hey! have you seen Surf’s Up? the CG animation with Penguin surfers? The water looked really good!
What do you think… are all those fluid simulated? it must have took a lot of computer power?
I’ve only seen previews of it but as far as I know it is simulated fluids. It’s certainly some of the best water 3d animation I’ve seen for sure.
No it’s not simulated at all. Simulations are time intensive and hard to tweak - don’t underestimate the power of a capable artist 
You can see exactly how they did it in this PDF: http://www.185vfx.com/resources/Siggraph2007SurfsUpCourseNotes.pdf
Wow! It’s amazing.
When I try to open that PDF I get an error message.
EDIT:
I found an alternate link:
http://www.imageworks.com/ipax/docs/Siggraph2007SurfsUpCourseNotes.pdf
Is anyone else trying this with Blender? I have been trying out different wave rigs but haven’t tried surfs up yet. Anyhow would be fun to bounce ideas back and forth on what works for Blender. I guess I will see how it is to animate a spline and patch with shape curves and rig it. The things I have tried with some success is(1. Array modifer with hooks 2. Armatures with ik 3. And armatures controlling a lattice with some rvk fix.) Also want to try a vortex of metaballs maybe even using boids or a lattice to shape a nice wave.
I just wondered how you find pages like this? Is it via siggraph? it would be smart with a kind of resource page with links to theese kind of papers.
anyway, back to topic; those waves looks realy cool, i want to try that in blender when i find time.
ok…now i saw the document… They’re amazing!! How’d they think of that?! 
Just saw the movie and was totally blown away. It’s all CG, created with lots of very clever tools and controls (read the full Siggraph report). It’s waaaaay over the top in realism (also, great environments and acting). I can’t imagine the water being more real, frankly. Also, it’s a really good and complete storyline that never seems forced…everything about this movie really flowed well. I almost passed it up thinking “surfing peguins? gimme a break…enough with the penguins already!”, I’m very glad I took the time to see it! Now…enough with the penguins, already!