Senior Researcher and Engineer at Weta FX, bringing digital worlds to life through cutting-edge physics simulation.

As a Simulation R&D Tech Lead, I engineer high-fidelity technologies for simulating lifelike cloth, hair, muscles, and plants, and their complex interactions with virtual environments and artist input. I spearheaded the successful integration of our flagship multiphysics framework, Loki, into Weta’s core production pipeline, enhancing our creative capabilities and efficiency.

My work is featured in many major VFX productions, including:

• Avatar: The Way of Water
• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• Better Man
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• A Minecraft Movie
• Predator: Badlands
• The Last of Us
• House of the Dragon S2
• And many more…

I hold a PhD in physics-based simulation from Beihang University. Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

Screen Credits

Predator: Badlands, 2025

Better Man, 2024

Avatar: The Way of Water, 2022

The Tomorrow War, 2021

Publication

Stabilizing Impossible Collisions with Loki. Xiao Zhai, Eston Schweickart, Jefri Haryono, Nikolay Ilinov, and Andrea Merlo. SIGGRAPH Talks, 2025.
Link PDF Supplement Video

Efficient frictional contacts for soft body dynamics via ADMM. Siyan Zhu, Cheng Fang, Peng Yu, Xiao Zhai, Aimin Hao, and Junjun Pan. The Visual Computer, 2024.
Link PDF

Avatar: The Way of Hair, Cloth, and Coupled Simulation. Xiao Zhai, Eston Schweickart, Nikolay Ilinov, Joel Wretborn, Alexey Stomakhin, John Homer, Jefri Haryono, and Julian Butler. SIGGRAPH Talks, 2023.
Link PDF Supplement Talk

Loki: A Unified Multiphysics Simulation Framework for Production. Steve Lesser, Alexey Stomakhin, Gilles Daviet, Joel Wretborn, John Edholm, Noh-hoon Lee, Eston Schweickart, Xiao Zhai, Sean Flynn, and Andrew Moffat. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2022.
Link PDF Video

Simulating Cloth Using Bilinear Elements. Eston Schweickart and Xiao Zhai. SIGGRAPH Talks, 2021.
Link PDF Supplement Talk

Vectorized Painting with Temporal Diffusion Curves. Yingjia Li, Xiao Zhai, Fei Hou, Yawen Liu, Aimin Hao, and Hong Qin. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2019.
Link PDF Video

Multi-Task Learning on Monocular Water Images: Surface Reconstruction and Image Synthesis. Xueguang Xie, Xiao Zhai, Fei Hou, Aimin Hao, and Hong Qin. Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 2019.
Link PDF Video Code

Fluid Simulation with Adaptive Staggered Power Particles on GPUs. Xiao Zhai, Fei Hou, Hong Qin, and Aimin Hao. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2018.
Link PDF Video

Inverse Modelling of Incompressible Gas Flow in Subspace. Xiao Zhai, Fei Hou, Hong Qin, and Aimin Hao. Computer Graphics Forum, 2017.
Link PDF Video