Weeklong Conference Honors Industry Excellence With Premier Awards

VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ --The 52nd annual SIGGRAPH conference brought together thousands of artists, researchers, and industry leaders from around the world this week to explore the technologies and ideas shaping the next era of computer graphics and interactive techniques. From groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to immersive storytelling, real-time rendering in games, cinematic production sessions, and a nostalgic yet forward-looking celebration of the 30th anniversary of Pixar's "Toy Story", SIGGRAPH 2025 solidified its place as the global stage for innovation.

SIGGRAPH 2025 was attended by an international audience of more than 12,400 people hailing from 84 countries including Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, and more. The conference and exhibition also played host to a variety of diverse exhibitors on the exhibition floor, each showcasing the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques, products, and services.

"SIGGRAPH 2025 has been an extraordinary convergence of ideas, talent, and innovation from across the globe," said SIGGRAPH 2025 Conference Chair Ginger Alford. "This year's programs reflected the transformative role that computer graphics and interactive techniques play in shaping our creative, scientific, and technological future. The connections, collaborations, and conversations sparked here demonstrate the strength of a truly international community that crosses cultures, disciplines, and industries. By connecting pioneers, emerging voices, and industry leaders in one space, we've not only celebrated the breakthroughs of today but also laid the groundwork to co-create the future of our field together."

AI emerged as a unifying thread, not only in the technology itself but also in the connections it fostered among creators, technologists, and researchers. Across Technical Papers, production case studies, and hands-on workshops, professionals exchanged expertise on AI-powered storytelling tools, spatial and physical AI, and new generative design workflows. Robotic programming extended this cross-disciplinary dialogue, with leaders from Disney Research, Meta Reality Labs, and others sharing advancements in swarm robotics, motion retargeting, and human-robot interaction that will shape industries far beyond the conference floor.

The 20th anniversary of the Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games course drew top game developers, rendering engineers, and technical artists to collaborate on solving challenges in lighting, scalability, and realism. In the Experience Hall, connections between art and technology, and between creators and audiences, came to life through interactive programs including the debut of Spatial Storytelling. From live mixed-reality performances and AI cultural heritage projects to haptic robotics, fungal network simulations, and digital art installations, the Experience Hall served as a vibrant hub for networking through exploration.

Shared history also strengthened professional bonds during the 30th anniversary tribute to "Toy Story", where Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull reflected on how the SIGGRAPH community's openness to sharing innovations helped make the first fully computer-animated feature film possible. Keynote sessions further united diverse disciplines, with voices from Adobe Research, Autodesk, NASA, and NVIDIA inspiring attendees to collaborate on AI in art, physical AI, exoplanet explorations, and storytelling innovation.

The conference's tradition of fostering connection through creativity shone in the Computer Animation Festival, where student filmmakers set new benchmarks for excellence, and audiences experienced standout works in the Electronic Theater and Animation Theater, plus creator-led discussions in Animation Theater In Conversation. Real-Time Live! delivered a high-energy showcase of groundbreaking, interactive demos from live-performed digital puppet twins and AI-powered motion tools to next-gen path tracing, ultra-fast physics, volumetric capture, and immersive audiovisual performances in real time before a live audience. Production Sessions focusing on film, games, and TV took audiences behind the scenes of "The Last of Us" season two, Disney's "Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure", NASA's visualizations, and Dreamworks' painterly "The Wild Robot". 

SIGGRAPH 2025 also celebrated this year's contributors by honoring some "best of" from various programs, including:

Art Gallery
Best in Show — "AI in the Sky"
Laura Cinti

Art Papers
Best Art Paper — "PoeSpin: A Human-AI Dance to Poetry System for Movement-Based Verse Generation"
Yihua Li and Yiqing Li with New York University; Hongyue Chen with the University of Freiburg; and Yetong Xin with Harvard University

Computer Animation Festival: Electronic Theater
Best in Show — "Trash"
Maxime Crançon, Fanny Vecchie, Margaux Lutz, Romain Fleischer, Alexis Le Ral, Grégory Bouzid, Robin Delaporte, and Mattéo Durant with École Supérieure Des Métiers Artistiques (ESMA) 

Jury's Choice — "Jour de vent"
Martin Chailloux, Ai Kim Crespin, Elise Golfouse, Chloé Lab, Hugo Taillez, and Camille Truding with École des Nouvelles Images (ENSI)

Best Student Project — "The Mooning"
Mason Klesch and Vivian Osness with Ringling College of Art and Design

Audience Choice — "Wednesdays With Gramps"
Chris Copeland, Justin Copeland, and Shabrayia Cleaver with DreamWorks Animation

Emerging Technologies
Best in Show — "DreamPrinting: Volumetric Printing Primitives for High-Fidelity 3D Printing"
Youjia Wang, Teng Xu, Yifei Liu, Dong Zhang, and Yiwen Wu with Shanghai, Tech University and LumiAni Technology; Ruixiang Cao with Kyoto University; and Jingyi Yu with ShanghaiTech University

Audience Choice — "Handoid: Inter-morphologic Robotic Hand Avatar for Multi Presence"
Hideki Shimobayashi, Masaharu Hirose, and Masahiko Inami with RCAST, The University of Tokyo; Tomoya Sasaki with the Tokyo University of Science and RCAST, The University of Tokyo; and Eiichi Yoshida with the Tokyo University of Science

Immersive Pavilion
Best in Show — "Palace Immersive Goong"
Rene Hyewon Lee with Giioii, Korea National University of Arts

Real-Time Live!
Best in Show — "InfiniteStudio: 4D Volumetric Capture for Film Making and Beyond"
Jiaming Sun, Siyu Zhang, and Yu Zhang with 4DV.ai; Zhi Wang with MediaStorm; Yuke Ding; and Zhen Xu and Xiawei Zhou with Zhejiang University

Audience Choice — "Crazy Fast Physics! Augmented Vertex Block Descent in Action!"
Chris Giles; and Elie Diaz and Cem Yuksel with the University of Utah

Technical Papers
Best Paper Awards

"Shape Space Spectra"
Yue Chang, Othman Benchekroun, Maurizio M. Chiaramonte, Peter Yichen Chen, Eitan Grinspun

"CAST: Component-Aligned 3D Scene Reconstruction From an RGB Image"
Kaixin Yao, Longwen Zhang, Xinhao Yan, Yan Zeng, Qixuan Zhang, Jiayuan Gu, Wei Yang, Lan Xu, Jingyi Yu

"TokenVerse: Versatile Multi-Concept Personalization in Token Modulation Space"
Daniel Garibi, Shahar Yadin, Roni Paiss, Omer Tov, Shiran Zada, Ariel Ephrat, Tomer Michaeli, Inbar Mosseri, Tali Dekel

"Vector-Valued Monte Carlo Integration Using Ratio Control Variates"
Haolin Lu, Delio Vicini, Wesley Chang, Tzu-Mao Li

"Transformer IMU Calibrator: Dynamic On-Body IMU Calibration for Inertial Motion Capture"
Chengxu Zuo, Jiawei Huang, Xiao Jiang, Yuan Yao, Xiangren Shi, Rui Cao, Xinyu Yi, Feng Xu, Shihui Guy, Yipeng Qin

SIGGRAPH 2025 on-demand conference content is available to registered attendees until 15 October 2025, to access visit s2025.SIGGRAPH.org.

 

About ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH 2025
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field's challenges.  SIGGRAPH is a special interest group within ACM that serves as an interdisciplinary community for members in research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The SIGGRAPH conference is the world's leading annual interdisciplinary educational experience showcasing the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2025, the 52nd annual conference hosted by ACM SIGGRAPH, will take place live 10–14 August at the Vancouver Convention Centre, along with a Virtual Access option.

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