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This thursday at SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 was marked by two main events: the must-see Real-Time Live! show, and NVIDIA Day.
Real-Time Live! – jaw-dropping demos
A brief reminder of what Real-Time Live! is. In a nutshell, a selection of the best in real-time technologies and interactive techniques are featured live in front of the audience.
Very diverse projects were featured:
- Big Sand – Sally Coleman
A virtual band in a virtual world, born from the imagination of Sally Coleman, a musician and former radio host.
Sally wasn’t on stage but in a university near the convention center. The demo showcased how, through performance capture, she could animate an avatar remotely and interact with the audience.
- Collective Gestures / Collapsing Distances – Megan Beckwith, Victoria Chiu, Carol Brown, Monica Lim.
A musical performance happening simultaneously in Java and Sydney.
- Geometry Aware Texturing for 3D Avatars Content Creation – Evgeniia Cheskidova, Aleksandr Arganaidi.
A system for retexturing 3D models using prompts. The generated textures are geometry aware and follow the semantic details of the mesh.
- Interactive Texture Painting with Generative AI – Anita Hu, Nishkrit Desai, Ashley Goldstein, Hassan Abu Alhaija, Seung Wook Kim, Daniela Hasenbring, Alexander Zook, Rajeev Rao, Maria Shugrina.
This project, a collaboration between NVIDIA and academics, is an interactive texture painting tool for 3D objects.
- Real-time, AI-powered, collaborative 3D motion capture at massive scale
Gavan Gravesen, Matteo Giuberti of Radical Solutions presented a live demo of their AI-driven animation platform. The system is capable of capturing the motion of multiple people via the internet.
- Real-time Auditorium Modeling and Visual Effects for Live Performances
A project by the University of Wellington and the Korea University on a visual effects platform that captures real environments using multiple 360 cameras. The platform enables mixed reality performances: a real person can interact with 3D assets.
- The drummer who played an orchestra – real time conversion of solo performance to orchestral layers
A performance by composer and sound designer Yunyu.
- Virtual Songlines – Warrane
A project similar to role-playing games but inspired by the culture of Australian Aborigines.
After various demos, the audience and jury prizes were announced: a unanimous decision, as Sally Coleman won both trophies.
NVIDIA Day
NVIDIA organized an “NVIDIA Day,” featuring a series of presentations, case studies, and various showcases.
Notably, Green Gravity was featured. This company specializes in energy storage, a key component for renewable energy adoption. Green Gravity aims to store energy in a gravitational form, similar to a water reservoir filled by pumping when energy is available and then emptied to run turbines when energy is needed, like a dam. The twist: Green Gravity plans to use old, abandonned mines by moving weights up and down the mine shafts.
The company demonstrated at SIGGRAPH how it uses Omniverse to accelerate the development, approval, and deployment of its system.
Also note that earlier this week, NVIDIA hosted a discussion on OpenUSD.
Aaron Luk, Jens Jebens, Matias Codesal, Paolo Emilio Selva, Sebastian H. Schmidt, Christian López Barrón were part of the panel.
