Fluids win big, again

We’ve come a long way from Jack Palance dragging a giant Oscar with his teeth. As the opening sequence of Sunday’s Oscars showed, visual effects are now as important to movies as the stars. As the computer generated truck weaved between film icons like Paul Newman and Marlon Brando, it also swerved to avoid Godzilla, a Transformer, and some aliens.

With the special effects categories catching up in importance to awards like Best Actor, and in light of my previous post about the emphasis on fluid simulation at the SciTech Oscars, I thought now would be a good time to review this years winners.

The two categories I’d like to highlight are “Best Visual Effects” and “Best Animated Feature”. All of the nominees for Best Visual Effects included fluid simulations that were honored earlier in the month at the SciTech Oscars. Between the three nominees (Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Transformers, and The Golden Compass), all of the major trends in fluid simulation were touched upon. The winner for Best Animated Feature, Ratatouille, also featured significant fluid animation.

To win to a SciTech Oscar is certainly important, but to have a contribution to film be immediately validated by further victory weeks later at the regular Oscars only serves to underscore the importance of fluid simulation to film today. Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees, and I think I speak for all Scienceline readers when I say I enthusiastically anticipate what the effects community has in store for us next.