Physics-inspired approach to realistic and stable water spray with narrowband air particles

We propose an efficient and physics-inspired method for producing water spray effects by modeling air particles within a narrowband of the water surface in particle-based water simulation. In the real world, water and air continuously interact with each other around free surfaces, and this phenomenon is commonly observed in waterfalls or in rough sea waves. Due to the small volume of water spray, the interfaces between water and air become vague, and the interactions between water and air lead to strong vortex phenomena. To express these phenomena, we propose the generation of narrowband air cells in particle-based water simulations and the expression of water spray effects by creating and evolving air particles in narrowband air cells. We guarantee the robustness of the simulation by solving the drifting problem that occurs when the number of adjacent air particles is insufficient. Experiments convincingly demonstrate that the proposed approach is efficient and easy to use while delivering high-quality results. We produce efficient water spray effects from coarse simulation as an independent post-process that can be applied to most particle-based fluid solvers.