SIGGRAPH 2011

Program	Date & Time	Focus
Full Conference Courses Production Volume Rendering 2 West Building, Rooms 211-214 Details Computer-generated volumetric elements such as clouds, fire, and whitewater are becoming commonplace visual effects. This course provides a behind-the-scenes look at the techniques used and how they are implemented. It demonstrates tools and workflows that are not typically covered in production talks but are integral to successful completion of many effects. The presenters, who have innovated the use of volumetric methods in industry and created some of the most impressive on-screen effects, summarize how specific artistic needs lead to innovations and review the success and evolution of their methods. They also discuss the software-engineering issues they have encountered and their solutions. COURSE SCHEDULE 2 pm Introduction Bin Zafar 2:05 pm Rhythm & Hues Tessendorf & Grant 2:35 pm Clinton 3:05 pm Weta Digital Bouthors 3:35 pm Break 3:55 pm Double Negative Harding & Graham 4:25 pm Sony Pictures Imageworks Wrenninge Magnus Wrenninge Sony Pictures Imageworks Nafees Bin Zafar DreamWorks Animation Andrew Clinton Side Effects Software Inc. Ollie Harding Double Negative Visual Effects Gavin Graham Double Negative Visual Effects Jerry Tessendorf Clemson University Victor Grant Rhythm & Hues Studios Antoine Bouthors Weta Digital Ltd	Wednesday, 10 August 2-5:15 pm	Production Communities
Full Conference Technical Papers Mapping & Warping Shapes East Building, Ballroom C Details Bounded Biharmonic Weights for Real-Time Deformation Deformation by linear blending dominates practical use as the fastest approach for transforming 2D and 3D shapes. This paper develops "bounded biharmonic weights" that produce smooth and intuitive deformations for any combination of points, bones, and cages of arbitrary topology, making control of deformations simple and flexible. Blended Intrinsic Maps This method for inter-surface mapping generates a map between two surfaces by blending multiple low-dimensional (conformal) maps with smoothly varying weights. Performance is evaluated on a diverse dataset and compared our resulting maps to several state-of-the-art methods. Biharmonic Distance A new distance measure on manifolds based on the biharmonic differential operator that provides a nice trade-off between nearly geodesic distances for small distances and global shape-awareness for large distances. Photo-Inspired Model-Driven 3D Object Modeling An algorithm for photo-inspired creative 3D modeling where the user draws inspiration from a single photograph and the modeling process is supported by an available set of candidate objects.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm	Research
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Exhibitors Sessions Intel Exhibitor Session: Increase your FPS with CPU Onload West Building, Room 216 Details	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:00 pm
Full Conference Computer Animation Festival Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions Imageworks: The Smurf-alution: A Half-Century of Character Development West Building, Ballroom C/D Details Sony Pictures Imageworks animation supervisor Troy Saliba and leading members of their Vancouver animation team take the Smurfs from the most primitive pencil sketch to a contemporary 3D stereo rendering.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm	Education
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Birds of a Feather GPU Ray Tracing Waterfront Ballroom B Details Join the third annual GPU Ray Tracing Birds of a Feather session. Show off your demos. Share your use cases, ideas, and gripes. High-performance CPU ray tracing is welcome, too. davemc (at) nvidia.com NVIDIA Advanced Rendering Center	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm
Full Conference Technical Papers Facial Animation East Building, Exhibit Hall A Details Leveraging Motion Capture and 3D Scanning for High-Fidelity Facial Performance Acquisition This new approach for acquiring high-fidelity 3D facial performances with realistic dynamic wrinkles and fine facial details leverages state-of-the-art motion capture technology and advanced 3D scanning technology of facial-performance acquisition. High-Quality Passive Facial Performance Capture Using Anchor Frames A new technique for high-quality facial performance capture that leverages the repetitive structure of face motions to automatically locate frames with similar expressions, called anchor frames. High-resolution geometry is reconstructed and temporal motion is propagated in parallel using robust image-space matching between the anchor frames. Interactive Region-Based Linear 3D Face Models A linear face modelling approach that generalizes better to unseen data and allows click-and-drag interaction for animation. The model consists of a collection of linear submodels independently trained but related through shared boundaries. It is demonstrated on dense-face motion capture data. Real-Time Performance-Based Facial Animation This paper presents a system for performance-based character animation that enables any user to control the facial expressions of a digital avatar in real-time using a non-intrusive, commercially available 3D sensor.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm	Research
Full Conference Talks Directing Destruction East Building, Ballroom A/B Details End of Line: Character Destruction in "Tron: Legacy" The tools developed at Digital Domain to create unique character destruction effects that are art directable. Kali: High-Quality FEM Destruction in Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch" The Moving Picture Company introduces Kali, a finite-element-based simulation toolkit for large-scale and detailed destruction, developed in collaboration with Pixelux. The toolkit is described with examples from Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch". Directing Hair Motion on "Tangled" This hybrid approach to combining the power of custom hair dynamics with the artistic control of key-framed animation was key to the success of directing hair motion on "Tangled". Choreographing Destruction: Art Directing a Dam Break in "Tangled" Creation of a highly art directed "dam breaking with resulting flood" sequence for Disney's "Tangled" by applying the 12 basic principles of animation to a fluid-based simulation through post manipulation of timing and shape.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm	Art Research
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Birds of a Feather Computer Graphics for Simulation West Building, Room 102 Details This session reviews recent advances in simulation theory and computer graphics. Topics include specifications (Web3D,WebGL,DEVS), visualization requirements for simulation, graphical tools, and general CG simulation technologies. richards (at) spawar.navy.mil John Richardson	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:00 pm	Research
Full Conference Courses Character Rigging, Deformations, and Simulations in Film and Game Production West Building, Rooms 109/110 Details This course focuses on rigging, deformations, dynamics, and production practices in animation, visual effects and game development. Topics include analysis of performance requirements, motion system set-up, procedural rigging for secondary animation, and efficient extension of techniques over a wide range of primary and secondary characters. COURSE SCHEDULE 2 pm Welcome and Introductions of Speakers McLaughlin 2:05 pm Structure of the Course and Overview of Our Approach to Rigging [What the Course is and What it is Not] McLaughlin 2:15 pm Rigging for Visual Effects McLaughlin 3:05 pm Immediate Questions McLaughlin 3:10 pm Rigging for Games Coleman 4 pm Immediate Questions Coleman 4:05 pm Rigging for Feature Animation Cutler 4:55 pm Immediate Questions Cutler 5 pm General Questions and Answers McLaughlin, Coleman, and Cutler Tim McLaughlin Texas A&M University Larry Cutler DreamWorks Animation David Coleman Electronic Arts Inc.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-5:15 pm	Production Communities
Full Conference Courses Applying Color Theory to Digital Media and Visualization West Building, Rooms 118-120 Details This course highlights the visual impact of specific color combinations, provides practical suggestions on color mixing, and includes a hands-on session that teaches how to build and evaluate color schemes for digital media visualization. COURSE SCHEDULE 2 pm Introduction 2:05 pm Review of Additive and Subtractive Color Models 2:10 pm Defining Color Gamut, Colors Spaces, and Color Systems 2:25 pm Overview of Selected Artistic Movements Pertaining to Color Theory 2:35 pm Visualization Case Studies 2:50 pm Hands on Workshop Using Online Color Tools 3:20 pm Wrap-Up, Other Resources, and Concluding Remarks Theresa-Marie Rhyne Consultant	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm	Research
Full Conference Basic Conference The Studio–Workshops An introduction Into After Effects for Motion Graphics The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A Details An overview of the basic function of timeline-based animation using Adobe After Effects for motion graphics. Topics include: interface, workflow, using the timeline, layers, integration with Photoshop basic type, and object animation.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-5:15 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference The Studio–Digital Artistry Anatomy of a Dragon - 2D to 3D The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A Details This student-focused, interactive presentation delivers insights from a traditional and 3D animation artist to guide attendees on a path of discovery, knowledge, and sometimes frustration to a sense of completion when drawing and animating a dragon.	Wednesday, 10 August 2-3:30 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference International Resources Events The New Media and the Industry in China International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building) Details Representatives from Chinese industry and universities discuss how their digital media programs are developing to meet the needs of their exploding economy.Panel Discussion Patrick Pennefather Centre For Digital Media, Vancouver Richard Smith Centre For Digital Media, Vancouver Bai Xuezhu Communication University of China You Xiang Vice President of Crystal CG, Nanjing Chang Ming 37 Entertainment Gerri Sinclair Strategic Innovation Consultant and Principal, The Gerri Sinclair Group	Wednesday, 10 August 1:30-3:00 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Birds of a Feather The New Media and the Industry in China International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building) Details Representatives from Chinese industry and universities discuss how their digital media programs are developing to meet the needs of their exploding economy. mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu SIGGRAPH Education Committee, Marc J. Barr	Wednesday, 10 August 1:30-3:00 pm	Education
Computer Animation Festival Computer Animation Festival - Screenings Student Projects West Building, Exhibit Hall A Details	Wednesday, 10 August 1:30-2:45 pm	Education
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Birds of a Feather OpenCL BOF Crystal Ballroom B & C Details Meet designers and implementers of this significant new standard for heterogeneous parallel programming on GPUs and CPUs. Learn how OpenCL inter-operates with OpenGL to enable advanced, cross-platform, visual-computing applications. marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com Khronos Group	Wednesday, 10 August 1:30-3:30 pm	Education
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Birds of a Feather Games at SIGGRAPH Meetup West Building, Room 102 Details The goal of this session is to encourage dialog about new technologies in game development and interactive graphics. Discussion topics include mobile and social games, research in games and interactive graphics, and effective collaboration. dma35 (at) sfu.ca David Milam	Wednesday, 10 August 1:30-2:30 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference The Studio–Talks Map Design + Social and Environmental issues: Graphic Design Education at Its Best The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A Details 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.	Wednesday, 10 August 1:15-1:45 pm	Education
Full Conference Basic Conference Art Gallery - Tours Daily Art Tours Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B Details Members of the Art Galley committee offer 30-minute guided tours to introduce visitors to Tracing Home and some of the specific artworks displayed in the exhibition. The daily tours begin in the Art Gallery.	Wednesday, 10 August 1-1:30 pm	Art
Computer Animation Festival Computer Animation Festival - Screenings Computer Animation Festival Award Winners West Building, Exhibit Hall A Details	Wednesday, 10 August 12:45-1:30 pm	Education
Full Conference Basic Conference Computer Animation Festival Exhibitor Tech Talks Autodesk West Building, Hall C, Booth 801 Details 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.	Wednesday, 10 August 12:45-1:45 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference The Studio–Digital Artistry Real World Camera-Rig Creation The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A Details How to build, evaluate, and rig to create truly believable camera animation without tracking data. Imagine having a steady camera movement in 3D, or a 3D crane whose rig moves like a crane does in film. This session explains rigging and automation for real-world camera control in 3D.	Wednesday, 10 August 12:30-1:45 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference International Resources Events Professional and Student ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Start-Up Meeting International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building) Details 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	Wednesday, 10 August 12:30-1:30 pm
Full Conference Basic Conference Poster Sessions Poster Session East Building, Lobby Level 1 Details	Wednesday, 10 August 12:15-1:15 pm	Research
Full Conference Basic Conference The Studio–Workshops GigaPan Time Machine: Authoring and Exploring Gigapixel-Scale, Time-Lapse Imagery The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A Details 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.	Wednesday, 10 August 12:15-1:45 pm