How to make a SIGGRAPH paper while having all the fun

Li-Yi WeiSIGGRAPH Asia 2014

How to have fun

Do what you love

Then there can be no pain!

Life is too short

Be the best

Action

Outcome

Ask an ugly person outSubmit to XXXX

…

Ask a beautiful person outSubmit to SIGGRAPH

…

Accepted/Succeeded Rejected/Failed

How to make a SIGGRAPH paperwhile having all the fun

Not that hard

I am not very smart; I can do it, so can you.

How to make a SIGGRAPH paper

Make paperHave ideas

How to produce ideas

Long story ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Avoid long office hours

I got ideas while doing other (fun) stuff

Hang around creative peopleFun, and productive

How to make the rest of the paper

Submission = paper + videoWYSIWYG - work directly on these

Manage paper via draftsManage video via slides

Paper drafts

We see only published papers

But not internal progress

[colored texts are comments]

And discussions

[a few hundred pages like these]

Begin title + abstract with faintest idea

Introduction for basic storyIterate everything

that you see in published papersthat you do not see

Just write whatever

[about a month before deadline]

empty figure frames

Update the draft with progress

manual sketch

discussions

Visualize where you are

[about a week before deadline]

Why paper drafts

Repository for progressClear visibility with low ambiguity

External RAM to increase working memoryRecall what you have done after a beer night

Communication mediumSubstitute emails and meetings

Revision control everything

SVN or GIT for sourceShare with collaboratorsRevert mistakes; better safe than sorry

Cloud drive for large/binary dataExperimental resultsAnything not for the final paper

Did this to my Makefilearound sig01 deadline:

clean:rm –r –f *.c

Automate everything

One command to compile and runExecutables, results, papers, etc.Minimize manual repetition

Long hours often caused by inefficiency

Use Latex, not MS Word

Easier for concurrent edit and revision controlManage multiple versions from the same source

Comments show up only in draft, not final version

Code

Means but not end for the productResearch much more than “finish code”

Video slides

Why make a video

Mandatory for animation/interaction projectsEasier to watch a video than to read a paper

5 min versus hoursPeople (e.g. reviewers) are busy

Help thinking and paper writingBase for conference talk

Steps

ScriptStoryboardDetailed segments + effectsExpansion for conference talk

Script

Express story in text + drawingDo not commit to particular media yet

Storyboard

Convert script into slides, e.g.

Detailed segments + effects

Iterative process like paper writing

Why slides

Slides better than timeline editingNarration vs. animation

Automate transition & animationSave slides into video

Expand slides for conference talk

Video slides can be a good start for talk slidesSave a lot of redundant work

Just add more informationAlgorithms, previous works, etc.

Manual control transition + effects

Finblog.liyiwei.org