- Attendees were impressed by the high quality of inspiring sessions and sharing by industry heavyweights from Double Negative, Netflix, Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and more.
The very first virtual edition of SIGGRAPH Asia concluded its week-long gathering of the global computer graphics community, with over 1,500 attendees tuning in to the on-demand and live sessions from over 38 countries and regions. Although the live event is over, registration remains open, and all content is available on-demand to participants till March 2021.
“10 days flew by in a flash and I can’t believe that we have now come to the end of SIGGRAPH Asia 2020 Virtual. It has been a truly amazing and inspiring ten days with a diverse set of pre-recorded sessions, as well as live and premiere sessions. I have learnt a lot from the insightful and informative sessions delivered by our amazing speakers from all over the world, and I am sure that the virtual event this year was yet another inspiring conference in the history of SIGGRAPH Asia,” shared Conference Chair, Jinny HyeJin Choo.
“For me, the best part of SIGGRAPH Asia is being able to connect and bring friends (both old and new) in the industry together, in one space. While we miss in-person, physical events, I am glad that my team and I managed to successfully transition and bring everyone together in a virtual setting despite the many challenges that came along due to the pandemic,” she added.
The virtual event featured over 400 talks and presentations that deep dived into the latest technologies in computer graphics, visual effects, virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive techniques. Highlights from the virtual conference included keynote sessions by Academy Award-winning animator Glen Keane; Double Negative VFX Supervisor & Creative Director Paul Franklin; invited speakers from Epic Games, Facebook Reality Labs, Google, Soul Machines, Face the FACS, Motus Lab, Digital Domain, Pinscreen, USC Institute for Creative Technologies, Naughty Dog, Reel FX, Ubisoft, Pixar Animation Studios; 113 Technical Papers, 22 top films from the Computer Animation Festival’s Electronic Theater; a Diversity and Inclusion Summit, 19 specially curated Emerging Technologies and more. For Programs like XR (Extended Reality), that traditionally had live demonstrations within the Experience Hall at the physical event, some of the presenters managed to go beyond the conventional video conferencing to find creative ways to engage the audience and conduct live demonstrations of their projects in the zoom rooms.
The event ended on a high note with the first-ever virtual party held on Gather Town – with rooms customized and created by our very own Student Volunteers. Over a hundred delegates joined us at this party on the last day of our event.
SIGGRAPH Asia 2021
Next year’s edition, SIGGRAPH Asia 2021, will once again be held at the iconic Tokyo International Forum in Tokyo, Japan, from 14 – 17 December 2021.
“It has been a crazy 2020, but I am hopeful that by this time next year, we should be able to freely travel and be able to meet each other physically at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. The theme for SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 is ‘LIVE’ as live interactions is integral in our context, and the humanization of technologies has become unavoidable,” said Shuzo John Shiota, SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Conference Chair.
Shuzo also revealed the meaning behind the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 key visual – a digital waterfall – which symbolizes a continuous cycle of creation and destruction, abundance of energy and vibrancy. This is exactly how he envisioned the 2021 event to be.
