Wednesday – September 25, 2002 2:00 – 3:30 PM Engineering Building 1033

1. CAOS The Computer Association Of SIUE What’s New in Computer Graphics? Bill White will present a survey of recent graphics research projects and computer animations that were demonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2002 in San Antonio this summer. Wednesday – September 25, 2002 2:00 – 3:30 PM Engineering Building 1033 FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA! FREE PIZZA!

2. SIGGRAPH 2002 The 29th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques July 21-26, 2002 • Principal Activities: • Courses & Tutorials • Research Papers • Panel Discussions • Technical Sketches • Educators Program • Special Sessions • Computer Animation Festival • Fields of Interest: • Character Animation • Rendering Nature • Graphical Processors • Programming Languages • Artificial Intelligence • Computer Gaming • Virtual Reality

3. Character Animation Research Paper: “Trainable Videorealistic Speech Animation” by Tony Ezzat, Gadi Geiger, and Tomaso Poggio – Massachusetts Institute of Technology • An audiovisual recording is made of a human subject uttering various words and sentences. • A discrete set of images is culled from the recording, with each visual image associated with a specific phoneme. • When applying these images to a different audio recording, a shortest-path algorithm is used to morph between phoneme images.

4. Character Animation Research Paper: “DyRT: Dynamic Response Textures for Real Time Deformation Simulation with Graphics Hardware” by Doug L. James and Dinesh K. Pai – University of British Columbia • Real-time simulations of dynamic deformations are achieved via precomputed vibration models that are stored in graphics hardware. • This increases the realism of the scene while allowing the main CPU to focus on the simulation of more complex tissue models involved in user contact interactions.

5. Rendering Nature Research Paper: “A User Interface for Interactive Cinematic Shadow Design” by Fabio Pellacini, Parag Tole, and Donald P. Greenberg – Cornell University • Placing shadows to achieve a desired visual effect can be difficult, requiring repeated repositioning of light sources and shadow-generating objects. • This research allows users to directly manipulate the shadows themselves, with lights and objects automatically repositioned to correspond to the desired shadow effect.

6. Rendering Nature Research Paper: “Robust Treatment of Collisions, Contact and Friction for Cloth Animation” by Robert Bridson, Ronald Fedkiw, and John Anderson – Stanford University and Industrial Light & Magic • Since every point on the surface of a cloth has the potential of colliding with every other point, as well as with the surrounding environment, the computation required for realistically simulating cloth animation is massive. • By modeling cloth elements with discrete repulsion forces, collisions are avoided and complex cloth motion can be efficiently modeled.

7. Rendering Nature Research Paper: “Physically Based Modeling and Animation of Fire” by Duc Quang Nguyen, Ronald Fedkiw, and Henrik Wann Jensen – Stanford University and Industrial Light & Magic • Visually realistic fire animations are produced by modeling the physics equations for the vaporization of fuel into hot gaseous products. • The blackbody radiation emitted by such gaseous products is also graphically modeled, producing smoke and soot effects.

8. Rendering Nature Research Paper: “Animation and Rendering of Complex Water Surfaces” by Douglas Enright, Stephen Marschner, and Ronald Fedkiw – Stanford University and Industrial Light & Magic • Previous liquid modeling techniques have focused on modeling the volumetric effects within a mass of liquid, ignoring the surface interaction between the liquid and its surroundings (e.g., the air). • By modeling the interaction between the two sides of the liquid surface, this research yields more photorealistic images of the surface itself.

9. Graphical Processors Panel Discussion: “When Will Ray-Tracing Replace Rasterization?” with Kurt Akeley (Stanford University), David Kirk (NVIDIA), Larry Seiler (ATI Research), Philipp Slusallek (Saarland University), and Brad Grantham (SGI) • Rasterization: Converting images into pixel-sized elements for display. • Simple operations that can be performed quickly in hardware. • Producing realistic images is hard, requiring many algorithms to be spliced together. • Ray-Tracing: Producing images by casting rays from the viewer through the display screen to the scene objects and light source. • Produces high-quality images with transparency, reflection, and shadows. • Very computation-intensive, so difficult to make interactive. • Ray-tracing lends itself to a large amount of parallelism, encouraging the development of multiprocessor graphics processing units. • In addition, new application programming interfaces (like OpenGL) need to be developed with built-in ray-tracing functionality.

10. Graphical Processors Research Paper: “The SAGE Graphics Architecture” by Michael Deering and David Naegle – Sun Microsystems • Sun’s new Scalable Advanced Graphics Environment (SAGE) architecture renders over 80M fully lit, textured, antialiased triangles per second. • New memory devices are used to implement high-density non-uniform supersampling of up to 16 samples per pixel.

11. Programming Languages Course: “Performance OpenGL: Platform-Independent Techniques” by Brad Grantham and Dave Shreiner – Silicon Graphics This course, conducted by two of SGI’s OpenGL gurus, examined several “tricks of the trade” for improving rasterization performance on any hardware platform supporting OpenGL.

12. Programming Languages Course: “OpenGL 2.0” by Randi J. Rost (3Dlabs), Bill Licea-Kane (ATI Research), and Evan Hart (ATI Research) This course examined the improvements in the next major release of OpenGL, planned for two years from now. • Improved vertex processing (transformations, shading, texture coordinates, lighting) • Streamlined data retrieval and storage (unpacking and packing) • New fragment processing (pixel shading, fog effects, texture application) • Expanded set of data structures to improve shading, texturing, and storing graphical data.

13. Artificial Intelligence Research Paper: “Integrated Learning for Interactive Synthetic Characters” by Bruce Blumberg, Marc Downie, Yuri Ivanov, Matt Berlin, Michael Patrick Johnson, and Bill Tomlinson – MIT Media Lab • To ensure that interactive synthetic characters (e.g., game NPCs) are compelling over time, these researchers are attempting to get them to “learn” from experience. • Virtual dog training is used to test this technique, with the trainer interacting with an animated puppy via a microphone (for whistles and uttered keywords) and a gamepad controlling two virtual hands (the left holding a clicker, the right for luring and for head-petting rewards)

14. Artificial Intelligence Technical Sketch: “’Low Level’ Intelligence for ‘Low Level’ Character Animation” by Damian Isla and Bruce Blumberg – MIT Media Lab • In this research, “low level” intelligence is modeled in an animated character via object persistence, in which a character can “deduce” where a tracked object is, even when the object is no longer in sight. • “Low level” character animation involves subtle, emotion-based reactions, such as eye motion, gaze control, and facial expression.

15. Computer Gaming Educators Program: “Game Development, Design and Analysis Curriculum” with Jason Della Rocca (IGDA), Robin Hunicke (Northwestern University), Warren Spector (ION Storm), and Eric Zimmerman (gameLab) The International Game Developers Association’s Education Committee is developing a framework for a curriculum in game development, design, and analysis. • Game Criticism, Analysis & History • Theoretical and practical analysis of electronic and non-electronic games from a Humanities point of view. • Games & Society • Ways of understanding games, drawn primarily from the Social Sciences. • Game Systems & Game Design • Conceptual and practical concerns that offer a design-centric look at how games create experiences for players. • Technical Skills, Programming & Algorithms • Aspects of traditional Computer Science, modified as necessary to address the technical aspects of gaming. • Visual Design • The many aspects of creating the visual components of games. • Audio Design • Creating game sound environments. • Interactive Storytelling, Writing & Scripting • Traditional storytelling as well as the challenges of interactive narrative. • The Business of Gaming • Economic, legal and policy aspects of games. • People & Process Management in Game Development • Practical challenges of managing game development.

16. Computer Gaming Special Session: “The Fate of Play: Game Industry Revolutionaries Speak Out” Will Wright Maxis Creator: The Sims Lorne Lanning Oddworld Inhabitants Creator: Oddworld: Munch’s Oddyssee Raph Koster Sony Online Entertainment Head Designer: Star Wars Galaxies Scott Miller 3D Realms Designer: Duke Nukem Warren Spector ION Storm Austin Studio Director: Deus Ex • The Consensus: • Games are experiencing the same problem as the movies: too much emphasis upon fancy graphics, not enough on content! • Gaming is an interactive medium with new, preferably user-created, content; developers shouldn’t overemphasize storytelling, but should provide character development opportunities!

17. Virtual Reality Technical Sketch: “MasterMotion: Full Body Wireless Virtual Reality for Tai Chi” by Philo Tan Chua, Rebecca Crivella, Bo Daly, Ning Hu, Russ Schaaf, David Ventura, Todd Camill, Jessica Hodgins, and Randy Pausch – Carnegie Mellon University • Full-body optical motion capture, wireless audio/video broadcast, belt-worn electronics, and lightweight head-mounted displays are combined to provide a wide-area untethered virtual environment. • A Tai Chi training application has been developed, with on-line feedback and correction provided to students, whose movements are compared to those of the teacher.

18. “Carl & Ray” Tippett Studio “Polygon Family, Episode 2” Polygon Pictures “It’s Not The End Of The World” Duran Duboi “Sprout” PDI/DreamWorks “Passing Moments” Ringling School Of Art & Design “Puppet” Ringling School Of Art & Design “Panic Room” BUF Compagnie Computer Animation Festival

19. The SIGGRAPH Student Volunteers Program provides full access to programs and events seen by conference attendees, sneak peaks at conference events, special opportunities at the SIGGRAPH 2003 Career Center, and admission to all programs, receptions, and many special programs. This is available to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students who are enrolled full time for at least one semester during the 2002-2003 school year. Students can apply to work either 20 or 35 hours during the conference. Volunteers from outside the San Diego area willing to work at least 35 hours can also receive complimentary housing in San Diego for the week. In addition, all applicants are eligible to apply for the Travel Grant program, which offers monetary assistance to accepted Student Volunteers to offset the costs of travel to and from the conference. On-line application submissions (at www.siggraph.org/s2003/cfp/) begin in early November, with a final submission deadline of February 26, 2003.