SIGGRAPH 2012 Showcasing Advancements in Real-Time Graphics

SIGGRAPH Real-Time Live! is the premiere showcase for the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals. A series of ten international jury selected submissions will be presented in a fast-paced, 90-minute show of cutting-edge, aesthetically stimulating real-time work at SIGGRAPH 2012, 5-9 August at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“As the momentum behind real-time photorealism accelerates, Real-Time Live! 2012 presents multiple projects pushing human character performance alongside physically based lighting and shading techniques,” said Jason RM Smith, Real-Time Live! Director and Digital Production Supervisor at LucasArts. “The show retains a strong breadth of diversity with breakdowns of an audio-driven procedural graphics engine, an augmented reality gesture-based control solution, proprietary and commercial rendering engines, and a number of unreleased games titles.”

Pulling from a range of industries, this year’s selected submissions showcase the latest advances in real-time graphics; much of the content has never been displayed before and is exclusive to SIGGRAPH 2012.

SIGGRAPH 2012 Real-Time Live! Highlights:

Uncharted 3 Visual Effects
Mohammed Ikram, Naughty Dog

For Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog tackled the challenge of rendering multiple environmental effects, such as fire, water, and sand in the game set pieces. The biggest challenge was delivering high-quality visual effects in real time while keeping the strict cinematographic and artistic style of the game.

Unreal Engine 4 Elemental
Paul Oliver, Epic Games, Inc.

Developed by Epic Games, Elemental is the first real-time demonstration showcasing its next-generation Unreal Engine 4 technology. The demo presents rendering features utilizing DirectX 11 hardware. It takes per-pixel deferred shading to the next level: energy-conserving specular highlights from area lights and shadowed reflections from emissive materials creating area lights with shadowing, dynamic global illumination that affects both opaque and translucent materials, glossy surfaces that feature accurate reflections, subsurface scattering, and deferred decals. All lighting is complemented by the new GPU-accelerated particle simulation and the new post-processing pipeline.

Star Wars 1313
Lutz Latta and Roger Cordes, LucasArts

Star Wars 1313 delivers a cinematic experience by bringing traditional film techniques to real-time. Full-body performance-capture digitizes an actor’s appearance with complete body and facial realization; physically-based materials and lighting are calibrated to match the real world with indirect illumination and soft shadows. Visual effects model light emission, transmission, and scattering, allowing realistic fire, smoke, and particles to provide the gritty feel of the Coruscant underworld. The compelling cinematic feel is completed with a number of post-process effects that simulate the behavior of real-world cameras.

Star Wars 1313 is an integrated development that brings together great artists across the Lucasfilm organization, including LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm Animation Ltd. and Skywalker Sound.

Watch highlights from Real-Time Live! 2011.
View the full list of this year’s presentations at Real-Time Live! 2012.

About SIGGRAPH 2012

SIGGRAPH 2012 will bring thousands of computer graphics and interactive technology professionals from six continents to Los Angeles, California for the industry's most respected technical and creative programs focusing on research, science, art, animation, music, gaming, interactivity, education, and the web from Sunday, 5 August through Thursday, 9 August 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. SIGGRAPH 2012 includes a three-day exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and interactive marketplace from 7-9 August 2012. More details are available at http://s2012.siggraph.org/ or on the SIGGRAPH 2012 Facebook and Twitter.

About ACM SIGGRAPH

The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques www.siggraph.org is an interdisciplinary community interested in research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Members include researchers, developers and users from the technical, academic, business, and art communities. ACM SIGGRAPH enriches the computer graphics and interactive techniques community year-round through its conferences, global network of professional and student chapters, publications, and educational activities.

About ACM

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for lifelong learning, career development, and professional networking.