Now here's a little science we can all get behind. Check out this gorgeous particle physics demonstration, courtesy of special effects artist Thiago Costa's Lagoa Multiphysics.
Thiago Costa has worked on the Assassin's Creed Lineage series at Ubisoft, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra with CafeFX, and a whole lot more. His body of work can be found at his personal blog.
This video comes from his startup company, Lagoa Technologies. It's meant to show-off Lagoa Mulitphysics, a particle physics framework that CG artists can use to control fluids, plastics, granular materials, and more, according to the description in the video at least.
These are the sort of effects that you'd hardly notice in a good CG movie or commercial, if the artists do their job right, at least. Instead of saying, "Wow, those are some amazing particle effects," you should be saying, "Wow, what an amazing movie."
The video gives us a lovely little peek behind the scenes, at the impressive computing power that goes into effects that hopefully won't stand out in a finished product.