Epic Games is proud to once again be a part of SIGGRAPH during the 43rd iteration of the international conference and exhibition that celebrates computer graphics and interactive techniques. Taking place in Anaheim, CA from July 24-28, the conference offers five days of research results, demos, educational sessions, art, screenings and hands-on interactivity featuring the community’s latest technical achievements and three days of commercial exhibits displaying the industry's current hardware, software and services.

Highlighting Epic’s presence at SIGGRAPH 2016 will be a groundbreaking performance during Real-Time Live - an interactive extravaganza that celebrates real-time achievements at the intersection of ingenious technical skills and creative beauty. In the unprecedented showing, “From Previs to Final in Five Minutes: A Breakthrough in Live Performance Capture,” Epic Games, Ninja Theory, Cubic Motion and 3Lateral will reunite after an impressive GDC demonstration in March to create the world's first believable human driven live by an actress within a game world. Body, face and voice will all be captured live in real time, and recorded to create a photoreal real-time scene, with never-before-seen results driven by the powerful new Unreal Engine 4 Sequencer tool.

This process would normally require weeks or months to achieve from previs to post-production. Technology is profoundly impacting the creation of movies, games and VR experiences as attendees will see in this demonstration, which will take place Tuesday, 26 July, 5:30pm - 7:15pm.

In 2015, Epic Games was the recipient of the Computer Animation Festival award for Best Real-Time Graphics and Interactivity during Real-Time Live at SIGGRAPH for its Unreal Engine 4 animated short film, A Boy and His Kite.

In addition, a number of thought leaders from Epic Games will be participating in panels designed to deliver valuable insight and useful information to attendees. There will also be multiple opportunities for attendees to participate in Unreal Engine 4 educational workshops during the event. Please view the panel appearances, some of which will be livestreamed, and educational workshops below.

SUNDAY, JULY 24

Moving Mobile Graphics

2:00pm - 5:15pm, Anaheim Convention Center, Ballroom D

While similar in many respects, desktop and mobile GPUs operate in radically different form factors. The available power budget, potential die area, and capacity to dissipate heat differ by several orders of magnitude. To produce graphics of comparable quality within the form factor of a mobile phone, all aspects of modern real-time graphics scrutinized, from GPU hardware design and associated graphics APIs to the algorithms and techniques employed.

This half-day course provides a technical introduction to mobile graphics spanning the hardware-software spectrum and explores the state of the art with practitioners at the forefront of mobile graphics. The course, which features Epic Game's Niklas Smedberg, explores key advances in mobile graphics, including virtual reality, image processing with GPU compute, efficient use of new low-overhead APIs, and tailoring algorithms for mobile architectures.

Physically-Based Shading in Theory and Practice

2:00pm - 5:15pm, Anaheim Convention Center, Ballroom E

Physically based shading has transformed the way we approach production rendering and simplified the lives of artists in the process. By employing shading models that adhere to physical principles, one can readily create high-quality, realistic materials that maintain their appearance under a variety of lighting environments. In contrast, traditional ad hoc models required extensive tweaking to achieve comparable results – due to less intuitive behavior or unnecessary complexity – and were liable to break under different illumination.

Consequently, physically based models have become widely adopted in film and game production, particularly because they are often no more difficult to implement or evaluate. But physically based shading is not a solved problem, so the aim of this course is to share the latest theory as well as lessons from production.

The course begins with a brief introduction to the physics and mathematics of shading, before delving into some exciting new research in the field. Next, speakers from film and game studios, including Epic Games' Brian Karis, share examples of how physically based shading models have been used in production. New research is introduced, and its practical application in production is explained then the advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Real-world examples are emphasized throughout the course.

CGW Get Connected Session

3:30pm - 4:30pm, Anaheim Convention Center, Room 204A

Once again, Computer Graphics World is sponsoring its annual Get Connected! session for the Student Volunteers at SIGGRAPH. As always, we have an amazing group of panelists, including Epic Games' Nick Whiting, who are rock stars in our industry, who have left their touch on many amazing current and past projects and who continue to drive new techniques and technologies that influence the look and direction of CGI. They will take you behind the scenes of our industry and of their latest projects, and will share with you their amazing journeys in this industry.



TUESDAY, JULY 26

Explore the Vulkan API Loader and Validation Layers

11:00am - 12:00pm, Anaheim Convention Center, Room 213 B

Rolando Caloca will present with LunarG and Google in this Birds of a Feather session.

The Vulkan API loader and validation layers are open-source elements of the Vulkan Ecosystem. Come learn and exchange technical information with key developers in this open-source project.

Making VR With Unreal Engine

2:00pm - 3:30pm Anaheim Convention Center, Experience Hall, Hall C

Unreal Engine Educational Evangelist Luis Cataldi will lead this hands-on Studio Workshop which will focus on the freely available online learning resources, understood best practices, and the core process of building locomotion and interaction mechanics for locomotion and interaction in a virtual reality environment with Unreal Engine 4.

Efficient Fluid Simulation on the Surface of a Sphere

3:45pm - 5:35pm, Anaheim Convention Center, Ballroom D

Published in Transactions on Graphics (Vol 35 2016), David Hill will present his paper, written during his time at DreamWorks Animation, with Google’s Ronald D. Henderson.

Formulated with primitive variables and a correct treatment of geometric terms arising from general curvilinear coordinates, this method for fluid flow on the surface of a sphere provides control parameters for art directability.

From Previs to Final in Five Minutes: A Breakthrough in Live Performance Capture

Tuesday, 26 July, 5:30pm - 7:15pm, Hall B

Epic Games, Ninja Theory, Cubic Motion and 3Lateral will reunite after an impressive GDC demonstration in March to create the world's first believable human driven live by an actress within a game world. Body, face and voice will all be captured live in real time, and recorded to create a photoreal real-time scene, with never-before-seen results driven by the powerful new Unreal Engine 4 Sequencer tool.



WEDNESDAY, JULY 27

UE4 Virtual Movie Production with Sequencer

10:45am - 12:15pm Anaheim Convention Center, Experience Hall, Hall C

Unreal Engine 4 has an amazing new virtual movie production tool suite built right into the real-time engine. During this workshop, led by Unreal Engine Educational Evangelist Luis Cataldi, the new cinematic cameras, cranes and rail rigs will be used to build a short cinematic experience with content that is free to download from the Epic Games launcher.

Vulkan Best Practices Roundtable

4pm-5pm, Ballroom A, Hilton Anahiem

This panel of ISVs, IHVs, and Vulkan working group members will discuss programmers' best practices for using the Vulkan API for maximum performance and portability.

Panel Members:

Rolando Caloca, Epic Games : Unreal Engine 4 renderer port to Vulkan

: Unreal Engine 4 renderer port to Vulkan Axel Gneiting, id Software : Tech6 engine port to Vulkan -Doom

: Tech6 engine port to Vulkan -Doom Tobias Hector, Imagination Technologies

Chris Hebert, NVIDIA

Dan Archard, Qualcomm

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You can track Epic’s presence during the show by following @UnrealEngine on Twitter. To find out more about SIGGRAPH 2016 and to view the full roster of events, please visit http://s2016.siggraph.org/.