SIGGRAPH 2024 – Some of what you’re missing

It’s that SIGGRAPH time of year again and there’s a really fun video showing off some of the papers. For dedicated graphics followers, you’ll be happy to know that the trailer still features a teapot and some bunnies!

This year, SIGGRAPH is taking place in Denver from July 28th to August 1st. If you can’t make it, there are the videos that are usually made that give a pretty good idea of what happened. And if that’s not enough, there’s also virtual access.

As I said at last year’s SIGGRAPH, the specter of generative AI is looming large over the entire field of computer graphics, which could easily become a subset of AI. But that said, it seems that classic CG is still providing us with innovations and improvements.

Check out this year’s preview of technical articles. Tip: It’s worth slowing down the presentation speed to 0.75 so you can read the titles and see in detail what’s happening:

Disney has put a lot of work into giving little robots character through the way they move and you can see some of the effort late in the video. While others struggle to keep robots from falling over, Disney wants them to do crazy walks!

What I find surprising is that we still have model-based and essentially simulation-based graphics, and while they are great to look at, I can’t help but imagine what could be produced with the right input to a generative AI. The only presentation that used AI is the style transfer from 2D graphics to 3D animated meshes. Yes, it’s cool to see a Van Gogh Starry Night rendered in waves, but I suspect that AI could have done the entire job of producing something that looked like waves. In the examples where a neural network was used, I get the impression that traditional models are still being used for part of the task.

My favorite? The inflatable shapes may not be graphics, but that doesn’t stop me from letting the software and machine cut the shapes needed to create inflatable novelties.

At the conference itself, we still have a handful of keynote speakers from learned academics, but this year the standout speakers are Jensen Huang, the boss of NVIDIA who has been making predictions about all sorts of future developments in AI and programming in general, and Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of something called Meta. And we all know what kind of metaverse bees he’s got up his sleeve.

Ultimately, I am glad and relieved that we still have the traditional rabbit and teapot to think about. Maybe times don’t change so quickly.

More information

SIGRAPHIC 2024

SIGGRAPH 2023 Real-Time Live! Trailer

SIGGRAPH 2022 Videos

SIGGRAPH 2020 – The Trailer

SIGGRAPH 2019 kicks off

SIGGRAPH 2018 has begun

Water, water, everywhere and everything computer generated

Get ready for SIGGRAPH 2017

SIGGRAPH 2017 Must View 3-minute trailer

SIGGRAPH Art 2016

SIGGRAPH 2016 Video Trailer Does Not Disappoint!

SIGGRAPH 2014 Teaser Video

Awesome SIGGRAPH 2013

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