How to make a SIGGRAPH paper
while having all the fun 
Li-Yi Wei
SIGGRAPH 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
Accepted/Succeeded
Rejected/Failed
Ask an ugly person out
Submit to XXXX
…
Ask a beautiful person out
Submit to SIGGRAPH
…
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How to make a SIGGRAPH paper
while 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
Have
ideas
Make
paper
How to produce ideas
Long story
…………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………
Avoid long office hours
I got ideas while doing other (fun) stuff
Hang around creative people
Fun, and productive
How to make the rest of the paper
Submission = paper + video
WYSIWYG - work directly on these
Manage paper via drafts
Manage 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]
Just write whatever
Begin title + abstract with faintest idea
Introduction for basic story
Iterate everything
that you see in published papers
that you do not see
Update the draft with progress
empty figure frames
manual sketch
discussions
[about a month before deadline]
Visualize where you are
[about a week before deadline]
Why paper drafts
Repository for progress
Clear visibility with low ambiguity
External RAM to increase working memory
Recall what you have done after a beer night
Communication medium
Substitute emails and meetings
Revision control everything
SVN or GIT for source
Share with collaborators
Revert mistakes; better safe than sorry
Cloud drive for large/binary data
Experimental results
Anything not for the final paper
Did this to my Makefile
around sig01 deadline:
clean:
rm –r –f *.c
Automate everything
One command to compile and run
Executables, results, papers, etc.
Minimize manual repetition
Long hours often caused by inefficiency
Use Latex, not MS Word
Easier for concurrent edit and revision control
Manage multiple versions from the same source
Comments show up only in draft, not final version
Code
Means but not end for the product
Research much more than “finish code”
Video slides
Why make a video
Mandatory for animation/interaction projects
Easier to watch a video than to read a paper
5 min versus hours
People (e.g. reviewers) are busy
Help thinking and paper writing
Base for conference talk
Steps
Script
Storyboard
Detailed segments + effects
Expansion for conference talk
Script
Express story in text + drawing
Do 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 editing
Narration vs. animation
Automate transition & animation
Save slides into video
Expand slides for conference talk
Video slides can be a good start for talk slides
Save a lot of redundant work
Just add more information
Algorithms, previous works, etc.
Manual control transition + effects
blog.liyiwei.org
Fin