incredible talent who have shaped a world-class show.  They did an amazing job and we owe them huge gratitude for taking time away from their busy careers for the Animation Festival."

In total, the multi-stage jury process ran for seven days - reviewing more than 600 submissions.  Here's a glimpse at the wonderful people who helped shape the 2013 Computer Animation Festival.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Computer Animation Festival Jury:

Michael Arias
Michael Arias’ colorful filmmaking career spans the worlds of old-school VFX, CG, and traditional animation. After starting out at Dream Quest Images, on the motion control stages of such effects-heavy films as "The Abyss" and "Total Recall", Michael was invited by Douglas Trumbull to collaborate on immersive attraction "Back To The Future, "The Ride".

Then, following stints at Tokyo’s Imagica and Sega, Michael co-founded New York-based Syzygy Digital Cinema, creators of sequences for the likes of David Cronenberg and the Coen Brothers.

Next, at Softimage, Michael developed and patented tools for combining traditional and digital animation, working closely with Studio Ghibli to add a distinct visual flavor to Miyazaki’s masterpieces "The Princess Mononoke", and "Spirited Away". After producing Matrix-inspired anthology The "Animatrix", Michael made his feature directing debut with "Tekkonkinkreet", awarded Japan’s Academy Prize for Best Animated Feature. He has since continued to split his time between traditional and digital animation, and live-action filmmaking.

Professor Norman Badler
Norman Badler is the Andrew S. & Debra Rachleff Professor of Computer & Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his BA in Creative Studies Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1970, his MSc in Mathematics in 1971 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1975, both from the University of Toronto. Badler joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1974.

Badler’s research involves developing techniques and software to model 3D computer graphics representations of the human body and to acquire, simulate, animate and control body, face, gesture, locomotion, and manual task motions.

Badler is the founding Director of the SIG Center for Computer Graphics and the Center for Human Modeling and Simulation and is the founding and current Director of the BSE program in Digital Media Design.

Jinny (HyeJin) Choo
Jinny majored in Illustration and Animation, finishing her Masters of Fine Arts in Animation at Chung-Ang University in Korea, and she is currently in the doctoral program at the same university.

After making her first short animated film in 1999, Jinny started her career as a freelance artist in animation and media arts, and joined several film festivals and conference including SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 & 2010, GISF (Gwacheon International SF Festival), SICAF (Seoul International Cartoon & Animation) and PISAF (Puchon International Student Animation Festival) as a chair and programmer.

At present, she is involved in Indie-AniFest in Korea, SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 as a Computer Animation Festival Director, and has been spending five years in academia teaching animation and its related fields at Korea National University of Arts and other institutes.

John Frame
John Frame has been making sculpture in Southern California since the early 1980s; his work has been exhibited extensively in the United States as well as in Europe, Japan, and China.
•    Two time recipient of Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
•    New Talent Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
•    J. Paul Getty Museum’s Individual Artist Fellowship.
•    Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 2009.

His work can be found in more than 300 public and private collections, including the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Palm Springs Desert Museum, the Renwick Gallery of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, and the University of Southern California.

•    1992: A major survey of the artist’s work was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
•    2005: Mid Career Retrospective, Long Beach Museum of Art “Enigma Variations: The Sculpture of John Frame, 1980 to 2005.”
•    2011, “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale”  became the first major solo exhibition of the work of a living sculptor to be mounted by the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.
•    2012, “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale” at the Portland Art Museum

Frame has been artist in residence, visiting artist, or guest lecturer at more than 70 museums, universities, and art-related institutions around the United States. He lives and works in Wrightwood, California.
 
Professor Emeritus Peter Parr
Professor Emeritus Peter Parr’s enormous contribution to various visual arts in numerous capacities endows him with a legendry statue.

He graduated from the Royal College of Art, School of Film and Television, London. He founded the BA (Hons) Animation Course at the Arts University Bournemouth, gaining the Queen’s Anniversary Prize and Skillset Accreditation, awarded by the British animation industry.

His wide gamut of work includes storyboarding and character designs for the “Chronicles of Narnia”, award winning BBC Television title sequences, paintings for dramas; figurative murals for the original stage musical “EVITA”, London and Broadway, New York; works for the Royal Shakespeare Company, English National Opera, The Royal Opera House, the National Theatre of great Britain, London Planetarium, Madame Tussaud, London and Amsterdam.  He contributed to “Drawing for Animation” (2008) and “Fundamentals
of Animation” (2006).

Peter’s most recent independent film, “Summer Dream, 2013" – has just been awarded the Screen Out Loud, Independent Talent Prize for Technical Excellence. He works as a freelance artist in film, television and theatre.

Dana Plepys
Dana M. Plepys is an associate director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), University of Illinois at Chicago responsible for EVL’s research and business administration, and management of EVL’s technology transfer and outreach activities with industry and affiliated laboratories.  Plepys oversees EVL’s web and media production, and assists in the development of tools, techniques, and systems for scientific and artistic virtual reality and visualization applications.

Plepys is also the director and curator of the CineGrid Exchange – a multi-site, distributed digital media repository supporting CineGrid member-driven testbeds for research and experimentation in digital media asset management, distribution and preservation applications.

Since 1993, Plepys has been editor of the SIGGRAPH Video Review (SVR), one of the world’s most widely circulated and comprehensive video-based publications showcasing the latest concepts in computer graphics and interactive techniques.  She has produced over 175 issues of the SVR, and is responsible for production, publication and media distribution.  Plepys is actively involved in the preservation initiative of SVR’s historical archives from 1979 to present.

Rajesh Sharma
Rajesh currently works as a technology manager at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He manages a team of exceptionally talented individuals in the areas of Look, Effects, Dynamics and IxD for designing tools and processes to make animated feature films.

Sharma received his MS in Computer Science from Indiana University-Bloomington and completed his MBA at UCLA Anderson School of Management in June 2008 with emphasis on Strategy and International Business.

Throughout his academic and professional career, Sharma served as a software developer for several companies including SGI and Digital Domain. In 1998 Sharma joined Walt Disney Feature Animation as a software developer and later went on to serve as Manager of Animation Technology for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has attended SIGGRAPH since 1994.

Wayne Stables
Wayne Stables has been working in the visual effects industry for over 17 years. Wayne started out writing educational software that used a graphics-oriented approach to learning. He worked at PDI/ Dreamworks on "Shrek 2" and as a CG Supervisor at Electronic Arts.

Wayne started at Weta Digital in 1994 and has worked on projects including "The Frighteners", "Contact", "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy, and "Avatar". He helped develop the lighting and rendering pipeline that was used across "Avatar".  Wayne’s latest project was "The Adventures of Tintin", for which he was nominated for two VES awards and a BAFTA. He is currently working on an unannounced project and is also Head of the Shots Department.

Selected Credits:                                   
•    "The Adventures of TinTin" — Visual Effects Supervisor
(2011) Director: Steven Spielberg (Paramount Films)
•    "Avatar" - Visual Effects Supervisor
(2009) Director: James Cameron (20th Century Fox)
•    "Shrek 2" — Lighting Lead
(2004) Director: Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury & Conrad Vernon (Dreamworks)
•    "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" — Sequence Supervisor
(2002) Director: Peter Jackson (New Line)
•    "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" — 3D Supervisor
(2001) Director: Peter Jackson (New Line)
•    "The Frighteners" — CG Supervisor
(1996) Director: Peter Jackson (Universal Pictures)
 
Brian Van’t Hul
Currently, Brian serves as Supervisor of Visual Effects on LAIKA’s award-winning features "ParaNorman" and "Coraline". A graduate of Montana State University’s Film, Television and Photography Department, Brian has applied his diverse passions for cinematography, art, engineering and story-telling to a variety of film industry projects including miniature, live action and digital lighting, visual effects supervising, location plate photography and second unit directing.




Brian Van’t Hul’s visual effects acumen has been applied to such prominent films as:
•    "Nightmare Before Christmas
•    "Disclosure"
•    "Forrest Gump"
•    "Contact"
•    All three "Lord of the Rings" films
•    "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"
•    "I Robot"
•    "The Legend of Zorro"
•    "King Kong"
BAFTA Film Award (Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects)
Oscar (Best Achievement in Visual Effects)

Carlo Vogele
Born in Luxembourg in 1981, Carlo first pursued theatre studies in Berlin, then discovered stop-motion animation and graduates from Gobelins School in 2008 with his award-winning short "For Sock's Sake". He now works as a Character Animator at Pixar in San Francisco, but his passion remains with the tedious and dirty craft of animating physical objects.






Director:
•    "For Sock’s sake", 2008 Graduation Film.
Best Student short film ‐ Annecy 2009
Best Animation, Imagina Awards 2009
Best Student Film, Anima Mundi 2009
Stop Motion Award, Festival Animex , Middlesbrough
Best Direction, Festival ANIWOW, Beijing
Special Mention, Festival PIFF, India
Special Award for a Student Film, Festival Zlin Dog, Czech Republic
Best student short film: Viewer's choice, Festival Monstra, Lisbon
•    "Tango for Jansjo", 2011
•    "Una Furtiva Lagrima", 2011

Animator at Pixar:
•    "Toy Story 3", 2009
•    "Hawaiian Vacation", 2010
•    "Cars 2", 2010
•    "Brave", 2011

Editor's Note: Much of the Computer Animation Festival content will be published later this month via the SIGGRAPH social media channels, the S2013 website, and this blog.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Educators Focus

SIGGRAPH 2013 features five days of talks, technical sessions, hands-on exhibits, networking opportunities, and affinity groups specifically geared towards educators.

On Sunday, 21 July, a pair of co-located workshops held at the Hilton Anaheim is being offered specifically for educators: "Processing as Intro to CS" and "Drawing Machines." Also on Sunday, SIGGRAPH 2013 kicks off with the popular "Introduction to Computer Graphics" course for educators and others who want a complete, concise summary of this dynamic field.

On Sunday, 21 July and Monday, 22 July, more than 15 Birds of a Feather sessions focus on a variety of education-related topics, including 3D printing technology, integration of art and science, worlds of art and music, open source in graphics education and more. One session ("Studio View of Demo Reels," on Sunday, 21 July) focuses on game designers' demo reels and the other ("VFX Student and Intern Showcase," on Monday, 22 July) showcases visual-effects production. Other sessions explore open standards, undergraduate research, and multi-disciplinary collaboration in education.

SIGGRAPH 2013 offers several courses that focus on the subject matter that educators teach and/or subjects that educators may want to integrate in their teaching like VFX, physical computing, and new interfaces for musical expression. On Tuesday, 23 July, Art Papers such as "Early History of French Computer Graphics" and "The Emergence and Growth of Evolutionary Art 1980-1993" help students and educators understand the historical context of their academic pursuits.

Production sessions for games and films provide even more opportunities for educators to learn about state-of-the-art applications. And, of course, educators can (and should) see the annual Computer Animation Festival, new products in the Exhibition, Emerging Technologies, and interactive/hands-on activities in the Studio.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Technical Papers Preview

Please click to enlarge.

The SIGGRAPH 2013 Technical Papers program is the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The 40th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 21-25 July 2013 at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, received submissions from around the globe and features high quality and never before seen scholarly work. Submitters are held to extremely high standards in order to qualify.

Marc Alexa

“Computer Graphics is a dynamic and ever-changing field in many ways,” says Marc Alexa, SIGGRAPH 2013 Technical Papers Chair from Technische Universität Berlin. “The range of ground-breaking papers presented at SIGGRAPH is getting broader every year, now also encompassing 3D printing, and fabricating realistic materials as well as generating ever more realistic images of complex phenomena.”

SIGGRAPH accepted 115 technical papers (out of 480 submissions) to showcase this year representing an acceptance rate of 24 percent (one percent higher than 2012). The selected papers were chosen by a distinguished committee of academia and industry experts.

This year's Technical Papers program also includes conference presentations for 37 papers published this year in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG).

Highlights From the SIGGRAPH 2013 Technical Papers Program:

OpenFab: A Programmable Pipeline for Multi-Material Fabrication
Authors: Kiril Vidimce, Szu-Po Wang, Jonathan Ragan-Kelley and Wojciech Matusik, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Please click to enlarge.

This paper proposes a programmable pipeline, inspired by RenderMan, for synthesis of multi-material 3D printed objects. The pipeline introduces user-programmable fablets, a corollary to procedural shaders for 3D printing, and is designed to stream over arbitrary numbers of voxels with a fixed and controllable memory footprint.

Opacity Optimization for 3D Line Fields
Authors: Tobias Günther, Christian Roessl, and Holger Theisel, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

Please click to enlarge.

For visualizing dense line fields, this method selects lines by view-dependent opacity optimizations and applies them to real-time free navigation in flow data, medical imaging, physics, and computer graphics.

AIREAL: Interactive Tactile Experiences in Free Air
Authors: Rajinder Sodhi, University of Illinois; Ivan Poupyrev, Matthew Glisson, Ali Israr, Disney Research, The Walt Disney Company

Please click to enlarge.

AIREAL is a tactile feedback device that delivers effective and expressive tactile sensations in free air, without requiring the user to wear a physical device. Combined with interactive graphics and applications, AIREAL enables users to feel virtual objects, experience free-air textures and receive haptic feedback with free-space gestures.

Bi-Scale Appearance Fabrication
Authors: Yanxiang Lan, Tsinghua University; Yue Dong, Microsoft Research Asia; Fabio Pellacini, Sapienza Universita’ Di Roma, Dartmouth College; Xin Tong, Microsoft Research Asia

Please click to enlarge.

A system for fabricating surfaces with desired spatially varying reflectance, including anisotropic ones, and local shading frames.

Map-Based Exploration of Intrinsic Shape Differences and Variability
Authors: Raif Rustamov, Stanford University; Maks Ovsjanikov, École Polytechnique; Omri Azencot, Mirela Ben-Chen, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology; Frederic Chazal, INRIA Saclay - Île-de-France; and Leonidas Guibas, Stanford University

Please click to enlarge.

A novel formulation of shape differences, aimed at providing detailed information about the location and nature of the differences or distortions between the shapes being compared. This difference operator is much more informative than a scalar similarity score, so it is useful in applications requiring more refined shape comparisons.

Highly Adaptive Liquid Simulations on Tetrahedral Meshes
Authors: Ryoichi Ando, Kyushu University; Nils Thuerey, ScanlineVFX GmbH; and Chris Wojtan, Institute of Science and Technology Austria

Please click to enlarge.

This new method for efficiently simulating fluid simulations with extreme amounts of spatial adaptivity combines several key components to produce a simulation algorithm that is capable of creating animations at high effective resolutions while avoiding common pitfalls like inaccurate boundary conditions and inefficient computation.

Editor's Note: Preview all the amazing SIGGRAPH 2013 Technical Papers here.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Conference Chair Mk Haley Previews the 40th SIGGRAPH Conference

Following is a brief conversation with Mk Haley (pictured below), SIGGRAPH 2013 Conference Chair from Disney Research Labs, who discusses the vision, goals, and team behind SIGGRAPH 2013.

Background on Mk:

Mk Haley, SIGGRAPH 2013 Chair
Photo credit: Jess Allen

Mk Haley is a Research Producer with the Disney Research Labs, having worked with Disney for 19 years across Imagineering, R&D, Television and other groups in a variety of creative, technical, and operations roles. SIGGRAPH 2013 is her 25th Conference as an attendee and volunteer, primarily contributing to student and educational based initiatives and Emerging Technologies.   Mk has also served as Communications Director on the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee and as part of the Education Committee.
 
Having taught part-time at Cal State LA in the Design Dept, UCLA in the School of Theater Film and Television, and Carnegie Mellon University in their Master's of Entertainment Industry Management Program, Mk recently completed a three-year term as Full-time Faculty and The Associate Executive Producer of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and still serves as adjunct faculty to the program.  She has contributed to books on the creative process with Walt Disney Imagineering, and patented work in the area of user interface.

What is your vision for SIGGRAPH 2013?

For SIGGRAPH 2013 we’re focused on a high-quality experience across the board. Not only the content we present, but also the entire experience involving the conference:  from the submission and review process to the attendee experience.  

The key areas of focus we defined are Community, Service and Delight!  I have worked with the 2013 team of volunteers from the very beginning to consider how to best serve all of our communities. This includes our conference attendees as well as our submitters, jurors, operations teams, and volunteers.  Each of these communities has unique needs and priorities that contribute to SIGGRAPH’s success. Thus, we really focused on tending to as many as we could across the board during the entire process to allow each the best potential to thrive.

This easily leads into the "service' idea.  In what ways can we provide an experience with service as a focus?  If there were ever a question about a venue or creative idea, we could go back to "What best serves the community?" and it’s pretty easy to pick. 

The focus for "Delight" is somewhat difficult to define in words, but you sure know it when you see it.  How is our conference a must-see experience? What experiences or opportunities will you see on-site that just delight and amaze you?  What experiences will make you thrilled you are here?  From training our Student Volunteers with an experienced organizational development and leadership expert to providing the highest level of service to our attendees, and updating our servers to best handle our submission loads, the community will be provided the highest level of delightful service.

Over the past 25 years, you have held various volunteer positions as a SIGGRAPH volunteer, how does this experience as Conference Chair compare?
The Conference Chair experience has an interesting point of view into every single program. You are able to see so many working parts all chugging away at once. It is inspiring to say the least!  I was able to define and select my entire team, which was fun, but  there were so many great people interested in supporting the conference with such a nice range of good ideas that is was a tough choice.  We all bought into the vision right off the bat, so it’s great to see this giant machine headed in the same direction.  It’s also staggering to realize how much work each venue chair and their team has put into each program, and then multiply that by our entire scope.  Amazing!

I don't know if the general public realizes the scale of this entire venture.  That surely was a surprise.  The total number of talented people interested in supporting the conference, anyway they could, with thought provoking and new ideas was a delight!

Editorial note: For a full list of the committee, click here.

What can attendees expect this year?
Attendees can expect a real sense of focus for our venues this year.  Many had specific calls that encouraged a point of view to be expressed in the submission which will result in excellent bodies of work for the attendees to enjoy and get inspired by.  For example, the Emerging Technologies venue has always celebrated and explored a wide range of interactive technologies, from robotics and displays, to sensors and input devices.  This year Dylan Moore, our chair, has encouraged submissions with a focus on "Assistive Technologies". This has encouraged a lot of outreach and consideration to medical devices, educational tools, and other non-traditional communities of research for us.  I am excited to see the results.

Our Art Gallery chair, Victoria Szabo from Duke University, has challenged the submitters to consider scale in her call for the venue titled, XYZN:Scale.  Digital work has the unique opportunity to explore scale, perhaps more readily, and submitters are encouraged to develop and submit work that celebrates, questions, and explores these challenges and opportunities.


What is important to know about Anaheim, California as a host city?

Anaheim is only 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, so it is convenient for many of our attendees already located in Southern CA.  SIGGRAPH has not been to Anaheim since 1993, and wow has it changed! 

The convention center had a massive re-design and expansion, with both technology upgrades and thoughtful space design considerations that will really support our goals at the conference. They now have the largest exhibition show floor on the West Coast, and have a focus on easy access to meeting rooms.

There are fantastic meeting spaces, for formal and informal interaction, and gorgeous exterior spaces as well. The local area has also gone through some major expansion, with a second park, Disney's California Adventure, added to the Disneyland Resort, and an upscale dining and retail district developed as well.

All of our conference hotel selections are within walking distance to the convention center, and public ways are all lush and landscaped areas that you will enjoy strolling through.  The city has really collaborated between local services and attractions with their convention and meetings teams to support easy connections across work and play.

How is the SIGGRAPH conference trying to remain relevant?
With the addition and growth of our Mobile and Gaming focus areas, we are really connecting with all of the research, educational, and production areas that our industry is exploding in.  We will also welcome back the recently formed Business Symposium, a forum for the business leaders in our industry to connect and develop a community that supports not only their strategy directly, but also encourages the support of their team members participation in the conference.  With our demographic changing to include both senior leaders in the industry and more attendees who are just beginning their careers, we are actively engaging in social media and other formats that best speak to all of our attendees.


What are some of the things that will be happening at SIGGRAPH 2013 that you are personally most excited about?
 I am very excited about the SIGGRAPH University proposal that our Courses Chair Paul Strauss from Google, Inc., initiated. It has greatly taken off beyond this conference and into other organizational-related concepts.  Paul is working with contributors who are not only subject matter experts, but also have experience in online education. The goal is to present and share a few of our foundation level offerings this year, for free, online, to anyone after the fact. This will start a cycle of our conference extending far beyond the one week, in one particular place.  For example, next year's attendees can prepare themselves with introductory content, and then arrive onsite ready to hit the more advanced topics.

By sharing content our attendees have always shown a high interest in, especially in the forums they are familiar with (in this case our ACM SIGGRAPH YouTube Channel), we can extend our impact and develop relationships with the community that reflect the evolution of technology and educational models.

I am also very excited about the great juries our teams have pulled together, in particular the Computer Animation Festival, chaired by Jason R.M. Smith.  His world class collection of animation masters from around the globe (and each viewing the work from their own lens, simulation, anime, independent, large studios, etc.) will provide our attendees with the best of the best across the board, because there is such diversity in the process.

What changes (if any) should attendees expect this year?

I am thrilled to extend the interaction opportunities for our Exhibitors from the show floor and tech talks to the beloved SIGGRAPH Fast Forward model.  A staple of the technical papers community and a highlight of the conference every year, this fast and fun forum provides a high level sampling of each paper being presented that week.

By inviting our Exhibitors to feature their highlights in a similar forum, a few seconds per presenter, we are connecting our attendees very quickly with information that will help them direct their focus on the show floor and, we are allowing our Exhibitors the opportunity to have the  undivided attention of the attendees. We are also excited to integrate the feedback we received directly from our attendees last year into programs this year.

Our teams turned around the survey data quickly and we are focusing on what our attendees told us was of the highest priority to them, as well as of most interest.  In particular, our attendees will enjoy more hands-on training. Our Studio Chair, Patricia Clark from Arizona State University, is partnering with industry and her subcommittee to offer full slates of workshops that allow us to serve a larger percentage of our audience than we have in the past with directly transferable skill sets.

How do you define SIGGRAPH’s target audience?

Our audience are key stakeholders in the community, those driving research and business forward for the past 40 years.  The respect between our contributors and attendees is mutual, and a fluid relationship that has the target audience moving between attendee and content creator from year to year, or even minute to minute. For the 2013 conference, I am defining our target audience as one that is purposely engaged with each other. From our Educators and Artists, to Researchers, Students, Production Professionals and Business teams, our audiences do not live in silos, they actively engage across disciplines and the end result has been our staple for success from year to year.

What characteristics/backgrounds were you looking for when selecting your 2013 conference committee?
I was looking for a team that had very specific ideas about how they wanted their individual venues to develop  as well as a passion for the conference and organization as  whole. And then I stood back and let them do it!  The team is highly interested in not just their venue or year, but in laying the foundation for ideas that will take a while to fully develop.  They partnered really well with the years on either side of them, for a future bigger than just any one team could pull off.  I was also looking for a diverse set of volunteers who could all contribute from not just their area of subject matter expertise, but also from different communities, life experiences, and history with the conference itself.

Editorial note: to view the committee, click here.

What advice would you give someone who has never been to SIGGRAPH before? 

SIGGRAPH is a glorious amalgamation of high quality content across several slices of the computer graphics and interactive communities. It can be intimidating to try and sort through all the offerings we have.  A plan of action is always your friend.

We will continue to provide suggestions based upon a particular focus area, with our teams poring through all of the accepted content and preparing suggested sessions and content for gaming, animation, research, education, etc.   Often, the most rewarding experiences for our attendees are when they venture off their presumed path.

I highly encourage participation in offerings that may not directly align your areas of interest, these intersections are where our unique magic most often lives.  Also, plan a lot longer for walking from point A to point B than you presume you need, and be prepared to say "Hi!" to strangers.  The intersection of people is one of our highest values, and you want to be sure to allow these intersections and opportunities to thrive. You will be delighted at how easy barriers to conversation and ideation fall away during SIGGRAPH, especially if you go after it.

As an industry expert and long-time SIGGRAPH volunteer, what keeps you professionally motivated? 
I get to work with some really amazing people; smart, fun, inspiring, accomplished, mentors, mentees, from all over the world. It’s a uniquely collaborative culture that allows not just technologies to be shared, but also allows people to easily share their expertise and time with each other.  The thrill of these intersections makes every day motivating, different, and challenges me to give back as much as I have been given.

SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Gallery: A Showcase of Digital and Interactive Advancements

The Art Gallery’s 2013 theme, XYZN: Scale, draws attention to a key critical affordance of computer-based authorship: the ability to iteratively scale our digital representations at will: in-out-up-down, back and forth, + and -. These core functions enable us to change size and location over time, and at different degrees of resolution.

Recently, the Art committee successfully selected 16 works to showcase this July. The works selected include installations, wall-based, physical/sculptural, and screen-based work. Two camera-based pieces have potential to extend into the wider convention center as well. One of the selections will be featured in Art Papers with a focus on a problem that helps set standards and stimulate future trends in the art industry.

Victoria Szabo, the 2013 Art Gallery Chair. Photo credit: Chris Hildreth

“As SIGGRAPH celebrates its 40th anniversary at the 2013 conference, it’s amazing to the see how the artistic and computer graphics talent has evolved over the years,” says Victoria Szabo, Art Gallery Chair from Duke University. “To celebrate the conference’s anniversary, special acknowledgment was given to work that tied with historical themes, for example the N as a function of time.  We received an incredible range of contributors which most definitely will add high quality work to create a coherent and interesting show. “

Highlighting all forms of electronic and digital media art created in the last two years, the SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Gallery demonstrates pieces that explore an idea, tell a story, or create an experience in a novel and engaging way. Submissions that include multimedia installations; two- and three-dimensional works; and kinetic, mobile, or interactive pieces were the most sought after to accept.

Please join us again over the next few weeks for more details and images of these incredible pieces.