PhD candidate Joel Wretborn and his colleagues Alexey Stomakhin and Steve Lesser at the New Zealand–based visual effects studio WētāDigital x Unity and Douglas McHale at WētāFX have won an Emerging Technology Award at the 21st annual Visual Effects Society Awards for their water simulation toolset used in Avatar: The Way of Water.
Joel Wretborn, who began his doctoral studies under Professor Christopher Batty’s supervision in January, and his colleagues at WētāFX developed a new comprehensive toolset to simulate water realistically, from colossal splashes and cresting waves at the largest of scales to tiny water droplets, thin films and bubbles at the smallest.
Read more about the award, and Wretborn's work, in the full article from Computer Science.