SIGGRAPH 2014
May 15, 2014 7:53 AM Subscribe
A preview of computer graphics technology innovations to be presented at SIGGRAPH 2014. (Previously)
ahhhhhhh i need dis
(seriously, siggraph is one of my favorite things)
posted by rebent at 8:01 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
(seriously, siggraph is one of my favorite things)
posted by rebent at 8:01 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Direct YouTube link.
And the 2014 Chalkboard Award for Most Annoying Voiceover goes to...
Man, I thought that was going to be a reference to the sort of "computer graphics video voice over house style" that seems to have evolved over the years, but no. Wow. That was basic-cable-children's-show-canceled-after-three-episodes bad.
posted by jedicus at 8:14 AM on May 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
And the 2014 Chalkboard Award for Most Annoying Voiceover goes to...
Man, I thought that was going to be a reference to the sort of "computer graphics video voice over house style" that seems to have evolved over the years, but no. Wow. That was basic-cable-children's-show-canceled-after-three-episodes bad.
posted by jedicus at 8:14 AM on May 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
This is why I love SIGGRAPH. Despite the fact that there are several multibillion dollar industries built around this technology most of the people who run it are just these completely awesome goofballs. It's this wonderful bastion of ancient nerdery and I... have to go check my calendar now.
posted by phooky at 8:28 AM on May 15, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by phooky at 8:28 AM on May 15, 2014 [8 favorites]
The lucite head with the brain image reflected in it was the one that blew my mind the most.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:29 AM on May 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 8:29 AM on May 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
Siggraph 2017 is on the calendar but 2015 isn't? *confused*
Too late for me to plan my vacation for this year there. Maybe 2016, I miss going even tho I'm just a fanboi.
posted by tilde at 8:31 AM on May 15, 2014
Too late for me to plan my vacation for this year there. Maybe 2016, I miss going even tho I'm just a fanboi.
posted by tilde at 8:31 AM on May 15, 2014
Despite the fact that there are several multibillion dollar industries built around this technology most of the people who run it are just these completely awesome goofballs. It's this wonderful bastion of ancient nerdery and I... have to go check my calendar now.
Everything you could ever need to know about graphics nerds can be summed up by the fact that the basic graphics elements are basically point, line, square, circle, sphere and teapot.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:31 AM on May 15, 2014 [16 favorites]
Everything you could ever need to know about graphics nerds can be summed up by the fact that the basic graphics elements are basically point, line, square, circle, sphere and teapot.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:31 AM on May 15, 2014 [16 favorites]
(Point, line, triangle, teapot, dancing baby)
posted by ardgedee at 8:38 AM on May 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 8:38 AM on May 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
Nerdgasm.
posted by lalochezia at 8:48 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by lalochezia at 8:48 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Why did they get someone from Sesame Street to do the narration?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:09 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:09 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Ha! I ran into churl Monday night at a Best of SIGGRAPH 2013 film festival. There were tons of insane demos of computer graphics used in animation for little movies and commercials. It was pretty great.
The most surprising thing to me was it seemed the majority of shorts we watched were from France. Is there a big computer graphics/animation push in their colleges that is making it possible?
posted by mathowie at 9:13 AM on May 15, 2014
The most surprising thing to me was it seemed the majority of shorts we watched were from France. Is there a big computer graphics/animation push in their colleges that is making it possible?
posted by mathowie at 9:13 AM on May 15, 2014
My favorite is "dropping things to match a given soundtrack". It seems so goofy and unnecessary, but it takes a sensible problem, i.e. "Simulate an object dropping and the sound it makes" and asks you to invert it, i.e. "Here's the sound, how might the object have dropped?". Inverse questions have given us such great things as √2 and i, and are often fiendishly hard, compared to the forwards question.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:19 AM on May 15, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by benito.strauss at 9:19 AM on May 15, 2014 [10 favorites]
"Refracted images" and "dropping things" were super cool.
posted by archagon at 9:32 AM on May 15, 2014
posted by archagon at 9:32 AM on May 15, 2014
The dropped object problem does impose some constraints on the problem that make it a little more tractable (e.g. only one object, first sound is the first impact, last sound is the object coming to rest). Consider, for example, "here's the sound of a given billiards play. how might that have looked?"
Still pretty awesome, though.
posted by jedicus at 9:33 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Still pretty awesome, though.
posted by jedicus at 9:33 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, the inverse foley stuff is great. Site and more videos here.
(examples include wrenches, coffee mugs, various lego pieces, and a garlic)
posted by effbot at 9:33 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
(examples include wrenches, coffee mugs, various lego pieces, and a garlic)
posted by effbot at 9:33 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
I once worked for an organization that started with something overly complex like those diagrams. We moved into a four interconnected boxes: Data -> Information -> Insight -> Influence -> (and back to data). I made two observations:
1. We chased our tails with this new simplified model.
2. DIII or DI^3 sounds remarkably like DIE... which is what everyone brought up every time the chart was shown... which was every presentation and team meeting.
All I'm saying is: [Insert whatever] org structure and diagrams suck...
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:34 AM on May 15, 2014
1. We chased our tails with this new simplified model.
2. DIII or DI^3 sounds remarkably like DIE... which is what everyone brought up every time the chart was shown... which was every presentation and team meeting.
All I'm saying is: [Insert whatever] org structure and diagrams suck...
posted by Nanukthedog at 9:34 AM on May 15, 2014
Teach yourself face culling initialisation
posted by fallingbadgers at 9:37 AM on May 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by fallingbadgers at 9:37 AM on May 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
inflatable structures for your kids
Forget the kids, they have enough cool stuff to play with already. I can see all sorts of stuff being made -
Apartment in a Box with inflatable furniture for students and those on a budget
Armada in a Box with 20 one-person boats for fun times on the water
Moon in a Box translucent sphere with small LED lights and a helium canister for night time parties. It also can be combined with a small RC propulsion unit (sold separately) and it's perfect for dealing with problematic guests at your next "Prisoner" themed party
Bouncy House in a Box in pre-assembeled and building block versions
Greenhouse in a Box/House in a Box grow your garden or really put the 'dome' in domicile
"Hot Tub Time" machine kit with 8 tubs and a heater/filter unit - disposable/recyclable tubs means you never have to think about who was in, and what happened in the hot tub before you got in.
posted by chambers at 9:37 AM on May 15, 2014
Forget the kids, they have enough cool stuff to play with already. I can see all sorts of stuff being made -
Apartment in a Box with inflatable furniture for students and those on a budget
Armada in a Box with 20 one-person boats for fun times on the water
Moon in a Box translucent sphere with small LED lights and a helium canister for night time parties. It also can be combined with a small RC propulsion unit (sold separately) and it's perfect for dealing with problematic guests at your next "Prisoner" themed party
Bouncy House in a Box in pre-assembeled and building block versions
Greenhouse in a Box/House in a Box grow your garden or really put the 'dome' in domicile
"Hot Tub Time" machine kit with 8 tubs and a heater/filter unit - disposable/recyclable tubs means you never have to think about who was in, and what happened in the hot tub before you got in.
posted by chambers at 9:37 AM on May 15, 2014
Nanukthedog, maybe next year there will be a SIGGRAPH video that takes business diagrams and generates the surrounding data in a visual metaphor using the simulated sound of glittery liquid chocolate...
posted by rebent at 9:45 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by rebent at 9:45 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Inverse Foley" is now my favorite phrase. I will apply it anywhere I can, and try to come up with a wrestling move that corresponds to it.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:58 AM on May 15, 2014
posted by benito.strauss at 9:58 AM on May 15, 2014
I really felt like there was a joke to be made about the Inverse Foley being what happens when someone uncrushes your head, but I just googled it, and the Headcrusher was actually Mark McKinney. Alas.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:01 AM on May 15, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:01 AM on May 15, 2014 [8 favorites]
Dropping things to match a soundtrack actually makes a lot of sense. The problem is really "synthesize video that synchronizes well with realistic audio", and there are basically two ways to do it:
1. Synthesize audio to match the video.
2. Record audio that matches up with the video well enough.
It turns out that (1) doesn't work well, because synthesizing believable audio is really hard. It's harder than video for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the relevant time scales are much shorter: for video, you need to output a frame 30 or 60 times a second, but for audio, you need to generate samples tens of thousands of times a second. Another reason is that we have pretty good tools for allowing artists to specify the visual properties of materials, but not for allowing them to accurately describe how objects deform under stress, which is critical for good-quality sound.
Option (2) gets rid of the audio synthesis problem. It does introduce minor errors in rigid body motion, but people aren't very good at detecting many kinds of small inaccuracies in collision behavior. (It turns out that you can often cheat pretty bad on many kinds of physics, and if you do it in the right ways nobody will ever know.)
Of course, option (2) also introduces one more issue, which is the question of how you synchronize the audio and video -- but that's exactly the problem that the Inverse Foley paper solves.
Doug James' group at Cornell, who wrote the Inverse Foley paper, have also done a lot of fantastic sound synthesis work. One of my favorites is their fracture sound paper; the video results are just so satisfying!
posted by Serf at 10:31 AM on May 15, 2014 [5 favorites]
1. Synthesize audio to match the video.
2. Record audio that matches up with the video well enough.
It turns out that (1) doesn't work well, because synthesizing believable audio is really hard. It's harder than video for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the relevant time scales are much shorter: for video, you need to output a frame 30 or 60 times a second, but for audio, you need to generate samples tens of thousands of times a second. Another reason is that we have pretty good tools for allowing artists to specify the visual properties of materials, but not for allowing them to accurately describe how objects deform under stress, which is critical for good-quality sound.
Option (2) gets rid of the audio synthesis problem. It does introduce minor errors in rigid body motion, but people aren't very good at detecting many kinds of small inaccuracies in collision behavior. (It turns out that you can often cheat pretty bad on many kinds of physics, and if you do it in the right ways nobody will ever know.)
Of course, option (2) also introduces one more issue, which is the question of how you synchronize the audio and video -- but that's exactly the problem that the Inverse Foley paper solves.
Doug James' group at Cornell, who wrote the Inverse Foley paper, have also done a lot of fantastic sound synthesis work. One of my favorites is their fracture sound paper; the video results are just so satisfying!
posted by Serf at 10:31 AM on May 15, 2014 [5 favorites]
I really felt like there was a joke to be made about the Inverse Foley being what happens when someone uncrushes your head, but I just googled it, and the Headcrusher was actually Mark McKinney. Alas.
The Inverse Foley is also known as the Friday.
posted by The Bellman at 10:36 AM on May 15, 2014
The Inverse Foley is also known as the Friday.
posted by The Bellman at 10:36 AM on May 15, 2014
And bunnies, do not forget bunnies.
posted by smidgen at 10:58 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by smidgen at 10:58 AM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
There is a melting bunny at the end.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:24 PM on May 15, 2014
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:24 PM on May 15, 2014
The Five Platonic Solids of computer graphics: sphere, box, teapot, bunny, dragon. They are actually like prime numbers in that every other shape is composed of many tiny copies of teapots, rabbits, and so forth.
posted by Rangi at 8:36 PM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Rangi at 8:36 PM on May 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
SIGGRAPH award recipient talks are worth watching.
posted by vicx at 12:08 AM on May 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by vicx at 12:08 AM on May 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
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