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- Capital from global video streaming services and Japanese IP (Intellectual Property) make great strides
- Computer Animation Festival Award Winners
- Keynote speech: “The infinite possibilities of a single piece of fabric”
- Paper presentation: Best paper awarded to Google. A glimpse of a near-future video expression with no shortage of materials
- The Future of SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia
Capital from global video streaming services and Japanese IP (Intellectual Property) make great strides
SIGGRAPH Asia 2024, the Asian version of SIGGRAPH, a computer graphics conference and festival, was held at the Tokyo International Forum for the first time in three years from December 3rd to 6th, 2024, attracting many participants.
The last time the event was held in Tokyo was in 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and due to entry restrictions for international travelers, only participants living in Japan were allowed to attend.
SIGGRAPH Asia was successfully held in 2024, attracting participants from all over the world.
This year’s theme is “Curious Minds.”
The nuance is “intellectual seekers” or “inquisitive people.”
The idea behind this theme is the idea that artists, engineers, researchers, and anyone who works in the field of computer graphics should be driven by “curiosity,” creating works, advancing research, and producing a variety of results and papers.
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, online streaming of large-scale conferences has become commonplace, but this year’s SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 focused particularly on the on-site experience, with an emphasis on allowing everyone to listen to works together, experience the latest equipment, interact, and discuss.
The official SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 website has an overview of all sessions.
Compared to SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 three years ago, as well as SIGGRAPH 2024 held in the United States this summer and SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 held in Sydney in December last year, one change that was strongly felt was that “creators from all over the world are now involved in producing video works funded by video streaming services and video works based on original Japanese works.”
Most of the Japanese manga, anime, and works based on Japanese history that are distributed on video streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, etc. are produced through collaboration between Japanese creators and creators from all over the world who love and have a deep respect for the original works.
Furthermore, with video streaming services having ample budgets that are said to be even larger than those of Hollywood films, many works are beginning to be made that take risks and have freedom, including themes and visual expressions not found in Hollywood films.
These Japanese-originated works are distributed all over the world, and some are even produced with a global distribution in mind from the beginning, with dialogue in English, and although the original work is in Japanese, people can enjoy the Japanese version with dubbing or subtitles.
In particular, during the making-of sessions for the Netflix productions “Ultraman: Rising” and “Yu Yu Hakusho,” it was clear that they had a great deal of respect for the original work and Japanese culture, and that they had researched the history of the works, conducted detailed interviews and investigations, and were making the utmost effort and consideration to ensure that the works could be enjoyed by audiences not only in Japan but all over the world.
By the way, in one small scene in Ultraman: Rising, a tonkatsu restaurant appears, which is based on the motif of “Tonki,” a long-established tonkatsu restaurant in Meguro, and the world view is very similar.
A character appears who looks very similar to the tonkatsu fryer who works at “Tonki.”
ILM’s Lecture on the Making of Ultraman: Rising
On the other hand, examples such as the film “Godzilla 1.0 (to be released in 2023),” which was created by a small team of CG/VFX generalist creators who could handle anything in a short period of time with a low budget, and received global acclaim, once again attracted a lot of attention at SIGGRAPH Asia 2024.
In particular, compared to the recent trend of extremely segmented and divided tasks in Hollywood-style CG/VFX production, Japanese CG/VFX production is seen as returning to the origins of film production, and is attracting attention from large-scale production companies around the world.
Shirogumi, the team that worked on “Godzilla 1.0,” had a total of 35 members, with only about 20 of them being core members in the CG/VFX production. They worked on 610 shots in about eight months, an efficiency and speed that is astonishing given the production structure and scale of a Hollywood movie.
Today, major CG production companies employ hundreds of people to create the CG/VFX for a single film, but in their early days, they were made up of generalist artists who worked on creating their works every day through trial and error, and everyone had fun doing it. It is true that this original form of film production now attracts the admiring gaze of creators all over the world.
Computer Animation Festival Award Winners
While the core of SIGGRAPH Asia is the academic conference, it also has a section called the Computer Animation Festival (CAF), which celebrates the creativity, innovation, and technical artistry of short CG animation works.
This year, 361 works were submitted from 31 countries around the world, from which four winning works were selected.
Digest Trailer: SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 – Computer Animation Festival Trailer
Best in Show Award: Au 8ème Jour (France)
- Production team and directors: Agathe Sénéchal, Alicia Massez, Elise Debruyne, Flavie Carin, Théo Duhautois (Piktura)
- Producer: Carlos De Carvalho (Piktura)
It took seven days for the world to be created, but just one day was needed for the balance to be upset.
Jury’s Special Award: Sopa Fria (Portugal)
- Cooperation: Emanuel Oliveira (AGENCIA – Portuguese Short Film Agency)
- Director: Marta Monteiro
- Producers: Vanessa Ventura, Nuno Amorim (ANIMAIS AVPL), Claire Beffa, Sidonie Garnier (La Clairière Ouest)
“Sopa Fria” explores domestic violence through a deep narrative and visual approach.
Hand-drawn animation depicts the protagonist’s daily life and feelings, while “found footage” such as photographs and symbolic images deepen the metaphorical meaning of the story.
The protagonist’s fear, anger, sadness, and anxiety are conveyed not only through their actions, but also through deep emotional descriptions, both visually and aurally.
The “home” is not merely a setting, but an active symbol of danger, oppression and isolation. Its oppressive nature reflects her husband’s violence, tightening his grip on the protagonist in moments of vulnerability, while “acting normal” in the presence of others, hiding the reality at home, symbolizing the silent complicity that often accompanies abuse.
Best Student Project Award: Courage (France)
- Production team and directors: Margot Jacquet, Nathan Baudry, Marion Choudin, Jeanne Desplanques, Lise Delcroix, Salomé Cognon (Supinfocom Rubika)
- Producer: Philippe Meis (Supinfocom Rubika)
When Olympic athlete Anna falls behind in the race, she pushes herself hard not to disappoint, but pushes herself too hard, burns out, and faces a wave of criticism when she has to withdraw.
An impressive work with powerful images that have a vivid pulsating feel.
Every year, works by teams from film schools in France and Germany tend to be highly rated.
The reason for this is thought to be that at European film production schools, after learning a wide range of subjects, students are able to work on their graduation projects for a relatively long period of time, which is different from the environment in which Japanese students begin job hunting at an early stage.
Honorable Mention Award: Fire (France)
- Cooperation: Laure Goasguen (Miyu Distribution)
- Directors: Baptiste Fraboul, Léna Gittler, Esther Lamassoure, Julie Le Forban, Florent Sabuco, Valentin Serre (Miyu Distribution)
- Producer: Julien Deparis (ENSI)
This is a work with a unique visual expression that makes it seem as if time has stopped as the flames approach.
The film features frightening images mixed with humor, giving you feelings of anxiety and inexplicable fear.
Keynote speech: “The infinite possibilities of a single piece of fabric”
The highlight of SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 was the keynote speeches, which featured three speakers, of which the one that attracted the most attention and applause was the speech by Miyamae Yoshiyuki of Issey Miyake, titled “The Infinite Possibilities of a Single Piece of Fabric.”
Yoshiyuki Miyamae of Issey Miyake, a global fashion brand led by Issey Miyake and Dai Fujiwara, and an early member of A-POC, the company’s representative product group, spoke about the relationship between the fashion industry and technology and the efforts that have been made so far.
He passionately stated that computer technology can bring about beauty in design that is as yet unseen, and that computer technology will lead to new discoveries that go beyond the realm of design.
A demonstration was given of a futuristic fashion material without sewing, in which the flat material used by A-POC can be changed in shape by using a steam iron.
Paper presentation: Best paper awarded to Google. A glimpse of a near-future video expression with no shortage of materials
The main focus of SIGGRAPH is the presentation of papers, and this year the most highly praised paper was “Quark: Real-time, High-resolution, and General Neural View Synthesis,” a study by a Google research team that creates high-definition images from just a few images.
Quark is a revolutionary neural algorithm that generates new perspectives in real time at 30 frames per second at 1080p resolution from a small number of RGB image inputs or video streams.
This is not simply a generative AI, but a technology that is expected to be used as a new filmmaking technique, complementing images from directions not captured by camera.
The Future of SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia
The next SIGGRAPH in North America will be held in Vancouver, Canada, a city with a thriving computer graphics industry, for five days from August 10 to 14, 2025, and SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 will be held in Hong Kong for four days from December 15 to 18, 2025.
The advent of generative AI is bringing about major changes to not only CG/VFX but also the flow and style of video production, but universal aspects such as beautiful images and entertaining video story development remain, regardless of the evolution of equipment and technology. No matter how much generative AI evolves, it felt like the continued creation, enjoyment and research of video production, not just CG/VFX, will continue into the future. SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 was a truly global event, where we felt the passion of the world.
