With the Apple Watch Series 4, Apple introduced a bunch of new watch faces to go along with the bigger display. The upgraded Apple Watch packs a whole bunch of upgrades, as well as a price hike, but the new watch faces are quite the highlight with this year’s new Apple Watch.

The new watch faces — fire, water, liquid metal and vapor faces — look very cool on the upgraded Apple Watch. The animated effects are quite natural and they transition very smoothly, too. And the secret behind that?

Not CGI.

Yep, Apple actually used real fire, water, color powder (for the vapor face), and liquid metal to bring these new watch faces to life. The process itself looks incredibly fascinating, and it’s impressive to see Apple not taking a shortcut with CGI and instead opting for a much better solution here:

Tagged with Apple Watch, Apple Watch Series 4