Oscar Winner Brings Monsters to Life With His Simulation Software

While walking to school as a child, Jernej Barbič would marvel at how beautiful his home was. He was born and raised in a picturesque village in northwestern Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia), located in the European Alps. Surrounded by alpine and beech trees, Barbic dreamed of replicating their swaying in the wind for others to enjoy.At the time, he didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to create a system that could do that, but it sparked his interest in computer graphics, he says.Jernej BarbičEmployer University of Southern California, in Los AngelesTitle Professor of computer scienceMember grade Senior memberAlma maters University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia; Carnegie MellonTwenty years later, in 2016, Barbič, a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, made his mark. His Ziva VFX software system allows for the creation of realistic muscle, fat, and skin simulations for 3D digital humans and creatures.The technology was launched in 2016 by a startup he helped found, Ziva Dynamics, headquartered in Vancouver. It was acquired in 2021 by Unity Technologies of San Francisco.Ziva VFX has been used in more than 60 movies including Aquaman an…