SIGGRAPH 2026 Recap

The amazing people, the shrinking floor, and what we owe the next generation

I work from home and help run an online community, which means most of my human interaction happens inside a grid of rectangles on a screen. Zoom calls, Discord threads, community posts. Fifty-one weeks a year, I am essentially a very enthusiastic head in a box with a decent shirt on and running shorts no one will ever see.

Last week, I got to be a full person again.

I spent the week at SIGGRAPH 2026 in downtown Los Angeles, and I’ve got the full recap for you coming in hot!

The highlight of my week was our session on 3D jobs outside of entertainment. Angela Holm, Darlene Pepper, Philip Luhn, and Andre Schneider, all members of The 3D Artist Community, were phenomenal panelists. The room brought great questions, the feedback was wonderful, and it was the biggest turnout of 3DAC members I’ve ever had at a conference. I was so proud of everything going on in that room.

Members of the 3DAC being awesome!

And beyond the session, there’s the thing that happens when you’ve been coming to this conference long enough. I’ve been attending SIGGRAPH on and off since my first one in San Diego, back in 2007.

Stay in this industry that long and the people you came up with are suddenly the ones on stage, running companies, building the tools. It is such a boost to see good people I’ve known since my first SIGGRAPH doing new things and cool things. I really like the people in this industry.

Here are my other main takeaways..

The shrinking floor

Every year I write some version of the same recap, and every year the same thing is true: SIGGRAPH gets smaller. The show floor wasn’t even in the main hall of the LA Convention Center this time. It was in the smaller hall, taking up maybe half of it, with a lot of open space where booths used to be.

Siggraph 2025 Roundup!

I understand why. Companies figured out that the enormous cost of a booth doesn’t return the investment, so they throw parties and host events away from the floor instead. I also heard rumors that because of the political and economic situation, international travel was cut down significantly from previous years. The floor itself was a fraction of what it was at its peak and it was noticable.

But one thing that disappeared with the booths matters a lot more than the booths.

The missing on-ramp

Twenty years ago, SIGGRAPH was where you got a job. There was a job fair. Students would show up, walk the booths, talk to recruiters, and set up interviews before they even landed. You could just be there and show people your reel and have a shot at getting a job.

Those days are long gone.

I sat in one session where a professor stood up and shared a number that’s been rattling around my head since. Their program used to place about 80% of graduating students in jobs within six months. That number is now 10%.

And in place of the old on-ramp, we now ask new artists to do everything themselves. Network relentlessly while being impressive and memorable in every hallway conversation. Oh…and also have a flawless portfolio.

We’re asking these kids to be unicorns, and it’s impossible. The cruelest part is that this incoming generation is really, really good. Extraordinarily good. There’s no shortage of talent. There’s a shortage of opportunities.

What Are We Really Promising Creative Students?

So here’s my call to action for every industry vet reading this: do something. Advice, encouragement, an introduction, help with the unglamorous logistics of getting hired. Even a ten-minute portfolio review matters more than you think. It is brutally hard to be young in this industry right now and they need support from everyone else.

AI: past the hype, into the workflows

Last year I wrote that companies were deep in R&D mode, testing every AI claim that crossed an executive’s LinkedIn feed. Well, we’re past that phase. They ran the tests. Most of the tools weren’t up to snuff.

That’s not me saying AI is dead. Companies are absolutely using it, but they’re using it quietly and specifically: menial tasks, repetitive work, background props, set extensions but not much hero work.

And a split has emerged. Big companies are loud and proud about their AI usage because their stockholders need to hear they’re doing due diligence on the new technology. Smaller companies, meanwhile, are watching the price of these tools climb and are quietly using them less and only when it saves them money.

There is no one-size-fits-all AI solution that works for every company and every workflow. Everybody is doing it a little differently based on what they need and how they work, and that was always going to be the correct outcome.

One more AI thought, and this one is an idea I recommend you steal.

Jonathan Winbush told a story about his brother, who was at a Buc-ee’s gas station and saw an ad the company had generated with AI, and it dragged their iconic mascot way off its hero look. The idea that came out of it: what if you redid that ad in 3D, properly, and showed the company what their character is supposed to look like?

Think about what that means as a self-promotion strategy. Companies putting out AI slop are setting a benchmark in public. If you see one and think “I can do better,” go do better. Then show them. Show them why a person matters over the code. Worst case, you’ve got a killer portfolio piece. Best case, they hire you next time.

Gaussian splats are making progress

On the tech side, the usual suspects were everywhere. USD in every other session and this year, a whole lot of Gaussian splats, which made me happy. I think splats are very cool.

I actually set out one day specifically to find how splats are being used in real production work. I mostly didn’t find it. There was a lot of gimmicky stuff, and even the session devoted to splats in production turned out to be an open conversation about how we could use these things. There are relighting tools and Blender plugins floating around, but none of them really do the job yet.

BUT…there were some really cool 4D Gaussian Splat demos. To be clear, 4D Gaussian Splats is a stupid name. It’s actually just video generation of Gaussian Splats. So instead of it being a static image, it’s moving and they’re pretty cool and dynamic when you see them in action.

They aren’t there yet, but they created some buzz and somebody smart is going to figure out how to actually work with splats in a pipeline. When they do, it’s going to be an unlock for the industry.

It’s close.

The Pixar layoffs

The Pixar layoffs landed during the conference, and it was the scuttlebutt in every hallway. There’s not much profound to say. It just sucks. So many of us have been through it, and the only real response is to be kind and supportive to the people affected, because it’s scary how nobody in this industry is immune.

DTLA Sucks

I need to get this off my chest: downtown Los Angeles might be my least favorite urban area in the entire United States.

The convention center sits sandwiched between a highway and an unfinished skyscraper project, and no matter where you’re going, you’re somehow always walking around the Crypto.com Arena to get there.

That’s the backdrop of the conference. And it’s not just an aesthetic complaint. Countless people told me they felt unsafe, and plenty skipped events at night because they didn’t want to walk through certain areas to get there. I watched people take Ubers three blocks.

Think about the alternatives. Downtown Chicago. New Orleans. Boston. New York. Seattle. San Diego. Vancouver. Toronto. Montreal. Mexico City… Pretty much every major city in North America offers more vibrancy, more walkability, and a better first impression than downtown LA. I talked to attendees whose first-ever trip to the United States was this. That genuinely bums me out.

So here’s my pitch to anyone at SIGGRAPH reading this: the conference is already getting smaller. A smaller footprint opens up smaller venues in cooler spots. I know so much of the industry is in Los Angeles and the spreadsheet says that’s a good idea but if we’re going to shrink, let’s shrink somewhere worth being.

Final thoughts

Overall, the conference is a fantastic reminder as to what is truly special about this industry. The researchers are brilliant, the artists are phenomenal, and I always leave there motivated and ready to make this industry better.

I’m so lucky I’ve been able to do this for 20 years and look forward to 20 more.

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Maya 2026.2 lets you train your own AI animation models - CG Channel

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3D Job Spreadsheet

Link to Google Doc With A TON of Jobs in Animation (not operated by me)

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Hello! Michael Tanzillo here. I am the Head of Technical Artists with the Substance 3D team at Adobe. Previously, I was a Senior Artist on animated films at Blue Sky Studios/Disney with credits including three Ice Age movies, two Rios, Peanuts, Ferdinand, Spies in Disguise, and Epic.

In addition to his work as an artist, I am the Co-Author of the book Lighting for Animation: The Visual Art of Storytelling and the Co-Founder of The Academy of Animated Art, an online school that has helped hundreds of artists around the world begin careers in Animation, Visual Effects, and Digital Imaging. I also created The 3D Artist Community on Skool and this newsletter.

www.michaeltanzillo.com
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