SIGGRAPH 2018 had a lot to offer show-goers. A beautiful backdrop. An inviting trade show floor. Exceptional talks, papers, courses. Interesting emerging technologies. An engaging Computer Animation Festival and art gallery. A nod to the past with a tribute to Syd Meade’s art. Helpful workshops. State-of-the-art VR and real-time projects.
The conference offered so much to so many, as did the exhibition floor.
This year, a multitude of vendors – 160 in total – displayed their offerings and discussed their technologies with attendees. Among the exhibitors were many of the industry’s leading vendors, including Autodesk, Nvidia, AMD, Maxon, and others. Yet, according to show management, one quarter of those exhibiting were first-timers to SIGGRAPH.
I spent some time traversing the aisles and checking out the technologies on display in search of those selected for CGW’s annual Silver Edge Awards, chosen for the impact they are making, or their potential impact, on the industry.
For the first time, we have selected a platinum winner, as well, whose technology is in a category all its own.
Silver Edge Award–Platinum Winner
Nvidia--Quadro RTX Turing-powered raytracing GPUs
Silver Edge Award Winners
AMD--Radeon Pro WX 8200 for real-time visualization
Blackmagic Design--DaVinci Resolve 15 with Fusion integration
Chaos Group--Project Lavina (photoreal real-time raytracing)
Epic--Further development of Unreal Engine 4 and pushing the boundaries of real-time development across the industry and in cutting-edge virtual productions
Foundry--Athera cloud-based VFX platform
Lenovo--ThinkPad P1 lightweight yet powerful mobile workstation
Maxon--Cinema 4D Release 20 extensive DCC platform
Pixar--RenderMan 22 renderer
SideFX--Houdini 16.5's dynamic simulation tool updates
Unity--Unity 2018 real-time 3D engine
Vicon--Origin VR suite for location-based entertainment