SIGGRAPH Production Sessions '24: ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Production Sessions

The 2023 SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater pre-show was a fun and spectacular live event that used computer vision to analyze how the 2500 audience members moved their bodies in the room, visualizing that data with a variety of graphics across three giant screens. The walk-in experience was an abstract and artistic representation of the data, followed by the main pre-show: a tour through the Universe, where the audience decided what celestial wonder to visit next. This session goes into the behind-the-scenes of how a dispersed, remote team of artists, programmers, producers, and astrophysicists pulled off this event, without ever stepping foot into the venue or having access to test audiences until on-site at SIGGRAPH.

Narwhal Studios' presentation provides a comprehensive exploration of the art of directing for virtual production and ICVFX, featuring insights into both AAA productions and smaller projects. Led by Narwhal's CEO and Creative Director, Felix Jorge, along with Studio Art Director Safari Sosebee and Sr. Real-time Artist Dallas Drapeau, this discussion promises valuable perspectives.

At the end of the Kung Fu Panda 3, Oogway calls Po "Both sides of the Yin and Yang. And my true successor." Now as we enter the fourth installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, Po is faced with a new challenge of growth, his promotion to the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace. We accompany Po as he visits both familiar and new locales where he meets new friends, including a thief named Zhen, as well as finding a dangerous villain with far reaching shape shifting powers, The Chameleon. But in order to become the spiritual leader, he must understand what it means to have the balance of Yin and Yang. This session will explore how the filmmakers kept balance at the forefront of their design and technology decisions; the innovative new FX techniques for transforming animated characters, the use of Real Time game engines to build out and discover new worlds, the various threads of the story - good vs evil, familiar vs new, heart vs action.

Telling amazing stories involving beloved characters is at the forefront of what we do at Nickelodeon Animation Studio. It is imperative to tell these stories with characters from diverse backgrounds and experiences, as it is important to see the world through their eyes and perspective. We pride ourselves in our history of demonstrating diversity, equity, and inclusion in our shows, and continue to innovate our CG processes and workflows to keep DEI representation relevant in the broadcast space. Recent productions such as "Big Nate", "Transformers: EarthSpark", and "Monster High" exhibit our commitment to DEI. This panel will demonstrate the efforts, focus, and resoluteness we pursue on being inclusive and authentically representing our characters in our productions.

Wētā FX is known for many things in the VFX world, but one of their hallmarks is pretty bananas... From Peter Jackson's King Kong, to Caesar in Rise, Dawn, and War of the Planet of the Apes, through to The Umbrella Academy's loveable and intelligent chimpanzee, Pogo, the team has done it all.

TMNT: Mutant Mayhem took on the monumental challenge of modernizing a very well-known and beloved franchise. It was important to the director, Jeff Rowe, that the audience believe the turtles were real teenagers... from their awkward bodies to how they acted (including their voices which were recordings of actual teenagers). The modeling also had to reveal all the imperfections related to their mutant nature, serving the idea of a teenager's insecure life. In line with this teenager vibe, the director and the production designer, Yashar Kassai, established the idea that the film design would suggest that it was created by an immature teenager drawing this movie in his sketchbook, with all of his naivety and energy.

WAR IS OVER! brings the classic John Lennon and Yoko Ono song to life in this highly stylized, Oscar-winning animated film. Entrusted with the director's vision of creating a world akin to being inside a "living, breathing concept painting", the Wētā FX team went to work crafting the unique aesthetic, utilising Unreal Engine. In this session, Creative Director and VFX Supervisor Keith Miller will be joined by CG Supervisor, Ross McWhannell, Animation Supervisor, Aidan Martin, Digital Cinematographer, David Scott, and VFX Producer, Sophie Cherry to explore the art and technology employed across production.

Join the DNEG VFX team for an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects that brought the most hotlyanticipated sequel of the year to life! DNEG was proud to build on the success of their award-winning work for `Dune' by acting as the main VFX partner for `Dune: Part Two'. The sequel expands on the first film in all ways - bigger, bolder, and with much more action. As such, DNEG's work pushed the creative and technical boundaries to create something new, exhilarating and awe-inspiring. A fully global team of over 1700 crew came together to craft an expanded world, more detailed creatures, and even more explosive and technically complex FX sequences to build on the aesthetic created for `Dune' and continue the epic journey for `Dune: Part 2'.

Who you gonna call when the world freezes over? Sony Pictures Imageworks! Join artists for an exclusive behind-thescenes sneak peek at the making of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. This session will focus on the development of detailed environments, creation of unique characters, and the artistic and technological innovations the production has developed for this highly-anticipated feature.

Moment Factory is excited to invite attendees to a production session at SIGGRAPH 2024, where we'll delve into the innovative production of "a famous band" concert series at a novel immersive venue. This venue, a multimedia megacanvas, is unlike any other, and our presentation will cover the collaborative effort, creative challenges, and technical breakthroughs achieved within a demanding three-month timeline.

This production session presents the What, How, and Why of bringing to life the physical installations and data-driven visualizations featured at the Earth Information Center (earth.gov). The session shares with the SIGGRAPH community the challenges of, approaches to, and lessons learned from visualizing data for climate action and sheds light on research agendas and upcoming efforts.