Simulating Massive Dust in Megamind

Figure 1: Massive dust cloud animated using our fluid simulation framework at a resolution of 1200 × 195 × 590, which runs in 52 seconds per frame on a single workstation. This is a volume render of the simulated density field (front view and top view). In Dreamworks Animation’s Megamind, the production faced a challenge in creating a shot where the top of a skyscraper is torn off and hurled down a city street, destroying portions of the city and creating a massive dust cloud. Development for this shot inspired a new fluid simulation framework with significant improvements in four areas: speed, visual quality, setup flexibility and artistic control. In this talk we describe the simulation algorithm and the framework that allowed it to be used in our effects pipeline. Fast, Direct Simulation Our simulation algorithm is based on integrating the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, but with several modifications to classic approaches. We represent all solution variable