One of the biggest European events covering the 3D industry, Imagina is spread over three days of conferences, with a renowned awards ceremony, a trade show and the European Forum of 3D Visualization. Images courtesy of Imagina.

Imagina is one of the biggest European events covering the 3D industry. In fact, it was the first worldwide event, before the emergence of SIGGRAPH, with roots going back to the early '80s This annual rendezvous has a history of ups and downs, and for the last few years, has changed hands and is still reinventing itself. Located on the sunny shores of Monaco in the south of France, Imagina is spread over three days of conferences, with a renowned awards ceremony and a trade show. Since last year, Imagina has also been the home of the European Forum of 3D Visualization, which targets architects, urban planners, engineers and the automotive industry.

One of the best parts of Imagina is undoubtedly the research conferences where scientists from around the globe present their latest work, sometimes in a sneak preview of their SIGGRAPH presentation. If the latest two Imagina editions were largely focused on image-based technology, this year, mathematics and simulations were the rule. It is always interesting to note that even us CG geeks are sometimes wary of mathematics and automation, when it comes to artistic creation. But as German researcher Olga Sorkine, from TU Berlin brilliantly reminded us, the beauty of nature has everything to do with mathematics. She showcased an application that creates the best possible color harmony in images: the only images that could not be improved were painting masterpieces and photos of flowers and other natural elements.

On sabbatical from teaching this year, Zoran Popović has been spending time with Electronic Arts. In his presentation, he summed up the difference in approaches that led him towards the video game instead of vfx.

This provided a good insight as to how procedural creation is about to unleash a major transition into CG works and creation: as procedural simulation tools become increasingly effective and efficient, the various conferences this year gave an insight into how complex natural and even human behaviors can be recreated to a totally realistic degree with a set of simple but smartly used parameters.

Oddly enough, this revolution does not stem from the vfx industry but from what has always been considered its poor relations: video games. Video game technology was taking its revenge this year at Imagina. Most of the breakthroughs showcased there were directly related to video games. Zoran Popovic is a researcher well-known to SIGGRAPH attendees. This year, he took a sabbatical from the University of Washington in Seattle to cross the border to Vancouver and spend some time with the Electronic Arts research team. Popovic brilliantly sums up the difference in approaches that led him towards the video game instead of vfx: "When you work on vfx, you just need your simulation to hold for a few seconds, just so you can get the shot you need. But in video games, the simulation has to hold up endlessly to create a persistent universe that the gamer will be able to interact with."

As the quality of real-time rendering becomes more and more photorealistic, the video game approach is increasingly making sense for vfx, and what Popovic and others demonstrated is sure to be of high interest to everyone in this industry, with this year's keywords being procedurals, photorealism, and real-time. Popovic explained how, through a simple set of equations, he has developed new real-time simulations for crowds that are based on flow rather than agents. It uses a simple mapping technique that creates what we could call hot and cold spots based on topology, obstacles and danger that attract or repulse individual characters. Popovic showed various examples, all in real-time, where dense groups of people interact with each other and the city. You could see people walking on sidewalks, waiting at the stoplights, crossing through car traffic, evacuating a building on fire or running away before a giant flying saucer. To provide a comparison with tools like Massive, he ran an animation of a 2000-people army fleeing on rolling hill terrain and pursued by another army three times its size, all in real-time. The simulation showed a wide range of behaviors, from well-planned retreat moves to total panic on rough terrain. Popovic also demonstrated real-time fluid simulations that were equally stunning, and where pixel rendering too longer than running the simulation!