SIGGRAPH 2023 Offers Feast Of Talks On New Animation, Including ‘Spider-Verse,’ ‘Nimona,’ And ‘Elemental’
SIGGRAPH returns to the Los Angeles Convention Center from August 6 through 10. The premier computer graphics conference and trade show is celebrating its milestone 50th edition this year.
In honor of the anniversary, this year’s conference offers a variety of “time tunnel experiences” looking back at computer graphics history. Among the highlights is an animated timeline highlighting significant computer graphics and interactive technique-related achievements since the first SIGGRAPH conference in 1974. Other programs include screenings of rarely-seen videos from the early years of cg and the “Cabinet of Computer Graphics Curiosities,” a display of physical devices and hardware from the early days of computer animation.
Of course, most attendees will attend to discover the latest techniques in computer graphics, and on the animation production side, there’s a wealth of panels and presentations.
As part of a presentation on Stylized Rendering Techniques taking place Sunday, August 6, from 9-10:30am, two technical advances from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be explained. The first is a look at how they incorporated the Rebelle watercolor painting software into the vfx pipeline, and the second presentation is about developing a cg pipeline that can output linework.
Also on Sunday from 10:45am-12:15pm is a series of four presentations on Practical Proceduralism in Production. These are the four topics: creating the art-directed fur groom for Legend in Disney’s Strange World, creating large-scale water hair for Dreamworks’ Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, and implementing stylized bark shading and creating plant-based characters in Disney-Pixar’s Elemental.
Finally, on Sunday, there’s Rigging Without the Rig: New Methods in Character Animation, from 3:45-5:15pm. The panel will look at the development of Splat in Strange World, Pixar’s Curvenet animation controls as used in Elemental, and facial rigging in Pixar’s upcoming series Win or Lose.
On Tuesday, August 8, from 9:30-10:15am, Sony Pictures Animation’s executive director of technology, Yiotis Katsambas, will talk about how Sony’s investment in tools and tech helps artists break new ground in animation. Later on Tuesday, the Advances in Animation Tools program, from 3:45-5:15pm, offers an overview of techniques: Spider-Verse artists will explain how they incorporated variable-rate animation into their pipeline, while Brent Forrest of Japan’s Marza Animation Planet will discuss his Time-Filter system that allows animators to achieve a variable frame rate look similar to Spider-Verse. Also, Walt Disney Animation Studios will present its Swoop tool that allows for easily-produced motion along a path, including binding multiple objects to that path, while Dreamworks Animation will show off its Skin Slide tool, which allows for sliding and jiggling secondary motion along a surface without changing the silhouette.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will also have its own production session on Tuesday at 3:45pm, while Elemental’s panel is on Wednesday, August 9, at 10:45am. Other production sessions include Nimona (Wednesday, 3:45pm) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Thursday, 11:15am).
See the full line-up of programs and register for the conference at the SIGGRAPH website.