Image credit: photo by Matthias von Loebell © 2025 ACM SIGGRAPH
On Tuesday, 12 August, SIGGRAPH 2025 Real-Time Live! Chair Inigo Quilez and team brought audiences another electrifying showcase of the latest in interactive, high-performance graphics. This year’s Real-Time Live! returned to Vancouver, drawing a full house of attendees and an even wider global audience via livestream.
Before the show officially began, SIGGRAPH 2025 Conference Chair Ginger Alford recognized longtime SIGGRAPH contributor Natalya Tatarchuk with a special award for 20 years of her popular Course, Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games. Congratulations and thank you to Natalya for her contributions and dedication to the SIGGRAPH community!
Image credit: photo by David Weng © 2025 ACM SIGGRAPH
This year, Real-Time Live! featured 12 live demos, pushing the boundaries of real-time technology — from AI-driven creative tools to breakthroughs in physics simulation, volumetric capture, and interactive performance. Before diving into the recap of each demo, check out the Real-Time Live! trailer for a taste of this year’s innovation, and catch the replay via Virtual Access or YouTube.
Drawing with Light: AI-Driven Visual Synthesis for Real-Time Laser Installations
A custom system combines real-time AI image generation with laser mapping, using StreamDiffusion and TouchDesigner to create and refine visuals in an interactive loop before converting them into laser paths. The system projects and maps lasers onto surfaces, with Ableton Live syncing the display to music.
Painting with 3D Gaussian Splat Brushes
A new interactive system lets artists paint in real time with 3D Gaussian splat brushes by sampling volumetric fragments from real-world captures. The tool deforms splats along brush strokes and uses diffusion inpainting to create seamless, realistic transitions.
Descendant: Re-imagining Guangdong Embroidery and Folk Rituals through Digitization
“Descendant” introduces a heritage conservation workflow that integrates cross-platform real-time tools. The VR project samples and simulates Teochew embroidery and folk rituals, examining how digitization influences cultural memory and affects the preservation of traditional practices.
Real-Time Graphics in Desmos, With Just Math and a Browser
From graphing calculator to creative playground — Desmos empowers over 100M users to explore graphics and art through pure math in a web browser. This session highlighted inspiring work from the next generation of mathematical artists.
InfiniteStudio: 4D Volumetric Capture for Filmmaking and Beyond
InfiniteStudio, winner of Best in Show, is a professional-grade 4D Gaussian Splatting capture system that meets the visual fidelity demands of top-tier productions — cutting production time while unlocking unprecedented creative freedom for immersive storytelling.
Spatial Sensing: Real-Time Immersive Environmental Sensing
Machine-Guided Spatial Sensing combines augmented reality with human interaction to map environmental fields such as airflows or gas concentrations. Real-time data analysis continuously updates the map and directs a handheld sensor to optimal points, improving measurement accuracy.
Any Character, Any Movement
Uthana’s AI-powered text-to-motion animation and rig-agnostic auto-retargeting make it possible to get any character moving — in under five minutes — with motion stitching and real-time character control.
Miegakure: A Game Where You Explore and Interact With a 4D World
A mind-bending gameplay experience where you control a 3D character in a 4D world, exploring via 3D “slices” of the higher-dimensional space.
Backseat Gaming Permitted: Meet the AI Co-Streamer from Streamlabs
In partnership with NVIDIA and Inworld AI, Streamlabs introduced an AI-powered co-host, producer, and assistant for livestreamers, enabling deeper audience interaction and real-time customization.
Crazy Fast Physics! Augmented Vertex Block Descent in Action!
Winner of the Audience Choice Award, this groundbreaking physics solver is the fastest yet for games and interactive apps, simulating millions of objects with friction, stacking, and articulated chains in real time.
DJESTHESIA: Tangible Multimedia for DJs (not shown during the live program)
Combining DJ performance, motion capture, and projected visuals, DJESTHESIA turns a DJ into both the performer and the visual show through tangible interaction.
Real-Time Path-Tracing with NVIDIA RTX MegaGeometry
NVIDIA’s RTX Mega Geometry accelerates Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) building, allowing path tracing of scenes with up to 100 times more triangles. The technology enables real-time global illumination for sub-pixel micro geometry for the first time.
PUPPIX – Real-Time Performed Digital Characters Using Physical Puppet Twins
Live puppeteering meets digital animation. Performers bring physical puppets to life, driving their digital twins in real time for interactive theatrical experiences.
Congratulations to this year’s Best in Show and Audience Choice award winners! If you missed this high-energy, tech-packed event — or want to relive the magic — Virtual Access attendees can stream the full show through 15 October 2025. Or, catch it on the ACM SIGGRAPH YouTube channel.
