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This summer, the 3DVF team attended SIGGRAPH, the largest CG/VFX/Animation conference in the world. We interviewed several studios and companies. Here’s a recap with all our videos related to the event, in case you missed one or two! You’ll find under each video the timecodes/chapters.
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Epic Games: metaverse & USD
Marc Petit, VP, Unreal Engine Ecosystem, Epic Games, gave us his vision of the progress made by Unreal Engine since 2017, told us about Epic Games at SIGGRAPH. We then discussed the metaverse: what is it, what are the advantages of the metaverse? Why is USD (Universal Scene Description) such a buzzword at SIGGRAPH 2022, and what are the main challenges towards building the metaverse? Last, but not least, we asked Marc Petit what is the key to success when it comes to external growth, to avoid the death of the tools and technologies you’ve just acquired.
0:35 – Announcements?
1:07 – Metaverse
2:02 – USD: one standard to unite them all?
2:40 – SIGGRAPH & Metaverse
2:56 – External acquisitions
Pixar: USD and RenderMan 25
We interviewed Pixar CTO Steve May & to discuss the latest RenderMan improvements (new denoiser, XPU), how Pixar manages to turn research projects into features ready to be used by RenderMan users. We also discussed USD: is this 3D scene description format really the key to the metaverse? Is it ready for it, or is there still some work to do? And how does Pixar & other companies work together on improving it? Steve May also gave us his take on Omniverse, and explained how Pixar gets inspired by SIGGRAPH.
01:44 – new denoiser in RenderMan
02:12 – From internal research to RenderMan feature
02:48 – XPU will replace RIS
04:09 – USD, the key to the Metaverse?
04:46 – creating a Pixar movie is similar to the Metaverse
05:41 – layers in USD
06:38 – Limitations of USD?
07:44 – External contributions & other companies
08:29 – Vastly expanded USD team
09:03 – Omniverse at Pixar?
10:28 – SIGGRAPH 2022 – takaway
11:56 – New tech adoption
We also had the opportunity to sit down with Dylan Sisson – RenderMan, Pixar Animation Studios. He told us about the upcoming release 25 of RenderMan and the main improvements.
00:14 – RenderMan
25 00:25 – new AI denoiser
00:55 – new looks, stylized rendering
01:42 – XPU updates
02:24 – Non-commercial RenderMan
02:50 – What’s your take on NVIDIA Omniverse ?
Hypertec: sustainable studios thanks to immersion cooling?
With Hypertec discussed remote solutions, cloud computing as well as immersion cooling technology and how to make the Media & Entertainment industry more sustainable.
01:14 – Immersion cooling
02:01 – Why SIGGRAPH?
02:42 – Power consumption
03:27 – “We can go for what we preach”
03:41 – Why Hypertec?
04:16 – “Cost savings with sustainability”
Alien Resurrection, Ice Age, Sketchbot: meet Steve Talkowski !
We had the chance to interview Steve Talkowski to ask him about his career. He told us about the early days of the industry, SIGGRAPH back in the 80s, the birth of Blue Sky Studios. He told us about his work on movies such as ‘Joe’s Apartment’, ‘Alien Resurrection’, ‘Ice Age’. We also discussed the software used at the time (including Softimage), and his tips for young artists.
00:32 – Early days
02:23 – Rhonda Graphics
02:48 – SIGGRAPH 1987, Pixar
03:54 – Blue Sky
04:34 – Origins of Blue Sky: ‘Tron’
05:06 – ‘Joe’s Apartment’, digital cockroaches
05:17 – Softimage
07:06 – ‘Alien Resurrection’
08:50 – ‘Bunny’ short film
09:57 – Studio growth for ‘Ice Age’
10:44 – Layout on ‘Ice Age’
12:11 – Blue Sky layoffs
13:04 – Hornet
13:22 – freelancing, Sketchbot
13:38 – SIGGRAPH 2022
14:03 – tips, Blender, UE
14:03 – astuces, Blender, UE
RISE: USD and Matrix Resurrections
We sat down with VFX studio RISE to discuss their adoption of USD as well as their work on Matrix Resurrection, The last Voyage of the Demeter. Apologies for the sound issues: don’t hesitate to turn on subtitles (available in English/French) if needed!
00:13 – USD Pipeline: reasons, Solaris/Houdini
01:48 – pipeline deployement, reactions
04:03 – NVIDIA Omniverse at RISE?
05:01 – AI, deep learning at RISE ?
05:53 – Future of USD?
06:48 – USD: advice for other studios?
08:10 – USD & VFX workflow
09:04 – Matrix Resurrections
09:37 – Inspiration from Matrix I, II, III
10:07 – city environments, drone footage
10:56 – Slow-motion & retiming
11:31 – Sati/Construct
12:07 – Face replacement/Lola/asset exchange
12:38 – The Last Voyage of The Demeter
13:03 – Remote vs hybrid work
15:05 – SIGGRAPH 2022
Motion capture: what’s next?
StretchSense told us about their hand motion capture solution : MoCap Pro gloves, a dedicated Hand Engine software and Unity, Unreal Engine, Xense, Vicon integration.
Danish company Rokoko showcased their motion capture products and services. Jakob Balslev, CEO & Founder of Rokoko, told us about their latest announcements and what Rokoko has in store for the future. He also told us about their customers, NVIDIA Omniverse integration, and explained why he felt 2022 was “the year of motion capture” for SIGGRAPH. Last, but not least, we discussed new markerless, camera-based solutions that use AI for motion capture, such as Plask.ai or Skinetix.
00:30 – Underlying tech – IMUs vs EMF
01:04 – Future product announced!
01:17 – Future of the library
01:53 – Customers
02:39 – NVIDIA Omniverse?
03:07 – SIGGRAPH
03:26 – The year of mocap
03:52 – Markerless, camera-based mocap plans?
Intel : ARC Pro, AI, rendering
We met with Intel to discuss their latest announcement & technologies, from ARC Pro GPUs to uprezzing, rendering, denoising and VR.
00:14 – ARC GPUs
00:30 – Arc Pro Announcement
00:45 – Denoise, rendering, uprezzing, path guiding…
01:40 – VR: First Man, Le Musk
02:10 – GPU / Intel strategy
