Leo's SIGGRAPH 2003

The highlight of this SIGGRAPH was the technical program -- in particular papers and sketches. The transition of SIGGRAPH from batch-rendering oriented work towards real-time interactive rendering continued -- by far the majority of the papers I went to were research on interactive techniques. The most exciting stuff was in new-model lighting techniques (see Radiance Transfer Papers), but there were also some other great real-time ideas like the real-time soft shadows and the billboard clouds. Below are some links to the things I saw this year.

Radiance Transfer	Rendering Soft Shadows in Real-time	Billboard Clouds for Extreme Model Simplication
Plausible Simulation	Interactive Global Illumination	Game Content and SIGGRAPH
Electronic Theater	Effects Omelette	EA Recruiting
Skinning by Example	Designing Nukes for T3	High Hack Value
Baku/RTzen	Rendering Aerodynamic Sound	Silhouette Shadows