> and one situation where CG still isn't quite "there" yet IMO is fluid effects and explosions (which is somewhat combined with the simulation of them as well as the rendering)

To be honest, the non-CG crash scene in the snippets that I've seen looked off too. Random fireballs starting in random locations.

When doing non-CG crash for movies, they often stuff the vehicle with explosives for a more spectacular result. They know it's not realistic, because they take the decision to add all these explosives.

Now when reality gets influenced by fiction, ISIS actually used bombs that make a lot of flames, more than necessary for warfare, just to make their propaganda videos similar to the Hollywood movies their recruiting targets have been watching all their life.

Perhaps to make it look worse on tv to get coverage .

I am sure recruiting videos could just as well use CGI if they wanted to. Likely anyway does, skifull editing and manipulation are required for any propoganda content anyway.

Hi, if I wanted to have a career doing what you do whats path if course I should take considering im a total novice in programming.

I'm not sure I'm afraid... I started programming when I was quite young, and have always been interested in it, and in terms of the VFX / Graphics industry, I've only been involved in that for the past 10 years, before that I was in other industries, so I really stumbled into doing it.

All the graphics / VFX knowledge I now have is self-taught (other than learning off colleagues) as well as experience working in the industry.

I'd say learning how to program is a good starting point, if you are really interested in graphics it's probably a good idea move into low-level programming (C,C++,CUDA) that's used in the HPC realm, because often the code will need to be extremely optimised. However, you can still do cool things in a higher-level language.

Thank you. I've always felt this is a niche field and hence not may resources are available online.

Thanks a bunch for your output :)

There are high-intensity 6-month VFX training programs at art schools where you learn the full pipeline. I don't think most VFX people know much programming, but it can be helpful in certain situations.

Im actually a lot more interested in rendering and the programming side of graphics. Its just wherever I search I can't find a clear cut path for this ... this isn't something I want to transition into next year - fundamentally I want to understand the systems of rendering and probably transition in into a consultant of sorts in the graphics field. Im sorry I know its vague... but I can't be more clear either

The Applied Mathematics program at UCLA (and others I'm sure) have produced many CG researchers under the direction of Joseph Teran. I'm sure there are many other great programs and professors; this is just one that I know about from colleagues that have gone through the program.

https://www.math.ucla.edu/people/ladder/jteran

It sounds like the problem is people don't have a feel for what real explosions look like because they don't see them often enough. And if they do have good reference it's probably for controlled explosions rather than rare catastrophic explosions which I'm sure is quite a surreal experience.