Caecilia Charbonnier (website)
Title: Technics and Challenges in Creating Highly Immersive Experiences in Free-Roam Location-Based VR
Abstract: Artanim develops the VR technology driving Dreamscape Immersive, which is the product of 6-years of R&D to create the ultimate immersive experience. Dreamscape is a next-generation location-based VR company combining the emotional power of Hollywood storytelling, the visceral excitement of great theme-park rides and this extraordinary VR technology to create mainstream global entertainment. Both original and franchise VR content (e.g. Alien Zoo, The Blu, Dragons, Men In Black, Harry Potter) can be enjoyed by the audiences in our Dreamscape venues in the US and Dubaï, UAE. In this talk, I will discuss the technics and challenges in creating highly immersive experiences in free-roam location-based VR, both from a technology and content point of view. I will also share our vision on how we began creating this technology and how the concepts of presence and self-embodiment drove our developments.
Bio : Caecilia Charbonnier first obtained a Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in 2006 in Computer Graphics from EPFL and a PhD degree in Computer Science in 2010 from MIRALab – University of Geneva. She is the Co-Founder and current President & Research Director of Artanim, a center specialized in motion capture technologies, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Dreamscape Immersive, a VR company, and President of the National Thematic Network Virtual Switzerland. She is also Senior Lecturer at the Department of Radiology and Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, and Professor of Practice at the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, Herberger Institute, Arizona State University.
Her interdisciplinary work focus on the use of motion capture for 3D animation, VR/AR, live performances, movement science, orthopedics and sports medicine. The results of her research have been published in more than 90 international scientific articles, and awarded several prizes and distinctions (2009 Eurographics Medical 1st Prize, 2011 ISAKOS Achilles Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Research Award, 2014 CAOS Best Technical Paper Award, 2014 EFORT Best Poster Discussion, 2015 SIGGRAPH Finalist of the Immersive Realities (VR/AR) Contest, 2016 Laval Virtual Award, 2017 Swiss ICT Award Finalist).
She is one of the two creators of the award-winning and breakthrough VR technology leveraged by Dreamscape and Hollywood studios and talents to create the next generation of location-based VR entertainment centers. Her VR work has also been showcased at renowned film festivals such as Sundance New Frontier 2016 and 2018, Cannes Film Festival 2016 and the Biennale di Venezia 2018.
Markus Gross (website)
Title: The Science to Create the Magic
Abstract: For more than a decade, DisneyResearch|Studios has been pushing the forefront of scientific and technological innovation to advance entertainment products, experiences and shows. Our research covers a broad spectrum of different fields including graphics, vision, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning and AI, as well as interactive technologies. Our innovations are experienced by hundreds of millions of audiences and customers across the world. In this talk I will give and overview of our core research programs including digital humans, story technology, interactive content creation, video processing, and audience understanding. Furthermore, I will share my insights into the fundamental differences between academic and corporate research and highlight the challenges of transferring technology into products.
Bio: Markus Gross is a Professor of Computer Science and head of the Computer Graphics Laboratory at ETH Zurich, Vice President of Research, The Walt Disney Studios and the director of DisneyResearch|Studios. He joined the ETH Computer Science faculty in 1994. His research interests include physically based modeling, computer animation, immersive displays, and video technology. Before joining Disney, Gross was director of the Institute of Computational Sciences at ETH. He received a master of science in electrical and computer engineering and a PhD in computer graphics and image analysis, both from Saarland University in Germany in 1986 and 1989. He is a fellow of the ACM and of the EUROGRAPHICS Association and a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina as well as the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 2013 he received the Konrad Zuse Medal of GI and the Karl Heinz Beckurts price. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored his research with two technical achievement awards in 2013 and 2019 and welcomed him as member-at-large in 2020. In 2021, Gross received the prestigious Steven Anson Coons Award for outstanding creative contributions to computer graphics. Gross cofounded Cyfex, Novodex, LiberoVision, Dybuster, Gimalon, Kapanu, Perceptiko, Propulsion Academy, Arbrea Labs, Nanocorp, Animatico, Percim, and Morgen.
Morgan McGuire (website)
Title: Scaling the Civil and Creative Roblox Metaverse
Abstract: Millions of people socialize, play, learn, and attend concerts and other events in the Roblox metaverse every day. These shared experiences were built by the Roblox community themselves. Strong human and AI moderation maintained their civility, privacy, and safety over the company’s seventeen years of existence. Our friendly developer tools empowered anyone to make clothing, tools, and whole interactive 3D experiences.
As Roblox Research looks to the future of our metaverse, scaling all aspects of the platform is our priority. In this talk I will reflect on what I have learned about scaling user generated content, from the web to fantasy consoles to metaverses. Then I will present research challenges the MIG community can engage to simultaneously empower player creativity and drive online civility for a growing metaverse.
Bio: Morgan McGuire is the Chief Scientist at Roblox, channeling and accelerating innovation across the company to build a creative, safe, civil, and scalable Metaverse. Roblox combines social interaction with a dynamic 3D environment and economy, with research impact spanning both technology and social sciences.
Morgan is also known for previous work as a professor, game developer, and industry researcher. As Director of Hyperscale Graphics Research at NVIDIA, Morgan accelerated cloud graphics, esports, ray tracing, and augmented and virtual reality. Morgan’s product work includes the NVIDIA RTXGI and Reflex SDKs and RTX GPUs; the Skylanders®, Call of Duty®, Marvel Ultimate Alliance®, and Titan Quest® series of video games series; the Unity game engine; the E Ink display used in the Amazon Kindle®; and the PeakStream high performance computing architecture acquired by Google. Morgan’s scientific publications and patents span many areas of computer science, from compilers and networking to 3D graphics.
Morgan co-chaired the EuroGraphics Symposium on Rendering, the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering, and the ACM SIGGRAPH / EuroGraphics High Performance Rendering conference, and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques. Morgan is the author or coauthor of “the bible” of 3D, Computer Graphics: Principles & Practice 3rd Edition, The Graphics Codex, Creating Games, the G3D Innovation Engine, the Markdeep document system, and chapters of several GPU Gems, ShaderX, and GPU Pro volumes.
Morgan holds faculty positions at the University of Waterloo and McGill University and was a full professor at Williams College. Morgan received Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from Brown University and M.Eng. and B.S. degrees from MIT.
Ryan Schmidt (website)
Title: Geometry Processing for Next-Generation Realtime Content
Abstract: Driven by recent advances such as GPU Raytracing and the Nanite Virtualized Geometry available in Unreal Engine 5, modern realtime engines are capable of rendering massive scenes at an astounding level of visual fidelity. However, these technological leaps have also raised the bar significantly for content production pipelines. Hand-authored content is increasingly being replaced by procedural generation or captured real-world data, and artists can now create “derivative” content in-engine at a scale that is simply implausible to work with in standard DCC Tools. At Epic, we are building next-generation content tools, based on modern geometry processing techniques, to support these future workflows. In this talk I will discuss some of the challenges that game developers encounter in creating these high-quality visuals, as well as in bringing other game systems (like physics simulation) up to the same quality bar, and then present some of the approaches we are taking in our Content Toolset to help solve these problems.
Bio: Ryan Schmidt is an Engineering Fellow and Lead of the Geometric Modeling team at Epic Games, where he works on Tools and Techniques for creating the next generation of realtime content. He previously founded Gradientspace Corp, where he wrote the open-source mesh processing library geometry3Sharp, and helped Nia Technologies bring 3D-printed prosthetics to the developing world. From 2011 to 2016 he was head of the Design & Fabrication Group at Autodesk Research, which he joined with the acquisition of his mesh modeling software Meshmixer. Meshmixer has been downloaded millions times, by a userbase ranging from elementary school students to aerospace engineers. He academic research has focused on 3D modeling, intuitive 3D user interfaces, and geometry processing. Find him on the web at www.rms80.com, or on twitter @rms80.
