Keynotes
We are pleased to announce the following keynote speakers for CVMP 2019:
Bruna Berford, Penrose Studios
The Artist’s Perspective: Storytelling in Spatial Computing
With spatial computing as an emerging platform, we are becoming more active in the way we consume entertainment. The pivot point has changed from watching life through a window to jumping through that window and breathing the fresh air of a vast new world that now surrounds us. After continuous experiments, we at Penrose have started to craft our own way of navigating this new world. Drawn from the past, with an eye for the future, this talk will walk people through the challenges and lessons learned during the production of the award-winning VR experience “Arden’s Wake”, through the artist’s perspective: highlighting the new challenges of the medium and the exciting dynamic ways to engage with the story.
Bruna Berford is the XR Animation Supervisor at Penrose Studios, where she supervised the animation for the award-winning experience “Arden’s Wake” (Best VR Award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival), and “Allumette” (2016 Tribeca Film Festival). Before joining Penrose, she worked as an animator at Oculus Story Studio on the EMMY Awarded experience “Henry”, as a cinematic artist at Telltale Games, and several other projects including animated Disney TV Series. As a storyteller, Bruna likes to see the world as potential ideas for future narratives.
Abhijeet Ghosh, Imperial College London
Computational Imaging for Realistic Appearance Modelling
This talk will provide an overview of the research we have been conducting in the Realistic Graphics and Imaging group at Imperial College on measurement based appearance modelling for realistic computer graphics. The talk will span techniques focusing both on standard geometric optics based acquisition, as well as imaging wave optical effects of surface reflectance. In the standard geometric optics regime, I will briefly describe our work on acquiring shape and reflectance of spatially varying planar material samples using a mobile device. I will then present some recent work on imaging wave optical effects such as polarization for appearance acquisition in uncontrolled outdoor environments, and imaging surface diffraction to model the complex iridescence seen on manufactured materials such LCD screens and holographic samples. The talk will conclude with a description of a multi-spectral Light Stage apparatus that we have built at Imperial and some recent results on high-quality facial capture including shape and reflectance acquisition for realistic facial renderings.
Abhijeet Ghosh is a Reader in Graphics and Imaging in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, where he leads the Realistic Graphics and Imaging group and his current research interests include appearance modelling and computational photography/illumination for graphics and vision. He currently holds an EPSRC Early Career Fellowship (2016-2021), and has recently held a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2013-2017) in this area. Previously, he was a Research Assistant Professor at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies where he significantly contributed to Light Stage based facial capture using polarized spherical gradient illumination that has been recognized with a Technical Achievement Award in 2019 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Abhijeet completed his PhD in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia is 2007. His doctoral dissertation received the 2008 Alain Fournier award for the best Canadian PhD thesis in computer graphics. Abhijeet was a program co-chair for Pacific Graphics in 2018 and conference chair for the ACM SIGGRAPH Conference on Visual Media Production (CVMP) in 2018. He is currently serving on the Editorial Boards of ACM Trans. on Graphics (TOG) and IEEE Trans. on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG).
Johanna Pirker, Graz University of Technology
A Year of Playing the World
Johanna always played a lot of games and knew all the new major titles out there. Eventually she recognized a major blindspot: the titles were all developed by the same studios in the same countries and told similar stories. It is then when Johanna decided to start looking for games from all over the world. By playing games based on recommendations of people living in different parts of the world, Johanna has found vast diversity among what the industry had to offer and discovered how to look at games and virtual experiences in a different way. In this talk, Dr. Johanna Pirker will talk about her experiences playing games from different countries, genres, backgrounds, and stories and how her journey and as a result also her research took a new turn: to virtual reality and to game live streams.
Dr. Johanna Pirker is a computer scientist focusing on game development, research, and education and an active and strong voice of the local indie dev community. She has lengthy experience in designing, developing, and evaluating games and VR experiences and believes in them as tools to support learning, collaboration, and solving real problems. Johanna has started in the industry as QA tester at EA and still consults studios in the field of games user research. In 2011/12 she started researching and developing VR experiences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the moment she is Ass. Prof. for game development at TU Graz and researches games with a focus on AI, HCI, data analysis, and VR technologies. Johanna was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of science professionals.
Max Dennison, DNEG
Behind the VFX of HBO’s Emmy Award winning ‘Chernobyl’
Max Dennison, VFX Supervisor at DNEG in London, discusses how the visual effects became another character in ‘Chernobyl’ and helped portray the impact of the disaster on the population. He will talk about the meticulous research process that went into the show, the importance of authenticity, and explore the influence and limits of science for HBO’s Emmy-winning miniseries.
With over 20 years of experience in the VFX industry, Max Dennison is recognised as a true expert in his field. Most recently he was recipient of the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Supporting Role’ for his work as VFX Supervisor on HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’. Prior to this he was nominated in 2018 with DNEG TV for a BAFTA Television Craft Award for ‘Special, Visual & Graphic Effects’ for ‘Emerald City’. Over the years, Max has applied his expertise on dozens of much-loved cinematic universes across adventure, fantasy and sci-fi productions including “Star War: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. His knowledge, experience and intrinsic insight has assisted many of cinema’s most renowned directors, including Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Ron Howard.
