10:00 – 11:00 AM, Room 404A
Miroslav Stoichev, VP of Training & Certification
We’ll kick off SIGGRAPH with one of our famous educators’ breakfasts. Join us for demonstrations of our innovative and cutting edge class resources, and find out how we’ve designed programs which keep up with the latest industry trends. You’ll have a chance to see our roadmap for education, and we’ll be on hand to listen to your feedback.
Blur Studio © Ubisoft Entertainment11:00 – 12:00 PM, Room 404A
Dan Akers, VFX Supervisor & Jean Baptiste Cambier, CG Lead
Blur Studio is known for making high-end animation for games, commercials and film. Recently the studio made a big push to increase the visual fidelity of characters in a series of vignettes for Ubisoft's Far Cry 5. Relying heavily on staged reference photography, a new lighting pipeline, innovative techniques and the help of V-Ray, Blur has crossed the uncanny valley and made relateable, emotional digital performances.
FuseFX © Starz Entertainment LLC2:00 – 3:00 PM, Room 404A
Chad Wanstreet, CG Supervisor
In this fascinating look behind the scenes of smash TV series American Gods, Chad will demonstrate the tools and processes of managing a show with a large number of creatures and complex environment design. He’ll show how V-Ray proxies, mass instancing and Phoenix simulations have been essential in bringing the show’s weird and wonderful characters and settings to life.
11:00 – 12:00 PM, Room 404A
Chris Nichols with Mike Seymour & Jay Busch
CG Garage’s live podcasts have become the stuff of legend: lively, engaging, thought-provoking and frequently hilarious. At SIGGRAPH, you’ll have a rare chance to join host Chris Nichols for a special live recording. Members of the Digital Human League will join him to talk about the latest developments and challenges in the quest for creating the perfect CG human.
© DreamWorksTV4:00 – 4:30 PM, Room 404A
Mio Markovic, Global Visual Effects Supervisor & Brent Tyler, Lead Lighting & Compositing TD
Discover the choices DreamWorks TV made when creating their pipeline, and the philosophies that helped them become the largest television animation studio in the world. Mio and Brent will demonstrate how their centralized pipeline has given them the elasticity to achieve high quality work while balancing budgets and schedules.
PIXOMONDO © Lionsgate10:00 – 11:00 AM, Room 404A
Miguel de Los Rios, CG Lead
PIXOMONDO has worked on a wide range of projects including feature films, interactive installations, episodic content, large format films, and commercials. Miguel will discuss the rendering complications each type of project faced, such as high resolution stereo sequences for domed screens and hundreds of UDIM tiles.
11:00 – 12:00 PM, Room 404A
Vladimir Koylazov, Co-Founder & Head of Software Development
Since its inception in 1997, Chaos Group’s V-Ray has become a crucial part of architectural visualization, design and visual effects imagery. But what led to its creation? And how have technological advances and user feedback shaped it? In this candid talk, Vlado will answer these questions, and offer a glimpse into the exciting future of this Academy Award winning software.
ASC © Netflix2:00 – 3:00 PM, Room 404A
Steffen Reichstadt, Creative Director & Matt Millard, Look Dev Lead
The Aaron Sims Creative team reveal the workflow behind their character and world-building concept designs, previsualizations and VFX for some of the most iconic film and television franchises of a generation. Through a series of 3D models, animatics and breakdowns, they’ll demonstrate how your favorite superheroes, villains, and monsters are brought to life.
Method Studios © Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures3:00 – 4:00 PM, Room 404A
Kevin Sears, CG Supervisor
Kevin will analyze and demonstrate, from concept to completion, the process Method Studios utilized to generate the hilarious 'Which button do you push?' scene featured in this summer’s hit film from Marvel Studios. Exclusive clips and look development approaches will showcase Rocket, Baby Groot, and Ego’s alien environment.
Digital Domain @ DisneyCANCELED
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, this presentation has been canceled. We hope you can join us at one of our many other V-Ray Day presentations instead!
Our co-founder Vlado will present news on V-Ray 3.6 & next-generation GPU rendering.
Room 404AB, Sun Jul 30, 1:00 – 1:50 PM
Invitation only event bringing together technology luminaries from media & entertainment.
JW Marriott LA LIVE, Mon Jul 31, 6:30 – 9:30 PM
Vlado will be joining other 2017 sci-tech award winners at this special presentation.
Room 403AB, Tues Aug 1, 2:00 – 3:30 PM
Director of Chaos Group Labs, Chris Nichols will participate in this fascinating panel discussion.
Theater 411, Wed Aug 2, 3:45 PM
Brent is a CG artist, photographer, and LEGO enthusiast from the Los Angeles area. He is currently a lead lighting and compositing TD at DreamWorks Animation TV, specializing in lighting, render optimization, compositing, and tool development. He's worked in this industry since 2006 on various TV and film productions such as DreamWorks Voltron, Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the new Planet of the Apes films.
Chad joined FuseFX in 2016, and currently serves as a visual effects supervisor. He has applied his wide-ranging technical knowledge, discerning creative eye and strong team leadership skills to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Sails, American Gods and Timeless. Chad’s previous credits include features The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Avengers; Age of Ultron; episodic television The Flash and Supergirl; and game cinematics Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Batman: Arkham.
Chris is a CG industry veteran and Director of Chaos Group Labs. He can also be heard regularly as the host of the CG Garage podcast which attracts 20,000 weekly listeners. With a background in both VFX and Design, Chris has worked for Gensler, Digital Domain, Imageworks and Method Studios. His credits include Maleficent, Oblivion and Tron: Legacy.
Dan joined Blur Studio after several years at Digital Domain, where he served as VFX and compositing supervisor for commercial clients. His feature film work includes Star Trek, Transformers and Tron: Legacy, and he was part of the Oscar winning team behind The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In 2016, Dan's VFX work on the Titanfall 2 ad was nominated for a VES Award.
Jay has been working as a technical artist for almost ten years in the field of entertainment under the direction of Paul Debevec. A large portion of her work ties to the capture and
creation of digital doubles for movies, video games and simulation systems while at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. She now works for Google Daydream.
JB has worked in the industry for 6 years, 3 of those years in France. He is well known as a CG Generalist, specializing in rigging and lighting. JB joined Blur Studio in 2016 after working previously as a CG Supervisor at EightVFX. He worked as CG Supervisor for Beasts of No Nations and has worked on numerous commercials including Call of Duty: Onslaught.
Kevin is an accomplished CG artist with an extensive background in environment, look development, lighting and characters. He’s been part of the expansive growth in feature VFX development at Method Studios LA over the past six years. Most recently, Kevin served as CG supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and he’s previously worked on films such as San Andreas, Guardians of the Galaxy, Divergent, Thor 2: The Dark World, Iron Man 3 and Avengers.
Matt is a dedicated creature artist and CG generalist hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated from the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in 2016 before joining Aaron Sims Creative as the look development lead and asset supervisor in 2017. He’s worked on some of ASC’s biggest projects, while developing his own IPs in his spare time.
Mike is co-founder of fxguide.com + fxphd.com and a PhD Fellow at Sydney University. Since 1999, fxguide has been one of the most reliable sources of in depth discussion of VFX. He is a regular contributor to WIRED with over 50 stories on CGI and VFX. Today, he works to both promote and research visual effects, especially in the area of complex realistic human faces.
Miguel is a CG Lead with over a decade of professional experience. He has worked for studios in five different countries, and has an extensive portfolio of work in feature films, episodic content, commercials, and ride films. See You Tomorrow, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, WANDA’s Star Journey, Impossible, Wolf Totem, and Gone with the Bullets.
Mio started his career as a creative and art director specializing in advertising and live productions. He has worked on or supervised projects in animation, live action, commercials and architectural previsualization. Mio's most recent projects include multiple lighting and compositing projects at Nickelodeon Animation Studio and DreamWorks Animation TV. He currently holds the position of global visual effects supervisor at DreamWorks Animation TV in Glendale, California.
Steffen began his career as a fine arts oil painter and art gallery producer in Los Angeles, teaming up with Aaron Sims in 2008 to found Aaron Sims Creative. Now firmly established as the company’s resident creative director, and one of the company's lead artists, Steffen continues to lead the vision for development and design at ASC and its expanding portfolio in film, TV, digital, and 3D prototyping.
Passionate about 3D graphics and programming, Vlado is the driving force behind Chaos Group’s software solutions. Vlado is an expert in rendering theory and an avid 3D community supporter and often participates in forum discussions to help users solve rendering challenges. Vlado was recently awarded a 2017 Sci-Tech Academy Award for V-Ray.
