Two months ago, Marvel announced the cast for the highly-anticipate Avengers: Doomsday in a, let’s call it “unique,” manner. On social media, the studio streamed video of cast chairs with a particular actor’s name on it. The camera would hold for twelve minutes or so, and then Alan Silvestri’s Avengers theme would play and the camera would pan to the right for the next reveal. Odd as it was, the gamble mostly worked, as we nerds spend all day talking about the names on the internet. Turns out, the methodical pace of the reveal had something else to tell us about Doomsday: that we were going to have to wait a bit. Yesterday, Hollywood Reporter announced that Marvel has pushed Doomsday‘s release date from May 1, 2026 to Dec. 18, 2026 and the release date to the sequel Avengers: Secret Wars from Dec. 17, 2027 to May 7, 2027. At this point, the release date change shouldn’t be much of a surprise. After all, the fourth Avengers movie was supposed to have released a few weeks ago, on May 1, 2025. Of course, that announcement came back in 2022 and it was for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, staring Jonathan Majors as the time-traveling baddie Kang the Conquerer. Since then, Majors’s off-screen behavior got him booted from the universe and Kang was defeated, first by Ant-Man and a giant bug in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and then his variants were dealt with in the second season of Loki. Since then, the Avengers movie has been in creative overhaul, first by moving Kang Dynasty director Destin Daniel Cretton over to Spider-Man: Brand New Day and replacing him with Joe and Anthony Russo, who helmed Infinity War and Endgame. Further, Marvel brought back Robert Downey Jr., now as Fantastic Four arch-villain Doctor Doom, in a move that still doesn’t make sense, but hopefully will on screen. In short, Marvel’s had a lot of work to do and the pauses make sense, even if Doomsday is now currently in production. However, the decision to push back the release date is a good thing on creative level. It’s no secret that Marvel has been struggling since Endgame. It’s not just that superhero fatuige has set in and it’s not just that Endgame and it’s exit of many beloved characters gave fans a good jumping-off point. It’s that the company has spread itself too thin, drawing MCU chief Kevin Feige‘s attention away from quality and pushing out substandard entries that most people don’t want. For a while, audiences kept showing up for the good stuff, as demonstrated by the success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and X-Men ’97, and for stuff that resonates with them, like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine. But too many bland entries, such as Thor: Love and Thunder and Secret Invasion have burned the general viewer too many times, and even solid releases like Loki‘s second season went underwatched. We are starting to see that turn around. Thunderbolts* proved a hit among critics and audiences, even if it didn’t do the box office numbers of movies from the MCU’s heyday. Likewise, Daredevil: Born Again didn’t dominate the discussion, but it generated decent buzz. Marvel knows all this. They’ve been quite open about the need to slow production. They already made the bold move of revamping Daredevil: Born Again midway through production, which resulted in a first season that sometimes showed the seams of being two radically different shows stitched together, but overall gave people what they want from Marvel: likable characters, good drama, and cool superhero action. In fact, Daredevil: Born Again should be the project that fans keep in mind when they consider the Doomsday news. There’s no question that Feige et al. made the right decision when bringing on new showrunner Dario Scardapane and directing duo Aaron Benson and Justin Moorehead, who changed the series from a superhero-adjacent courtroom drama to more of a character piece about Daredevil struggling with the ethics of vigilantism. But they needed to hit their new launch date and so retained a great deal of the original footage shot by the previous creative team. So as good as the final product was, the first season of Daredevil: Born Again didn’t always feel like a coherent vision and often shifted tones wildly. Scardapane, Benson, and Morehead have been promising that season two of the series will be more coherent, and that’s a good thing. But that’s also something they can do because they’re working on a television series. The Russo brothers can’t do the same thing with a movie, even a serialized one like the Avengers films. The story that hits the screen is going to be the story. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! And so, we wait a bit more and we’re glad to do it. We want Marvel to get this right, to tell a high adventure story that does right by the characters we love, that makes us feel like we did when we left the theater after Infinity War. In the meantime, we can keep looking at the back of casting chairs and speculating. Avengers: Doomsday comes to theaters on May 1, 2026 Dec. 18, 2026

Here's what we looked at this week:The quest to optimize existing objects: The EDJY features an unusual single-blade fingernail clipper design that allegedly delivers better results. Apple's "Vehicle Motion Cues" are an on-screen anti-motion-sickness trick.From Australia, magnetic and custom-fit sun shades for your car.The Otemon splice: A crazy Japanese technique for splicing the bottom of a rotted column.Image and work: Chris Hall Stunning Frank Lloyd Wright art tiles by Motawi Tileworks.A glow-in-the-dark substitute for EDC gear: These Isotope Tritium Fobs rely on actual radioactive isotopes.Philips' Fixables initiative will offer free downloadable files to 3d print replacement parts for their products.Dutch researchers develop "countersnapping," the opposite of a push-to-open mechanism. An industrial design classic: The Brionvega Algol TV, by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper.Good or bad? The Trace camera system records entire sporting matches, but highlights just your child.From Latvia, Kanttari's bronze bar cabinet. This Solo Windchill 47 Cooler has a built-in air conditioner. Because heaven forbid you break a sweat outside.The Loki cleaning robot, here to end janitors.A new umbrella shape from Japan (for an entirely frivolous purpose). Growl: An AR punching bag for training and gaming.Design solutions for beachside umbrella-wind wars, and one man vs. nature.Form follows function: Dyson's new approach yields the super slim PencilVac. An industrial design case study from Germany: Fluid Design updates Beurer's grooming devices.

A jump starter is an essential part of car's emergency kit, and a cordless one is definitely a lot less of a hassle. You don't need to pay a premium for a jump starter that reliably gets the job done, either. Amazon is currently offering the Lokithor J400 12V 2,000A cordless car jump starter for $33.97 shipped after you clip both $20 and 40% off coupons on the product page. The retail price is listed at $89.95, but we usually see it for closer to $50-$60. Not only does it function as a jump starter, it can also be used to recharge your smartphone in a pinch.Lokithor J400 12V 2,000A Car Jump Starter for $33.97Clip Both $20 Off and 40% Off CouponsLokithor J400 2,000A 12V Cordless Lithium Car Jump StarterThe Lokithor J400 is a compact 12V cordless car jump starter that can supply 2,000A of peak power and is capable of jumpstaring up to 8L gas or 6L diesel engines. The sizeable 8,000mAh battery will give you several jump starts before needing a recharge. Since the battery uses lithium (NMC) cells, it depletes a lot slower than your traditional battery and will retain most of its charge even after 24 months of non-use. The J400 also doubles as a portable power bank, so you can also use it to charge your iPhone or smartphone in a pinch.The J400 charges quickly over USB Type-C and if you don't have a cable on hand, both USB Type-C to Tpe-C and USB Type-A to Type-C cables are supplied in the package. There's even a flashlight with three separate modes (flashlight, SOS, and strobe) for emergencies. The jump starter is one of the smallest models in its class (3.4" x 6.9" x 1.7"), weighs about 1.5 pounds, and stows away easily in your trunk or dash.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

To the list of jobs that will not exist in the future, we must add Janitor. Loki Robotics, a San-Francisco-based startup, is developing an autonomous cleaning robot (also called Loki). At first blush, it doesn't look like much: A single robot arm and two storage bins.Then you see what it can do in the bathroom:And in the kitchen:It's not clear how much of what the 'bot is doing in the videos is purely autonomous versus being teleoperated, as it has the capacity for both. But the company's goal is full-autonomous. At present they're using teleoperation to train the 'bot when it encounters tasks it can't yet handle autonomously.As with Somatic, the other cleaning robot we looked at, Loki Robotics plans to roll the robots out with a monthly lease model. And while their target market will be offices, with the 'bot to replace cleaning staff, the company's marketing copy is written as if addressing a different audience:"We spend over a year of our lives doing chores - time that could be spent raising kids, calling grandparents, making music, building things. We believe tasks like scrubbing toilets don't belong on a human to-do list."In other words, don't worry about the unemployed janitorial staff: Call your Nana and sign up for piano lessons!

The full schedule for SIGGRAPH 2025 is out! While more sessions are always been added, I’ve gone through the list and found a few highlights. As usual, the Talks sessions are SIGGRAPH’s secret weapon of in-depth looks behind the scenes at VFX and animation projects. See the highlights below: Superman: Harnessing Numeric Power for Cinematic Magic, from Wētā FX (a production session) Doodle: A Modular Toolset for 2D Artistic Control in the 3D Effects of The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2, from DreamWorks Animation Highly Accurate GPU-Accelerated Animation Rigs for Toothless (in How To Train Your Dragon), from Framestore Choreography of Hair and Cloth in Disney’s “Moana 2”, from Walt Disney Animation Studios Advancements in Non-Procedural Groom Workflows for Mufasa: The Lion King, from MPC/Technicolor Blinded By The Light: A Case Study Of HDR Integration In Animation Production (in Sole Mates), from Netflix Animation Studios (previously, Animal Logic) Designing Oscar: Bespoke Tablet-Based Workflows for ILM StageCraft, from ILM Ooze Control: Procedural Shapeshifting FX in Pixar’s Elio, from Pixar Stabilizing Impossible Collisions with Loki, from Wētā FX Puppets to Pixels – Using live physical puppet performances for digital animation characters and creatures, from a range of presenters There are SO many more! Find the full programme here: https://s2025.conference-schedule.org/ The post The SIGGRAPH 2025 program is out – here’s some highlights! appeared first on befores & afters.

How to Play Cattle Crisis is an arcade shoot 'em up  game (Shmup). Pilot your fighter jet to defeat evil aliens and save our precious cows! Cattle Crisis is a short game and currently features one level. Arrow keys - Move the jet X or M or V - Shoot Z or N or C - Hyper / BombYou can also use a controller System As you shoot enemies or collect 🐄, your meter will fill. Once it passes the halfway point, you can activate Hyper Mode by pressing the Hyper button. While in Hyper Mode, the meter gradually depletes. Taking a hit will end Hyper Mode, but you won’t lose a life. Pressing the Hyper button again during Hyper Mode unleashes a devastating bomb, which consumes half of the remaining meter—if any is left. Scoring Shooting enemies at close range increases your score (up to 4×) and causes more 🐄 to drop, allowing you to charge the meter faster.While in Hyper Mode, enemies drop ⭐ instead of 🐄, which grant extra points. The value of each ⭐ is shown in the top-right corner during Hyper Mode.Each enemy defeated in Hyper Mode increases the ⭐ value.Activating a bomb turns all nearby bullets into additional ⭐. Video Series Cattle Crisis was created as part of a tutorial series on how to make an Advanced Shmup from scratch. If you also want to make a game like this check out the Lazy Devs Academy YouTube Channel! Credits This game was written and designed by Krystian Majewski, an Independent Developer and the host of the Lazy Devs Academy video channel. The music was composed by Sebastian Haßler, a music composer for film, TV and videogames. The cover illustration was created by Mag Draws. This project would have not been possible without the generous donations from my supporters on Ko-fi. Thank you! Special thanks also to all of the playtesters including: Aktane, Boghog, Indra_S, MasterCoding101, LokiStriker, Barend, TheGacko, SquidLight, Buster Ermy, mg1399, BrainOnOxygen, SkullDragger, Blixten, middleclassjoe, Chaz, otto: A Mush Man and others. Cattle Crisis was written entirely in Pico-8.More informationPurchaseBuy Now$5.00 USD or moreIn order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:Development logVersion 1 19 days ago

With over a hundred years of history and a stacked portfolio of films and TV shows, it’s no surprise that Disney has its own horse in the competitive streaming service race. Since the inception of Disney+ in 2019, the streaming giant has grown its portfolio beyond its classic fairy tale roots and now boasts a catalogue of box office-busting films and bingeable series alike. From Star Wars to Marvel, you might be wondering: How can I stream Disney+ in 4K? Look no further, as our guide will run you through everything you’ll need, from subscription types to hardware. How to Stream Disney+ in 4KUnlike most streaming services on the market, Disney+ doesn’t require you to have a premium account to access 4K content. That means no matter what kind of subscription you’ve chosen, whether it be a bundle or basic plan, you’ll have access to 4K streaming on Disney+. So if you’re considering which bundle or account type to pick, the decisions will come down to what extras you’d like, such as offline downloads or ads. Disney+ Basic (with Ads) – $9.99 per month Disney+ Premium (without Ads) – $15.99 per month Disney+ Hulu Bundle Basic (with Ads) – $10.99 per monthDisney+ Hulu Bundle Premium (without Ads) – $19.99 per monthDisney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Basic (with Ads) – $16.99 per month Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle Premium (without Ads) - $26.99 per month Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle (with Ads) - $16.99 per monthDisney+, Hulu, Max Bundle (without Ads) - $29.99 per monthPlayMake Sure Your Setup Is 4K-CompatibleTo stream Disney+ in 4K, you’ll need to ensure all aspects of your setup can support streaming in 4K. That means it’s not just your Smart TV that needs to be compatible, but also every other piece of hardware, too. If you use an Apple TV or Firestick, you’ll need to shop around for the 4K compatible versions. Same goes for buying a HDMI cable to connect your hardware. Budget 4K Streaming DeviceAmazon Fire TV Stick 4K MaxSee it at AmazonHDMI for 4KBelkin HDMI 2.1 Ultra High SpeedSee it at AmazonBest 4K TVLG 65" Class OLED evo C4See it at AmazonBest 4K Monitor (for gaming too)Asus ROG Swift PG32UCDPSee it at Best BuyOne important caveat to consider is that, as of right now, streaming Disney+ in 4K is not possible on computer browsers. That means if you're using a laptop, your content will be limited. Check Your ConnectionWhen streaming 4K content on Disney+, there aren’t any internet settings to adjust, as the app automatically detects internet quality and adjusts your content’s video format accordingly. With that in mind, if you’re still running into problems, you can reset your device’s cache. To do this, we recommend following the official guide Disney+ has on its website. Are There Other Ways to Watch Disney+ Movies and Shows in 4K ?From keyrings to theme parks, Disney loves to flaunt its vast collection of iconic IPs. As such, the media conglomerate has released a slew of its best content as physical Blu-rays. From Marvel’s catalogue of high-octane superhero flicks to Pixar’s collection of heart-rending animated films, much of the Disney+ catalogue can be purchased separately from the platform. Better still, many seasons of Disney’s beloved TV shows have also found a home on 4K Blu-ray, including The Mandalorian, Loki, and Hawkeye, to name a few.

Silverhand Member Oct 26, 2023 3,035 AC Odysseys real ending was in the DLC. Is Valhalla the same way or can I just play the base game? I put in over 200 hours in Odyssey before I had to force myself to just do story missions. I'm trying to keep that in mind for Valhalla. Will I handicap mysel by not collecting all the treasure and mysteries etc? How about mini games? Already the rhyming one seems important. Is Mirage something I will need to play? Thanks!  StrangerDanger Member Jul 18, 2018 6,694 200 hours wtf.... i guess multiply that by 4 for Valhalla. The definite ending is part of a free DLC called "The Last Chapter" for the game.   UnluckyKate Member Oct 25, 2017 11,906 I'd recommend Ireland and Paris DLCs if you enjoy the main gameplay and characters but you can ask yourself this question in 50 hours. Have fun. Don't linger too much in Norway, don't burn yourself on completion, just push through at your own pace and do what you feel like doing. No random drop in this game, everything is unique so go explore.  nihilence nøthing but silence Moderator Oct 25, 2017 18,947 From 'quake area to big OH. Mirage didn't seem to add anything memorable.   Arsene no Kiseki Member Oct 25, 2017 5,619 Canada I bought all the DLC for Valhalla but by the time I finished the base game + free epilogue DLC I was too burnt out to even look at the paid DLC. You should probably just wait until you finish the base game first lol.   Son of Sparda "This guy are sick" says The Wise Ones Member Oct 25, 2017 17,285 do I need the DLC? Click to expand... Click to shrink... God no. I forced myself through the first DLC and it was super mediocre. Didn't even bother with the rest of the season pass stuff even though I owned them. For reference I platinum'd Odyssey and finished and really enjoyed all of its DLCs. Valhalla just gets very boring after the first 20 or so hours.  dancingphlower Member Oct 27, 2017 13,201 I found Mirage to be the better game tbh   coldzone24 Member Oct 27, 2017 920 Cleveland, OH If Odyssey took you 200 hours, good luck with Valhalla. I finished the first two DLCs, but couldn't bring myself to do the big Ragnarok expansion. There is just too much game.  Xalbur Member Mar 30, 2019 716 You don't NEED the DLCs but they are pretty fun and add some decent variety to the adventure, story wise they are pretty much just side content. The Ragnarok DLC was a bit of a miss for me personally but might be fun if you really like the mythical stuff. I think you can wait until you are further into the game to decide if you want more, the game is already very long (too long in fact). Mirage doesn't really add anything to Valhalla's story, I found it to be worse than Valhalla and I'm already not a huge fan of it, worst of the RPG games.  carlsojo Shinra Employee Member Oct 28, 2017 37,544 San Francisco Ireland was pretty fun and self-contained.   Hasney One Winged Slayer The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 23,201 I liked the Ireland and France DLC packs. The free ending DLC was the most unsatisfying shit I have ever played, both in terms of the "gameplay" addition and the story content. It honestly would have been better to just leave it open ended.  OP OP Silverhand Member Oct 26, 2023 3,035 StrangerDanger said: 200 hours wtf.... i guess multiply that by 4 for Valhalla. The definite ending is part of a free DLC called "The Last Chapter" for the game. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I never left an area until I cleared all the markers. Then more would pop up!  beanman Member Apr 11, 2025 42 Arsene no Kiseki said: I bought all the DLC for Valhalla but by the time I finished the base game + free epilogue DLC I was too burnt out to even look at the paid DLC. You should probably just wait until you finish the base game first lol. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is exactly what happened to me. Paid for the season pass and never touched any of the content from it. The base game and free epilogue DLC wraps up the story nicely. Thank god I didn't pay for the additional DLC centered around the mythic stuff, I'd be even more annoyed with myself in that case.  Linus815 Member Oct 29, 2017 24,082 Ireland and Paris are worth it, great DLC's.   Eevea Member Sep 23, 2022 456 The Ireland and Paris DLCs are good. But I didn't care for the Ragnarok DLC all that much. You don't need the DLCs right away though. You can get them at the end of the main story if you want and see if you still want more game. I wanted to spend as much time as I could in the world though. Female Eivor is my fav mc they have done of the AC games I've played(which is just the modern ones admittedly).  OP OP Silverhand Member Oct 26, 2023 3,035 Ive gotten to the town and talked to the Jarl and reunited with my "brother". I have a weird feeling due to the guy/girl thing and stuff like having a Raven and Odin Sight, I am either Odin or possibly Loki.  OP OP Silverhand Member Oct 26, 2023 3,035 So I just arrived in England. So the game isn't even really set in Norway? That's kind of disappointing. Having fun with it though. I kind of miss Odyssey. Loved the setting, everything looked amazing! And Black Flag (isnt there a remake coming?). I sort of need to play the Enzio stuff as well. And Syndicate?  OP OP Silverhand Member Oct 26, 2023 3,035 In England. Game is boring as hell. Was Origin and Odyssey like this and I just don't remember? I remember like both of them. Loved Odyssey. Valhalla has no interesting characters. I don't even know what the plot is aside from "Upgrade the town and make friends with other leaders". When do I go Assassin Creeding? I mean yeah I can but so far I was just handed a stealth blade for next to no reason and told to go have fun. So far the actual Assassin stuff seems regulated to a side quest AFTER I build his house in the town. Again, am I misremembering the previous 2 games and actually becoming an Assassin? So far Im just a Viking who stealths good.  Walker_Boh Member Oct 25, 2017 2,370 Boise, Idaho Silverhand said: In England. Game is boring as hell. Was Origin and Odyssey like this and I just don't remember? I remember like both of them. Loved Odyssey. Valhalla has no interesting characters. I don't even know what the plot is aside from "Upgrade the town and make friends with other leaders". When do I go Assassin Creeding? I mean yeah I can but so far I was just handed a stealth blade for next to no reason and told to go have fun. So far the actual Assassin stuff seems regulated to a side quest AFTER I build his house in the town. Again, am I misremembering the previous 2 games and actually becoming an Assassin? So far Im just a Viking who stealths good. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Soonish. Valhalla's start is extremely slow and the plot felt half baked. It's the worst of the RPG AC games.   Eoin Member Oct 27, 2017 7,260 Silverhand said: Game is boring as hell. Was Origin and Odyssey like this and I just don't remember? Click to expand... Click to shrink... No, I would say not. Compared to Valhalla, Origins was a more focused game with a better idea of what it wanted to achieve with its setting, characters and game mechanics. Compared to Valhalla, Odyssey was a more varied and interesting rollercoaster with a ton of mechanical depth and flexibility.   Atom Member Jul 25, 2021 15,302 Welcome to AC Valhalla.   ResinPeasant93 Member Apr 24, 2024 2,450 I liked Valhalla fine but I spaced that thing over the period of months, and that seemed to be the right call. Don't try to cram it, thats my advice.   Linus815 Member Oct 29, 2017 24,082 Silverhand said: In England. Game is boring as hell. Was Origin and Odyssey like this and I just don't remember? I remember like both of them. Loved Odyssey. Valhalla has no interesting characters. I don't even know what the plot is aside from "Upgrade the town and make friends with other leaders". When do I go Assassin Creeding? I mean yeah I can but so far I was just handed a stealth blade for next to no reason and told to go have fun. So far the actual Assassin stuff seems regulated to a side quest AFTER I build his house in the town. Again, am I misremembering the previous 2 games and actually becoming an Assassin? So far Im just a Viking who stealths good. Click to expand... Click to shrink... you were never an assassin in Odyssey lol  Josh5890 I'm Your Favorite Poster's Favorite Poster The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 26,460 I managed to get through AC Valhalla, but I couldn't imagine going back for the DLC. The main campaign was longer than it had any right to be.   MrBS "This guy are sick" Member Oct 27, 2017 6,739 I forgot I played the Ireland and Paris DLC until it was mentioned now. Then you've got Ragnarok expansion after that. I think I'm at 300hrs for Valhalla. Mirage being a 50 hr game to 100% was a nice change of pace.  

Wētā Digital – now part of Unity – developed many of the tools and solutions used to bring the world of Avatar: The Way of Water to life. Here, we take a look at the CGI technology behind the water. If you’re interested in being among the first to access some of the tools used in the film, you can register for the Unity Wētā Tools beta through our website.James Cameron is no stranger to working with water. Titanic aside, in 2012 he made a record-breaking solo dive, piloting a submarine to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean: Earth’s lowest point at nearly 11 kilometers deep. As he said in the resulting 2014 documentary, Deepsea Challenge, “Down here you feel the power of nature’s imagination, which is so much greater than our own.”It must have been truly remarkable, then, seeing as the world of Pandora and its stunning visuals ultimately came from Cameron’s own imagination.Translating Cameron’s vision, which for the sequel included the new reef village of the aquatic Metkayina clan, required extensive use of visual effects – especially for the dominant water setting.The tools and solutions used to create the film’s VFX – including the award-winning water effects – were developed by Wētā Digital, now a division of Unity.To ensure that the interactions between the characters and water elements were as realistic as possible, a team of experts, including Unity and Wētā’s water simulation VFX specialists Alexey Stomakhin, Steve Lesser, Joel Wretborn, and Sean Flynn, were brought together to form the “Water Taskforce”. This team’s water toolset was recently recognized with a win at the Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards, with the Emerging Technology Award.Extreme attention to detail saw the taskforce conduct extensive research and experimentation in collaboration with New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) to find the best approach to creating CGI water. This included taking into account the effects of tides, wind, and the sea floor on aquatic environments.Avatar: The Way of Water required water effects for 2,225 shots, some taking up to eight days of simulation to achieve the high resolution needed.There were also numerous scenes where water interacted with over 50 creatures in a single shot. This presented the challenge of needing simulations to be accurate at scale, from large domains for bigger creatures, to submillimeter resolution for thin film on skin.As it was not computationally feasible to create a single-representation water system, the toolset was developed with a number of distinct solvers to keep compute times to a minimum.“The Loki water state machine was crucial for delivering the sheer volume of large-scale water shots in this movie. In a typical VFX-heavy movie, water shots of this complexity are few and far between and require many iterations and passes from very experienced artists. In contrast, our state machine approach was able to deliver great results after just a single pass, even by artists who had just entered the industry.” – Sean Flynn, simulation lead, Unity x Wētā DigitalA majority of the water tools developed by the team sit within Wētā’s proprietary simulation framework, Loki. This piece of tech includes solvers for multiple water states, including procedural water waves, bulk water, spray, mist, hero bubbles, diffuse bubbles, foam, capillary surface waves, thin film, and residual wetness.State machineMany of these solvers sit within the Loki state machine – an airborne spray system. The water states are coupled with the surrounding air, with transitions between states handled in a mass- and momentum-conserving way.Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, the Loki state machine allows multiple solvers to run in tandem. Each solver is optimized for the level of detail required by its respective state, such as bulk water, spray, and mist. This helps keep large-scale water simulations efficient while still capturing the very fine droplet interactions required by spray and mist.All of the states including the surrounding air are completed in a single simulation pass. As all solvers are computed with proper physical interactions between them, this is what helped to create such natural and realistic water interaction throughout the film.During SIGGRAPH 2019, a practical approach for modeling close-up water interaction with characters was presented, with a focus on high-fidelity surface tension and adhesion effects as water moves over and drips from skin. Using a scene from Alita: Battle Angel (a screenplay also written by Cameron), the team showed how this method allowed for a resolution of effects that was performant enough – on the scale of a fraction of a millimeter – to cover a whole character with a layer of water.The approach was to adapt an existing particle-in-cell (FLIP/APIC) solver to capture small-scale water-solid interaction dynamics. This technique was then advanced during the production of Avatar: The Way of Water to handle any sequence that involved characters emerging from water.“This was not a cheap solution, as we had to simulate water dynamics at sub-millimeter scales. The results would often take days to compute. We had to ensure our solver was scalable, robust and reliable enough to produce physically plausible visuals out of the box, with minimal tuning required from artists.” – Alexey Stomakhin, principal research engineer, Unity x Wētā DigitalTo achieve believable dynamics in underwater scenarios – for example, when characters breathe underwater in Avatar: The Way of Water – the approach to underwater bubbles was to simulate them together with a narrow band of water around the region of interest. The bubbles themselves would be represented in two parts: a hero and diffuse counterpart.The hero counterpart captures bigger bubbles with more explosive and turbulent behaviors. It utilizes an incompressible two-phase Navier-Stokes solve on a Eulerian grid, with the air phase represented by FLIP/APIC particles to facilitate volume conservation and accurate interface tracking.The diffuse counterpart captures the motion of smaller bubbles below the resolution of the Eulerian grid. The team has developed a novel scheme for coupling diffuse bubble particles with bulk fluid that could also be applied to other submerged, porous objects such as sand, hair, and cloth.To enhance the visual detail of a water surface simulation, the team from Wētā Digital and IST Austria developed a method of post-processing that took a simulation as an input, and increased its apparent resolution by simulating detailed Lagrangian water waves on top of it.Linear water wave theory was extended to work in non-planar domains with Lagrangian wave packets attached to spline curves that would evolve over the bulk fluid surface. This method produces high-frequency ripples with dispersive wave-live behaviors, customized to the underlying fluid simulation.A technique was developed for the realistic movement of underwater bubbles – created by movement in the water – reaching the water surface and converting into foam. This was important for nearly all of the water scenes in Avatar: The Way of Water.Grid-based Navier-Stokes simulators – usually reserved for capturing large-scale motion such as bulk fluid – are inherently limited by their grid resolution, making this method impractical for small-scale phenomena like spray and mist from breaking waves. These whitewater effects are usually simulated as independent Lagrangian particles.“One key aspect of our whitewater method is the interaction of two solvers: a grid-based fluid solver coupled with bubbles, and a SPH solver for foam constrained to the water surface. The declarative solver framework in Loki is what makes building and supporting these complex systems possible in production without having to develop new solvers from scratch.” – Joel Wretborn, senior research engineer, Unity x Wētā DigitalThe key aspect most of the existing solvers neglect are the collective effects: groups of bubbles rise faster than single bubbles due to their combined buoyancy, and the collection of many bubbles can have a significant impact on the motion of the water.The new technique addresses this limitation by simulating bubbles two-way coupled with the surrounding fluid. This effectively captures collective bubble effects, and creates a more connected look between bubbles and the motion of the fluid. As bubbles reach the surface they transition into "wet" foam particles constrained to the water surface, discretized with smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). In the end this created believable whitewater dynamics in both close-up and large ocean shots.The simulation technology used by the Water Taskforce was created by present and former colleagues at Wētā Digital, as well as friends from Wētā FX and academic institutions, including: Alexey Stomakhin, Joel Wretborn, Kevin Blom, Gilles Daviet, Steve Lesser, John Edholm, Noh-Hoon Lee, Eston Schweickart, Xiao Zhai, Sean Flynn, Andrew Moffat, Gary Boyle, Tomas Skrivan, Andreas Soderstron, John Johansson, Christoph Sprenger, Ken Museth, and Chris Wojtan. Learn more about Unity Wētā Tools beta.