The Secret of Lucasfilm’s Magic: NVIDIA’s GPUs

The secret weapon of ILM’s wizards effects: NVIDIA GPUs, especially the Quadro line.  ILM developed several tools that take adavantage of Quadro GPUs and the last one is Plume, a tool used to simulate the movements of fluids.  Computing routines of Plume are coded in CUDA.  Plume allows ILM’s artists to work almost in real time instead to wait for a day to see the results.  Plume is now used on every film currently in the works at ILM.