While Siggraph describes itself as “the premier conference & exhibition on computer graphics & interactive techniques,” in reality, it’s way more than that; it’s a gathering, a celebration of technical and creative achievements. Every Pixel is the result of decades of knowledge and collaboration from thousands of talented people. If pixels are important to you, you should not miss these five colorful days where we all can share, learn, and explore.
Pixels. Whether you use the left side of your brain to calculate them or the right side to paint them, once you fall in love with them, there is no way back. Some of you love fast pixels you can interact with, some of you don’t mind waiting hours for the highest quality one.
(Source: Siggraph)
Sometimes we need them pure, sometimes we mix them with video to enhance storytelling. Some of you want to put some pixels on a small screen, some of you on a high-refresh-rate monitor, some of you on a headset or maybe on a massive screen; what we have in common is that we love those tiny suckers! They are a form of expression, the minimum component of our arts.
“Siggraph brings together a constellation of perspectives that few other conferences can match. That diversity of thought is essential when exploring powerful new tools like generative AI, which demand careful consideration of ethical, creative, and technical implications,” said Yannis Ioannidis, ACM president.
For more than 50 years, we, the pixel lovers, have been gathering at Siggraph to share advances, insights, successes, and failures, from onboarding new blood to recognizing pioneers; to hearing how the best in the industry solved their technical, production, or artistic challenges; and by listening to their deconstruction, understanding what otherwise would look like magic on screen.
“Our work connects across academics, industry, and art. As we look to 2025, we’re not just showcasing technologies, we’re shaping the future of human-computer creativity,” Said Ginger Alford, Siggraph 2025 conference chair.
Must-see events
Siggraph has 26 program categories. The following are some of core ones, but there is so much more to explore.
Keynotes—Industry visionaries describing recent achievements and challenges, sparking curiosity about the future and a call to action for the industry. This year’s keynotes are:
Dr. Anjali Tripathi—Future Earth: Storytelling From Space and the Exoplanet Revolution, and ACM Siggraph awards presentations
• Mike Haley, Maurice Patel, and Nikola Todorovic, Autodesk—Redefining Creativity: The Future of Media & Entertainment with AI
• Dr. Aaron Hertzmann—Can Computers Create Art?
• Sanja Fidler, Aaron Lefohn, and Ming-Yu Liu—Nvidia Research special address
Production Sessions—A deconstruction of some of the most challenging VFX in award-winning movies and productions. If you grew up enjoying the bonus material on movie DVDs, you can’t miss these sessions.
Computer Animation Festival—What happens when talented artists have freedom to create? I’m not talking about just good-enough, deadline-driven, cost-optimized productions, but rather a few dozen of the best animations in the industry by artists unleashed. Hint: bring tissues, be ready to experience many different emotions.
Also, this year’s Siggraph will feature a special event: “30th Anniversary Toy Story Screening,” presented by Ed Catmull, Pixar co-founder and Siggraph Pioneer.
Exhibition—As a tech guy, this is candyland, with top workstation and hardware components vendors, the latest software booths full of demos and new capabilities, training/learning companies, many talks, and experts everywhere. Many vendors offer free day passes, and they are also available for purchase at registration. The exhibition is one of the key parts of the event that you can only see in person (versus virtual).
Courses/Talks—These usually comprise a handful of presentations about a specific, popular topic. Are you into 3D rigging? If so, you will many industry experts talk about how they rigged their latest many-legged, wobbly, shape-shifting creatures for their latest movie. Some of my favorites this year are:
• A Whirlwind Introduction to Computer Graphics—great for beginners.
• Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games Part I & Part II—a must-attend every year.
Birds of a Feather—If you want to find a roomful of people that care about a specific niche, this is for you. Being a performance/benchmarking-obsessed engineer, my obvious favorite this year is Benchmarking Graphics Performance on Modern Computing Systems, presented by the SPEC Committee with presenters from Nvidia and Intel. A curious fact: I co-presented this course last year, and with new versions of SPECviewperf and SPECworkstation launched since, I can’t wait to hear what the SPEC/GWPG committee will share on this class!
The Truth about Computing System Performance Benchmarks from Siggraph 2024’s ASWF Open Source Days.
These are just a few of the 26 program categories on tap this year. Believe me, there are many more things going on—Academic Posters, Emerging Technologies, Labs… you name it. See the full program here.
To Siggraph and beyond!
If everything I mentioned above is not enough to entice you to attend this conference and exhibition, there are plenty of amazing side events coordinated by vendors and organizations. Be sure to find the Eventbrite or Lu-ma invitations and register soon, they fill up fast!
The biggest gems, in my opinion, related to but not part of the official Siggraph program are:
Pixar’s RenderMan Art & Science Fair—Think about this as the RenderMan state-of-the-biz. A definite must for all Pixar and RenderMan lovers. Ping your Pixar friends to get invited, or go to their exhibit booth and make a friend. The Pixar fair happens off-site, after-hours. As a timeless bonus, you will likely walk out with a celebratory “walking little friend.” While you are there, you might enjoy one of those amazing cocktails. Great job, Pixar, Dell, AMD, and Nvidia with your cocktail naming last year.
Cocktail menu at Pixar’s RenderMan Art & Science Fair at Siggraph 2024.
Open Source Days, hosted by the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF)—If you care about OpenUSD, OpenColorIO, MaterialX, OpenVDB, OpenPBR, VfxReference Platforms, Blender, and more, this off-site, multi-day event is for you. Part of the agenda is open to anyone, while some parts required a Siggraph attendee badge. Virtual options are available too.
Foundry Education Summit—How to train not your dragon, but the next wave of VFX talent by joining Foundry’s Education Summit at for tools, insights, and industry-led inspiration.
Beyond these events and programs, there are happy hours, parties, and community events—definitely something for everyone at #Siggraph2025.
What do we think?
Having attended Siggraph several times in the last 15 years, I consider it a must for anyone passionate about computer graphics. You only need to attend once to have a desire to attend every year.
At the beginning of my career, Siggraph was only a dream, the location and cost made attending unfeasible. Since I moved to the US in 2009, going to Siggraph has been a no-brainer. It’s magical to get together with thousands of people who care about computer graphics of any kind (2D, 3D, video, VFX, real-time/interactive/milliseconds per frame, non-real-time/hours per frame). Siggraph attendees are technical, or artistic, or like me, love the intersection of the left and right side of their brain. There is something for everyone. Even students can get involved by not only submitting their projects and papers, but also volunteering to make Siggraph possible.
I hope this article gave you an idea of what to expect from Siggraph 2025. I hope to see you there.
— The Workstation Calvary
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