Houdini HIVE at GDC 2019

Stoyan Dimitrov joined Space Ape Games in 2014 initially as a 3D Artist and then transitioned to Lead Artist on Samurai Siege, Rival Kingdoms and Transformers. He previously worked as a Character Artist at Frontier and Rare on Kinect Disneyland Adventures and Kinect Sports Rivals. Today, he is working on redefining what great graphics and art tools should look like for mobile games. 

Cosku Turhan studied graphic design at Bilkent University where he studied both basic design and jazz composition as a minor. Upon graduating with honors, he moved to Los Angeles to study film and digital arts at the University of Southern California. During his master's studies, he produced two thesis films, one of which (“The Bioturk”) got him international accolade by being shown at more than 20 festivals worldwide. After graduating, Cosku got offered a job at Sony Pictures Imageworks as an associate technical director.  He is a three-time VES awards nominee for the work he did for “Eagle Eye”, “The Amazing Spiderman” and “Alice: Through the Looking Glass”. 

After winning the grand prize for the “Rendering the Metaverse” VR competition held by Otoy with this startup group he decided to resume his career in VR which lead to his rendering/lighting supervisor role at Magnopus. Here he supervised VR projects such as “COCO VR” and “Blade Runner 2046: Memory Lab” which was one of the first VR experiences ever to use Holocapture. He got nominated for an Emmy both for “COCO VR” and “Blade Runner 2046: Memory Lab”. Aside from Supervising projects, he is currently using Houdini to create FX, procedural cities, and expansive environments for VR and AR projects.

Thomas Iché has 10 years experience in real time visual effects for Games (I Am Alive, Remember Me, Life is Strange). Halfway between artist and programmer, with strong experience in shaders, scripting and optimizing pipeline tools.

Robert Magee is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at SideFX who has been working with Houdini for over 15 years. He has created lots of learning material and demos designed to help artists understand how going procedural with Houdini can benefit their work. He is the author of the Houdini Foundations book which is available on SideFX.com for artists learning Houdini for the first time.

Kenny Lammers is a freelance Technical Artist / C# Programmer working for various clients, from the medical industry to the game industry, creating interactive content with Houdini, Unity, and Substance.  He has over 19 years of experience working in the game industry and has worked for studios such as Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Games Studios.  Kenny’s skills range from C# programing in Unity 3D to creating procedural art content in Houdini and Substance Painter and Designer.  You can find out more about Kenny at www.indie-pixel.com.

Will Driscoll is a content creator and technical artist working with Experius to develop photorealistic interactive experiences across many industries.  He is an early adopter of new technologies in performance capture and real world reconstruction, using a wide range of software, Sidefx Houdini as his favorite.  Will worked on projection mapping projects for Disney Theme Parks, Worked with Intel Sports/Studios on the Wild West volumetric presentation, and stereo compositing and fx work on films and tv.  

Danilo Moura Silva has created volumetric virtual reality experiences that take users on virtual trips to the Moon, Mars, Old Jerusalem and even a museum in his hometown in Brazil. He has personally digitized environments using photogrammetry and laser scanning and has a passion for creating pipelines that perfectly preserve the source quality. He has built multiple teams, from the ground up, to build games and interactive narratives in Hollywood for the last 10 years, since he started as an R&D engineer for Sony Pictures. He believes we are marching towards a revolution in the way content is created for the new generation of VR/AR/MR devices. The perfect storm is coming. It's time to focus on volumetric solutions for an amazing simulated reality, where we can feel like we can be anywhere we want.

Danicka Oglesby is a recent SideFX Games Intern. She is based in Austin, Texas and is currently a technical artist at Moontower VFX. With a background in math and a strong interest in art, she found her way into computer graphics through Texas A&M's graduate program in Visualization. She focuses on gameplay mechanics, physical simulations and tool creation for pipeline efficiency. She has developed multiple VR experiences, from independent games to her work with Moontower VFX. She enjoys combining her artistic and technical interests to experiment with the new territory of VR.

Luiz Kruel is a Sr. Technical Artist at SideFX Software. With a decade of production experience in games, he has worked on several of the largest franchises in the industry, including Halo, Call of Duty, Doom, Madden and Just Cause. He is a part of our games team and responsible for developing tools to bridge the gap between Houdini and Game Engines.

Valentine Kozin is a Principal Technical Artist at Rare, having started his career as a graphics programmer on independent games while studying for a Philosophy degree. After graduating, he entered the AAA industry as a technical artist, working on Kinect Sports Rivals and later helping drive some of the most notable visual features of Sea of Thieves.

Elvar Örn Unnþórsson joined Flashbulb Games in 2017 as a Graphics Programmer and is responsible for helping the designers create the world of Trailmakers as well as improving overall performance thus making the game run smoothly on PC and XBox. Elvar is tasked with creating necessary tools for the designers, shader programming and hunting down and eliminating performance bottlenecks. Elvar has a BSc in Computer Science from Reykjavík University and MSc in Digital Media Engineering from Denmarks Technical University and before joining Flashbulb worked as a freelancer programmer for several notable indie games such as The Silent Age and Keyboard Sports.

Kenny Lammers is a freelance Technical Artist / C# Programmer working for various clients, from the medical industry to the game industry, creating interactive content with Houdini, Unity, and Substance.  He has over 19 years of experience working in the game industry and has worked for studios such as Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Games Studios.  Kenny’s skills range from C# programing in Unity 3D to creating procedural art content in Houdini and Substance Painter and Designer.  You can find out more about Kenny at www.indie-pixel.com.

Paul Ambrosiussen is currently a Technical Artist and Game Tools Developer at SideFX Software. He finished his BASc in Interactive Game Architecture and Design at NHTV University of Applied Sciences in Breda. Paul enjoys writing tools to support effective art-pipelines, and maintaining tool / workflow quality for the artists he is assisting. His goal is to help others create amazing things in a better, faster and more flexible way. He creates tutorials, gives live lectures, attends events, and presents custom workshops to customers.

Mike Lyndon is a Sr. Technical Artist at SideFX. He has a broad range of experience creating computer graphics for commercials, films and video games. His fascination with the world around us and the desire to blend art with his technical tinkering has led to his work making rolling cloudscapes in Ender's Game, generating raging fires in Gears of War 4 and trapping penguins in an avalanche of snow for Happy Feet 2. He is a part of our games team and responsible for developing tools to bridge the gap between Houdini and realtime applications.

Galen Davis is the Head of Evangelism for Quixel. Before working for the Sweden based company, he worked as an Environment Artist in the games industry contributing to franchises like Bioshock, Borderlands, and the most recent God of War title.

Luiz Kruel is a Sr. Technical Artist at SideFX Software. With a decade of production experience in games, he has worked on several of the largest franchises in the industry, including Halo, Call of Duty, Doom, Madden and Just Cause. He is a part of our games team and responsible for developing tools to bridge the gap between Houdini and Game Engines.

Luis Garcia started his career as an artist then evolved into a generalist Indie Game Developer working on Suki & the Shadow Klaw with knowledge going from 3D Modeling to animation, C#, and shader scripting, counting with two unity certifications. Founder of Feline Arts, an indie game studio based in Mexico, a 3D adventure/platformer for PS4, Xbox One, and PC where Houdini has been one of the core tools used for the development of this project.

Rob Stauffer is a Senior Production Consultant at SideFX. He has over 20 years experience in computer graphics and visual effects. Rob started his career at Digital Domain and has worked at Sony Imageworks, Weta Digital, Asylum FX and most recently was an FX Supervisor at Rhythm and Hues. He has contributed to the FX of over 20 feature films including, "Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King", "Spiderman 2", "X-Men:First Class", "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Seventh Son”. Rob joined SideFX in 2013 where he educates new and existing clients on the features of Houdini. Consults with studios on their pipelines and where Houdini may fit in and explores new and future technologies within VFX,Games and VR.

Ari Danesh is the Lead Instructor at SideFX. Before working at SideFX he taught Interactive Design at the university level for 12 years. He started his career working as a Software Engineer in the defense industry designing displays and then leading a VR research department for real time Command and Control systems during the first generation of VR applications. His current focus is on Generative Art, Natural Environments, Procedural and Object Based Systems. At SideFX besides teaching clients, he dabbles in designing terrain tools.

Ben House is a Technical Artist at Bluepoint Games where he develops procedural tools and workflows to support the production team. Ben is very passionate about using procedural tools to reduce repetitive tasks and is deeply devoted to education. He has taught courses on game development and procedural content creation at Texas A&M University, where he co-founded the Chillennium Student Game Jam and is currently completing his Master’s Degree in Visualization.

Paul Ambrosiussen is currently a Technical Artist and Game Tools Developer at SideFX Software. He finished his BASc in International Game Architecture and Design at NHTV University of Applied Sciences in Breda. Paul enjoys writing tools to support effective art-pipelines, and maintaining tool / workflow quality for the artists he is assisting. His goal is to help others create amazing things in a better, faster and more flexible way. He creates tutorials, gives live lectures, attends events, and presents custom workshops to customers.

Stephen Tucker began his career as an intern with SideFX and later worked as a Houdini Product Specialist, Stephen now has 14 years of experience using Houdini and is Scavengers Studio's Senior VFX Artist. He has worked in the film industry where he worked as both an effects artist and effects technical director at studios including Starz Animation in Toronto, Dr. D in Sydney, and Digital Domain in Vancouver. A gamer at heart, Stephen eventually transitioned into the video games industry and has worked as a visual effects artist in AAA games at The Coalition in Vancouver as well as EA Motive in Montréal. With what was originally a largely artistic background including a Bachelors of Applied Arts in Animation, over the years Stephen has grown his technical prowess and is often seen as a mentor. Stephen has taught both online and at the post-secondary level at places such as sidefx.com, fxphd.com, Lost Boys, VanArts, Udemy and MIX Training.

David Santiago joined Insomniac Games in 2012 to implement several Procedural Systems for Sunset Overdrive (Xbox One). On other platforms his credits include Ratchet and Clankfor PS4, and Edge of Nowhere for Oculus Rift. Production of Marvel Spider-Man relied on the largest number of procedural systems to date. Previously, David was a visual effects and animation Supervisor and Consultant for over ten years. His 2004 book "Creating 3D Effects for Film, TV and Games" provides a thorough introduction to the world of digital effects. David’s first career was developing ultra-stable fiber optic distribution systems, cryogenic microwave oscillators, and ionic frequency standards at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. David entered the visual effects industry working on Dante's Peak, The Fifth Element, Titanic, and Armageddon at Digital Domain. He has supervised and created visual effects for feature films, music videos and commercials, and continues to concentrate on pipeline design, and process integration and optimization in support of creative needs. Other notable film projects include The Ant Bully, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, and Black Hawk Down.

Michael Lyndon is a Sr. Technical Artist at SideFX. He has a broad range of experience creating computer graphics for commercials, films and video games. His fascination with the world around us and the desire to blend art with his technical tinkering has led to his work making rolling cloudscapes in Ender's Game, generating raging fires in Gears of War 4 and trapping penguins in an avalanche of snow for Happy Feet 2. He is a part of our games team and responsible for developing tools to bridge the gap between Houdini and realtime applications.