Seungbae Bang is the 2015 first place winner of the SIGGRAPH Student Research Competition and recently sat down with SIGGRAPH to tell his story on how he created a winning Poster.
SIGGRAPH 2016 (S2016): Tell us about yourself.
Seungbae Bang (SB): I am a Ph.D. student at Motion Computing Laboratory at KAIST in South Korea. I have been focusing my educational career on rigging and motion of a character, especially in the area of artist-friendly technique.
(S2016): What made you apply to SIGGRAPH Posters?
(SB): Early in 2015, my advisor, Professor Sung-Hee Lee, suggested that I submit a poster to SIGGRAPH. At first, I didn’t think much about the process and just thought it would be a good opportunity to present my work in front of a lot of people. If I was able to present my work at SIGGRAPH 2015, I knew this would open a lot of doors for me. At the conference, I was able to meet people that were interested in my work and I even had a good discussion with a company after the presentation and had the chance to tour their building.
(S2016): What did you like about the SIGGRAPH Posters Program?
(SB): I found the e-poster format* suitable for me because I already had nicely organized PowerPoint slides that came from my Master thesis. I appreciated how I was able to put out an iPad to show a demo video at my station,. I also had my laptop to show my actual demonstration. I think the use of technology helped a lot for my audience to understand the work I was presenting.
(S2016): Can you tell us more about the finalist presentation?
(SB): At the finalist presentation, I had to prepare a 10 minute presentation with PowerPoint. This was lucky for me, because I had a chance to present my work to the company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) the day before I arrived at SIGGRAPH. So I was already prepared with a well-organized PowerPoint presentation. I practiced the oral presentation with my advisor the day before the presentation and felt that I was really prepared for the big presentation. I was elated that I won first place in the SIGGRAPH 2015 Student Research Competition.
(S2016): What other research achievements have you received recently?
(SB): I have presented at Pacific Graphics 2015, and from there my work has been published in Computer Graphics Forum. I also received ‘Best Student Paper’ at Pacific Graphics 2015. My work has been able to bring me good fortune and confidence, knowing that my work is meaningful to others. I am still working on the same subject from SIGGRAPH 2105 and Pacific Graphics 2015, I am now improving the technique with some new ideas. Luckily, I also got an invitation for a grand finale for the ACM Student Research Competition, which I will be competing with all other conference’s first place winners. So I am doing my best to improve my work!
* the e-poster format will not be used at SIGGRAPH 2016
