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SIGGRAPH 2024 wrapped up! During the final day. We explored the VR Theater, visit a few more booths, and talked with attendees.
Exhibition floor
We enjoyed a visit to the Vicon booth, which showcased a motion capture demo… and music!
Real-Time Live! – Replay
The much-anticipated Real-Time Live! is now available for replay. This conference, held during SIGGRAPH, features a unique show with live demos of real-time projects.
VR Theater
Each year, SIGGRAPH presents immersive works.
We had the chance to dive into these four projects:
- Spots of Light: A VR documentary following Dan Layani. After losing his sight in 1982 during an Israeli military intervention in Lebanon, he continued his studies, found love, and had four children. 25 years after losing his sight, he attempts experimental surgery to regain it… “Technology in the service of ethics,” according to Guy Le Bras, vice-president of the Laval Virtual exhibition, who was present at SIGGRAPH.
- Errances: A VR journey aboard a futuristic train through a desolate and majestic world. We experienced it as an immersive and relaxing trip.
- A Vocal Landscape: Volumetric capture and real-time environment – a surreal conversation between two people.
Draw For Change! We exist, we resist : A project combining 360 video and real-time 3D. We follow Maremoto, a woman in a Mexican metropolis where ten women are murdered every day, and tens of thousands have disappeared…
Overall, we appreciated the diversity of techniques and subjects. However, we regret the lack of interaction within the selected works. As we highlighted at Laval Virtual 2024 with Dreaming of Lebanon, a documentary approach doesn’t necessarily preclude allowing the viewer to interact with the work. Thus, we were disappointed.
Revopoint Launches the Revopoint POP 3 Plus 3D scanner
We’ve often discussed Revopoint’s 3D scanners on 3DVF. The brand was present at SIGGRAPH and used the event to announce the Revopoint POP 3 Plus: an upgraded version of the POP 3, which provides more detailed scans as well as zoom capabilities for small subjects or where detail is more important than scanning speed.
Generative AI
Marc Bourhis, Community Leader for Cultural and Creative Industries at Cap Digital, shared his thoughts on the hot topic of 2024: generative AI.
During the Industry Sessions: Nvidia presented the “Generative AI Day.” The technical presentations showcased sometimes conflicting visions of the use of generative AI within the 3D content creation process.
Dade Oregon, VP of Innovation at Shutterstock, proposed to an audience of computer vision engineers the enhancement of 3D pipelines with generative AI and the API his company has developed, which integrates with any 3D pipeline.Shutterstock’s API generates high-quality PBR textures that can be exported up to 4K resolution and imported directly into a 3D creation software with automatic UV mapping and clean seams. Shutterstock’s main argument is that whereas manual 3D model creation used to take 40 minutes on 8 GPUs a year ago, using generative AI trained on Shutterstock’s 3D image bank now takes just 2 minutes on a single GPU.
Kimbal Turston, CEO of Weta FX, argued for the use of AI as a tool to enhance the creation process rather than replace it. According to him, “it is very difficult to capitalize on 3D assets from one film production to another to make AI work according to a director’s vision. If generative AI is to be integrated into digital visual effects workflows, it needs to be adapted to constraints related to storytelling, the numerous iterations often needed during a film, and the specific visual universe of a director. This involves small, specialized language models, training on data specific to each work, and considering the artistic dimension.”
Summary: A Great Edition, With a Caveat
SIGGRAPH has closed its doors. Although new content will be coming on 3DVF in the days ahead, with new interviews, it’s time to assess the 2024 edition.
To be clear: moving the event to Denver raised concerns about attendance, with fears of a potentially smaller and perhaps less successful event. There were also worries related to the current crisis within the industry, which might have resulted in a subdued exhibition.
In the end, we left delighted. It was a great year. The organization reports nearly 9,000 accredited attendees: a figure significantly lower than the best years of the event, but which allowed for great encounters and a very good atmosphere on site.
The content was diverse, and the conferences were fascinating.
We also appreciated the innovations and the papers presented.
The only real downside for the audience seems to be the conference with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We heard several criticisms of these exchanges and the visions of AI that they presenter. Likely because the problematic ethical and legal issues (datasets, in particular), ecological concerns, or impacts on employment were not sufficiently addressed or explored in depth. The feeling was that communication (highlighted by the jacket exchange between leaders at the end of the presentation) took precedence over substance.
Lastly, a word about the “French Pavilion” organized by Cap Digital, with which we partnered for this SIGGRAPH. French companies were able to showcase their solutions to attendees from around the world. We also had the chance to interview them: you will soon find these interviews on 3DVF. And we’ll see you in 2025 for the next SIGGRAPH edition!
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