It’s not unusual for Noble prize winners to put in an appearance at the AAAS meeting, but this year’s meeting also featured a few Oscar winners as well. In one of the final sessions of the conference, Doug Roble of Digital Domain, filled us in on some of the secrets of designing special effects for blockbuster movies.

Roble listed some of the ways that computer animators try to make their animations look realistic. They use satellite imagery and the latest atmospheric models, he said, and they’re always culling through scientific journals in search of new information. Still, the drive for scientific accuracy has its limits. “It doesn’t have to be totally accurate,” says Roble. “If it looks good, it’s right.”

“I would never ever fly in an airplane that had been designed using my animation,” he added.