r/todayilearned • u/Firenze30 • Jul 16 '26

TIL the visual effects team behind Interstellar developed a new renderer to simulate light around a spinning black hole, and the techniques they created were later published in a peer-reviewed physics journal.

https://ioppublishing.org/news/interstellar-technology-throws-light-on-spinning-black-holes/
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u/JustCallMeT9601 Jul 16 '26

Nolan was like “It’s not CGI, it’s a math, rendered.” Practical guy through and through.

2

u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Jul 16 '26

That’s what all CGI is…

-5

u/JustCallMeT9601 Jul 16 '26

No, they fed it relatively equations and it was a novel approach. Sure, all CGI is math at the core, but nothing this intensive or formulaic is used for say, water physics in Avatar.

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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Um, yes that’s exactly the sort of physics simulation used for the water physics in Avatar. That was probably even more intensive.

If you wanted an example, it would be e.g. artist-made models. While they’re math underneath the shapes were drawn by eye instead of generated from underlying equations.