This study explores whether non-player characters within World of Warcraft reinforce stereotypical assumptions surrounding gender and work. Even though all professions are represented (albeit not equally) by male and female NPCs, there seem to be subtle hierarchies within the distribution of "work" in this gameworld.

Drawing on theories from game, film, and theater studies, this paper explores two primary ways in which 3D computer games deal with stories.

Educational psychology studies use motivational constructs called achievement goals to predict learning success. This paper examines whether gaming achievement goals influence game play in similar ways. Gaming achievement goals could help determine whether people will play and which players are more likely to learn from educational games.

Studies of expertise in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) involve either small-scale ethnographic accounts of elite players or large-scale accounts relying on one-dimensional measures of expert play. This paper presents a quantifiable model of expertise in MMOGs that is generated through qualitative analyses of both novices and experts.

The Digital Content Association of Japan (DCAJ) presents some of the most recent examples of industrial application of CG technology in Japan.

Eddie Suzuki
suzuki (at) dcaj.or.jp

This presentation describes construction of a large city environment for DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 2", including how the chosen technique was driven at every step by the film's design language and story needs to deliver an epic setting within reasonable time constraints.

“Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole” evokes an epic nocturnal owl world, eschewing a cartoon aesthetic in favour of a dark, operatic style. The emotional drama of the story was more important than maintaining a sense of realism or naturalism.

Blue Sky Studios produced a large number of art-directed cloud environments for "Rio", using optimized creation, management, compositing, and ray-tracing technologies and techniques.

How to creatively integrate 3D models into Photoshop CS5 Extended to create concept art. This session focuses on how to import, texture, and build a mate painting with third-party 3D models in CS5.

Studio heads from Pixar Canada, Digital Domain (Vancouver), and Sony Imageworks (Vancouver) host an interactive panel session on setting up new remote studios in Vancouver.

An overview of the state of CG in European countries, including Eurographics 2012, scheduled for May in Italy. Speakers include:

Michael Bielicky
HFG/ZKM Karlsruhe, Data Driven Narratives

Jorge Jimenez and Diego Gutierrez
University of Zaragoza, New Advances in Real-Time Graphics for Video Games

Mashhuda Glencross and Francho Melendez
University of Loughborough, 3D Recontruction From Images

Francho Melendez
franchomelendez (at) gmail.com

This session is for attendees interested in creating a RESTful web service for 3D content. More information: rest3d.org

This system captures and stitches gigapixel-scale time-lapse imagery and explores the resulting gigapixel-scale video in four dimensions: 2D translation, zoom, and time. Workshop topics include: how to author content, how to explore, and how to define “warps” through gigapixel video and render them into standard, linear video.

The Professional and Student Chapters of ACM SIGGRAPH span the globe. Within their local areas, chapters continue the work of ACM SIGGRAPH on a year-round basis via their meetings and other activities. Each chapter consists of individuals involved in education, research and development, the arts, industry, and entertainment who are interested in the advancement of computer graphics and interactive techniques, related technologies, and their applications. Chapter members gather throughout the year at meetings, site visits, conferences, video screenings, art shows, and special events.

This session explains how to start and run a successful ACM SIGGRAPH Professional or Student Chapter. Topics regarding the process are outlined in detail by members of the Chapters Committee, and the session concludes with a Q&A session.

Scott Lang
scott (at) siggraph.org

Multi-Threaded 2D Renderer Design
Rendering real-time high-quality 2D vector graphics through a 3D pipeline is a challenging task that requires custom algorithms for shape tessellation, edge anti-aliasing, and text rendering. For best performance, Scaleform 2D renderer includes optimizations such as multi-threaded rendering, mesh caching, and draw-primitive batching. Following a high-level design description, this talk dives into multi-threaded rendering, introducing a novel render-tree design that allows the both threads to access scene graph nodes simultaneously, greatly reducing copy overhead. This strategy is particularly effective when only a subset of nodes is modified every frame and can be applied to any real-time rendering engine.

How to foster engagement in social and environmental issues through a graphic design assignment focused on creation of visually interesting folded, printed maps and instruction on aspects of sustainable print production and design techniques and processes.

Representatives from Chinese industry and universities discuss how their digital media programs are developing to meet the needs of their exploding economy.