SOLARIS WORKSHOP | Monday May 18

Welcome to the Magic Market! Learn production techniques for bringing USD and Solaris into your lighting and VFX pipelines. Using a shot of a market scene coming alive with magical effects, these sessions explore different components of the production workflow.  The goal is for experienced artists and TDs to better understand these new workflows in a production setting.

This workshop is designed for artists and TDs with 2+ years of Houdini experience who work in mid to large-sized studios with an interest in incorporating USD and Solaris into their pipeline.

Many of the presentations have source files - you should also download these library files which are shared with the other project directories. To setup your assets, make sure to place the Library from the MagicMarket download in your hip directory. Then move anything in the "MOVE TO ASSETS" folder, into the Assets folder of the MagicMarket Library.

1 | INTRO TO USD CONCEPTS

In this talk, we will cover the basics of USD, from composition arcs to variants. Using examples inside of Houdini, we will build very simple scene graphs illustrating these concepts.

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.

2 | ASSET PREP FOR SOLARIS

This workshop focuses on prepping geometry inside Houdini's SOP context so that it can be exported to USD with support for features such as variants. Similarities and differences between Houdini and USD primitives will be addressed along with importing all Houdini Primitive types and point/prim/vertex attributes in to the Solaris Market scene. Materials will also be addressed in the asset construction and export to Solaris.

Jeff Wagner has been a part of the SideFX Software support team from the early days of PRISMS leading up to today's Houdini. Over the years he has accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge and insight and is regarded by many as a true Houdini Guru. If you've encountered him online or watched one of the tutorials then now is the opportunity to meet him in person.

3 | LAYOUT AND SCENE ASSEMBLY

Learn how to take existing assets that were authored in USD and start build out a layout and scene graph using Solaris.  Explore typical LOP-based tools such as the stage manager and then learn how to buildup scenes using the layers coming from other departments.

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.

4 | PHOTOREALISTIC TREE SIMS 

DRIVEN BY VELOCITY FIELDS

Learn a new efficient method for solving and simulating trees, especially those with thick trunks and branches. This effect is accomplished by using the soft body simulation (wire solver) and dynamic constraint in Houdini to get the most accurate and art-directable results. Also learn how to use the Pyro FX solver for animating trees.

Mohamed Kamal Abujazar is a creative and technical professional with extensive experience in digital effects production. Skilled in VFX tool development and creating life-like effects work. Mohamed has worked at Mill Film and founded Standing Man Post for developing Houdini tools.

5 | MAGIC CAULDRON

Creating magical effects in Houdini is fast, easy, and looks great. With the simplicity of USD, and the rendering capabilities of Karma, the Magic Cauldron tutorial showcases how an FX artist can improve their workflow and create production ready magical elements. Simple VEX, sparse pyro, and creative solutions to vary the look of simulations will help push your FX to the next level.

Simon Littlejohn is an senior FX lead at Zoic Studios who as worked on shows such as Stranger Things and Arrow, as well as multiple Marvel features and episodics. His claim to fame is making Rocket Racoon cry.

6 | RIGID BODY FRACTURING WITH

Ingesting a USD scene with Solaris, isolating and fracturing desired areas, simulation, and reintegration back into the overall USD scene for downstream use.

Steve Knipping is the creator of the Applied Houdini video tutorial series, and Senior Rigid Body Destruction / FX Technical Director at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic.

7 | LIGHTING / MULTI-SHOT RENDERING

Next, we will take the scene layout and light it using the lighting tools of Solaris. Learn how to control things like brightness and shadows using viewport tools. Dial in your lights with light linking and the light mixer. Set up a multi shot render and kick it off using PDG.

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.

8 | SOLARIS AND PIPELINES

This workshop focuses on how Solaris fits in to Pipelines. Rendering with ROPs and TOPs will be compared to each other. In addition, the command line render tool Husk will be explored. Specific attention will be spent on large scene management and the use of Value Clips to keep scenes within the limits of available memory.

Jeff Wagner has been a part of the SideFX Software support team from the early days of PRISMS leading up to today's Houdini. Over the years he has accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge and insight and is regarded by many as a true Houdini Guru. If you've encountered him online or watched one of the tutorials then now is the opportunity to meet him in person.

MOTION GRAPHICS

BETWEEN MATH AND ART: HOUDINI AS A VECTOR OF CREATIVITY

Maxime Hacquard will show how Houdini can be used to solve creative problems in the advertising and motion graphics world. Far from the VFX and technical use of Houdini, here's some workflows used to produce better and faster as an artist. We'll also take a look deeper in Houdini and learn how the software can be used to solve human and educative problems for the next decades.

Maxime Hacquard is the Co-founder of the Motion Designers Community and Mhsprod.

PAINT, PEAKS AND PRIMITIVES

Learn how I approach creating scenes in a procedural way.  I'll look at at least two projects (but probably more) including my painting tool, called Stroke-it, and how I built mountainscapes for a recent branding project for Al Jazeera English.  I'll also talk a little about Houdini fits into our design studio and some thoughts on leveraging procedural work to speed things up.

Will MacNeil is a filmmaker and digital artist currently working as a Design Director at The Mill in London. Will designs, directs and leads a broad range of projects from good old-fashioned TV to online, games, interactive and experiential. Last year he even designed a pair of shoes! Will jumps between leading teams of artists and doing things as a lone gun. He also talks (at conferences) a lot. Recent ones include the mainstage at OFFF Barcelona, Us By Night, OFFF in Kyiv and events in Russia and Japan. Will also likes to experiment with digital tools whenever he can. One recent personal project, called Stroke-it, is an oil painting tool that works inside Houdini.

DESIGN x SIMULATION

Using Houdini's Proceduralism and Simulation tools with strong art and design intentions.

Alexa Sirbu and Lukas Vojir are the founding artists of XK studio a London based design and motion practice with strong emphasis on experimentation, research and development. They work with brands and agencies worldwide to explore and deliver meaningful, bespoke visuals and mesmerizing motion.

MOTION DESIGN HACKS

In this presentation, Mark will break down his approach to Houdini and how he uses it to create abstract simulations, morphs, and formations. He will also focus on how these effects are used to add emphasis to some of the product visualization work he’s done. We’ll also get to see some of the challenges involved in this type of work, and the solutions he’s stumbled upon while trying to put the final polish on his designs.

Mark Fancher | Freelance

MOPS: BEYOND MOTION GRAPHICS

Henry Foster from Toadstorm will give a quick overview of the MOPs toolkit, show how it can make motion graphics much easier in Houdini, and then show how it can be applied outside of the motion graphics world.

Henry Foster started his career in 2006 as a 3D generalist in Los Angeles, bouncing around between commercial design and film studios both small and large as a lighter, rigger, effects artist, pipeline engineer, and tools developer. He started with Maya and later discovered Houdini around 2011, and have been unable to put it down since. He loves his career of solving puzzles, be they visual or logical, and empowering other artists to do the same. He's currently working as a Senior Designer at Intuitive Surgical in Sunnyvale, California. He likes algorithmic growth, cats, and Islay whisky. You can reach him at henry@toadstorm.com.

PAINTINGS IN MOTION

In Paintings in Motion David will be doing a detailed walkthrough the process he used to explore the idea of paintings in motion. He'll try to cover everything from the artistic drive and inspiration to the technical solutions he came up with to bring the idea to life.

David Ferreira is a naked monkey born by the sea in Portugal. After graduating in Biology the monkey kept on searching and eventually went on to study Architecture, when he first came in contact with 3d Studio Max and the CG world. He was always a curious monkey. Eager to learn, searched for knowledge and taught himself how to render his first architecture scenes which allowed him to build his first portfolio and eventually get his first 3d position at Arqui300 back in 2008. But he kept on exploring and learning other fields of this CG world, going from tracking, VFX, rigging, animation… And in 2011 the monkey went off on his own and started working as a freelancer, in search of new adventures. Today he is a very happy and very busy monkey, who besides teaching, has done almost every type of cg job there is. Experienced, excited and still as eager to learn as when he first started.

TOOLS

SIDEFX LABS: TOOLS FOR EVERYONE

This presentation gives you a quick overview of the new tools that have recently been added to the SideFX Labs toolset. Find out what the new tools are, and how we have made it a lot easier to install SideFX Labs.

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.

ENVIRONMENTS

CREATING CINEMATIC ENVIRONMENTS

Explore the different steps of environment creation within Houdini and Redshift. From terrain modelling, to final render.

Adrien Lambert is a Senior Environment Generalist who has been working for worldwide movie and cinematic companies such as ILM, Weta, Bad Robot, Digic Pictures, Unit Image. He has been Integrating more and more Houdini as part of his production tool belt.

LIGHTING & RENDERING

RENDERMAN FOR HOUDINI

During this presentation, go behind the scenes with Sarah Forcier and learn about the rendering technology that has brought Pixar stories to life. Sarah will showcase RenderMan’s tight integration with Houdini, showing features used at Pixar as well as new advancements in rendering technology. It’s a great opportunity to see the latest technology coming from Pixar.

Sarah Forcier joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2018 as the lead developer for the RenderMan for Houdini plugin. Over the last couple years, she has rewritten RenderMan’s Houdini integration, worked to support the latest Houdini features, and presented this work at FMX and Siggraph. Prior to Pixar, Sarah studied at Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania.

LOOK WHO'S BACK: ARNOLD for SOLARIS

Learn how to get started using Autodesk® Arnold® renderer in Solaris. From initial setup to final render, we will work through a practical shot to learn how you can render USD with Arnold in the LOPS context.

Varomix has created a vast library of Houdini training over years. Recently he has started on his own venture with MIX Training, a training and community resource for Houdini, Unreal Engine, Python and much more. He also works as a procedural artists at AI.Reverie, building worlds to aid computer vision algorithms. If that alone is not enough, Varomix also find a little escape through his metal band WEYEZ.

VISUAL FX

VEHICLE DESTRUCTION & DYNAMIC RIGGING WITH RBDS

In this talk, DNEG FX Lead & destruction-specialist Keith Kamholz discusses his preferred workflow for RBD-based vehicle destruction.  He will cover asset preparation, building flexible dynamic RBD rigs, the simulation itself, and how to apply that simulation to the final render geometry.  He'll also discuss various techniques for working with input animation and for shattering various types of glass.

Keith Kamholz is a Lead FX Technical Director at DNEG, and he has previously worked at Industrial Light & Magic, Blue Sky Studios, Tippett Studio, and Framestore NY. He also teaches a Destruction FX class online for CGMA. He's worked on ~20 feature films, with credit highlights including Pacific Rim: Uprising, Venom, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, & Ice Age: Continental Drift. Keith has also presented some of his destruction techniques at SIGGRAPH 2018, courtesy of SideFX. He earned a dual-major B.A. in Computer Science & Media Study at SUNY Buffalo, and an M.S. in Digital Imaging and Design at NYU's CADA.

MANvsMACHINE

My plan is to run you through a typical ManvsMachine project, beginning with our directors treatment and then realizing it through Houdini's extensive toolset.

Tim Bolland is currently a Lead Designer at ManvsMachine, London. Having moved over 2 years ago from Glassworks Amsterdam where he worked as a VFX Artist for 8 years. Throughout his career, he has collaborated on many projects and high-end commercials for clients including Apple, Nike, Adidas, BMW, Dior, and many more. His weapon of choice is Houdini, where he strives to find the balance between the technical, artistic and observational aspects of 3D design.

ARTIST TO LEADER:

WRANGLING A TEAM REQUIRES MORE THAN VEX

Artist to Leader is a talk from Hudson Martins Head of FX in Axis Studios. It is aimed towards artists and supervisors alike. Hudson is planning to share his knowledge and experience adapting from being a Houdini generalist artist and to managing a team of FX artists across multiple disciplines such asHoudini FX for trailers and series, for in Game cinematics and even Traditional 2D FX. The talk will take you through a timerly journey following a team size of 3 artists to what now averages 20+ on busier periods.Meanwhile he will be sharing similar knowledge of Head of FX, FX supervisors and FX leads from other companies which consent in order to show similarities as well as differences depending on your company's needs. This is not about sharing business secrets, rather sharing essential knowledge Hudson wishes he knew when he started the journey of leading the FX -Team.

Hudson Martin makes sparks fly at Axis Studios – he’s the brains behind the complex, swirling, beautiful FX seen across many of our projects. Brazilian born Hudson moved to Sweden to study industrial engineering where exposure to CAD and Autodesk Inventor inspired him to switch his degree to computer graphics.At Axis Studios, he manages the ever-growing FX team (also known as the X-Team), who take an artistic approach to FX, using movement and timing to support the storytelling. His team consistently pushes the bar, finding new ways to deliver the highest quality eye-opening visuals, whether it’s simple real time sparks, hand drawn 2D FX for a stylised project, or a full on destruction simulation sequence for a cinematic.

NATURAL DESTRUCTION

This presentation will showcase several workflows to handle what can usually be a challenging task, destruction of natural assets such as trees, plants and other organic objects. Not only will the presentation focus on destruction, but it will also showcase some procedural modeling techniques, streamlining asset creation with TOPs, and handling of large amounts of data, which are very common when creating CG environments.

David Adan is a Visual Effects Technical Director with more than 15 years of experience working in the Television, Games, Films, Architecture and Education industries. David has a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and received the "Discreet Certified Instructor" title in 2004 to teach 3D Studio Max and Combustion software. Early in his professional career, David produced several successful Television campaigns for major clients including TV Azteka, Unilever and La Salle University. In the Architecture industry, he has provided photorealistic renderings and animations for high-end projects for the Royal Family of Qatar and the Qatar Armed forces. More recently his passion for cinematography and VFX has led him to work initially as a Digital Compositor, and currently as an FX TD in films like the Turkish epic “Fetih 1453”, “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”, “Asura”, and more recently “Godzilla: King of Monsters”, “Terminator: Dark Fate” and “Angel has Fallen”, among others. Currently, David is working as Lead FX TD at Cinesite Montreal.

READY FOR BATTLE? THE FX IN "MIDWAY"

How VFX recreates the past for the present. Complex FX techniques bring the Pacific Ocean Orchestra Theater of World War II to life.

Marc Joos is Head of FXSince his early childhood Marc Joos had been drawn to art. What started with drawing and painting evolved to putting his work in three-dimensional space during his studies. For all his time in the VFX industry he has been faithful to Pixomondo, starting as a CG generalist in Frankfurt, continuing with CG and animation in LA until his path lead him to Stuttgart for working on Red Tails. His first FX task was for the Oscar winning Hugo, which was the foundation for many other well-known projects such as Game of Thrones, Fast and Furious 7, The Walking Dead, Justice League and The Mandalorian. Since 2018, Marc has acted as Head of FX department overseeing FX tasks for a multitude of projects and helping other artist grow to great potential.

Adam Figielski is a VFX Supervisor who has a passion for creating digital environments for film was awoken when he joined the Pixomondo team in 2008 to work as a Digital Matte Painter on Pixomondo's first feature film, The Red Baron. Since then, Adam has contributed to a variety of projects including Game of Thrones, 2012, Oblivion, Red Tails and the Academy Award-winning film Hugo.He was awarded with a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Visual Effects and a VES Award for his work on the second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones.Adam's creative vision and technical skills ensured he quickly became part of the core team as an Environment Supervisor and subsequently as a Visual Effects Supervisor at the Stuttgart facility. As a Supervisor he is known for his technical expertise, fine sense of color and image composition and as well as his driving visual inspiration.Further feature film and TV series credits include Live by Night, Wolf Totem, Fast Five, Furious Seven, Ninja Assassin, Fear the Walking Dead, Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Star Trek: Discovery, The Wandering Earth, Iron Sky 2: The Coming Race.Most recently, Adam acted as a division VFX Supervisor on the latest Roland Emmerich film, Midway and the Disney hit, Star Wars: The Mandalorian.

THE SPARSE PYRO PROCESS

Houdini 18's new sparse pyro solver features a workflow which offers a great way of handling combustion. In this tutorial, Tyler Bay provides an overview of how this new workflow generally operates while providing useful tips along the way.

Tyler Bay is a 3D Artist, teacher, and owner of cgforge.com an online learning website. His aim is to make tutorials that are thorough, accessible, and straight to the point.

WATER SPLASHES ON THE CHEAP (FLIP-FREE!)

When you are pressed for time and you have to simulate water for a crowd of drowning survivors, you have to find a way to provide each survivor with their own unique splash. Sometimes when you don't have the luxury of R&D iterations, you must consider cheaper but still effective solutions. In my case, the only solution for that was particles! I'm going to tell you how POPs saved the time for me.

Nikolay Skolkov has been creating visual content for many years, starting out with web graphics, flash scripting and animations and then moving over to 3D via architectural modeling. Nowadays, Nikolay spends his waking work hours at Wargaming in creating visual effects required on any given project, which encompasses many different areas. Most notably, this includes destruction, explosions, cloth simulations and FLIP fluids. Nikolay is based out of Minsk, Belarus and he will always have his node shapes as bricks, as he hates the custom shapes.

CHARACTER FX

B IS FOR BEN: CREATING A HOUDINI CHARACTER

In this presentation Rok will show how he used Houdini to create the main character for the animated short film “B is for Ben”.

Rok Andic is a 3D Artist with a strong passion for animated films. Though he mostly worked as a generalist throughout his career, his passion for animated characters led him to focus on character rigging and animation. He is constantly experimenting and shares his findings with the community by creating character rigging tutorials. He is also working on a personal short film series called “The Mellifluous Peculiars”.

DO MORE WITH CROWDS

In this session we will dive deeper into Houdini’s crowd workflow. Mikael will demonstrate how to set up blend shapes and how to use the full-body IK solver in VEX to give you even more control over your agents.

Mikael Pettersen is a Lead Crowd Technical Director at MPC and has worked on projects such as Guardians of The Galaxy, The Call of the Wild, Ready Player One and the Oscar winning The Jungle Book. He has been in the visual effects industry for the last 13 years, started out as a generalist in commercials and later switched over to film. He is also the author of Crowds for Feature Film in Houdini 1 & 2 and is running the Houdini blog Short & Sweet 3D.

BATTLE WORMS, BIRDS AND BIG BLUE BEINGS

In this session, Head of CG Ahmed Gharraph is going to take attendees through several recent projects in which Framestore has found Houdini invaluable. He will detail how his team created stunning CG Hummingbirds and a rainforest for drinks brand Purdey’s and solved a case full of worms for Netflix on global-smash The Witcher. And then to top it all off, the presentation will detail how Framestore’s television department killed off Doctor Manhattan for Watchmen, the incredible series from HBO and David Lindeloff.

Ahmed Gharraph is Framestore’s Joint Head of CG, coming back to the company in 2017, after a brief absence working on Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Ready Player One as Lead FX artist at ILM. Ahmed’s credit list at Framestore includes major advertising projects such as McDonald's 'Reindeer Ready' and Purdey’s ‘Hummingbird’ as well as the highest-quality television projects like HBO’s Watchmen. Ahmed started his career in the CG department at MPC in 2007 after getting a BSc in 3D Computer Animation. He worked on several VES Award-winning commercials including the iconic Cadbury ‘Spots v. Stripes’ campaign before making his move into film in 2011, working at DNEG on several high profile projects including Captain America, Skyfall, Godzilla and Thor: The Dark World.

PROCEDURAL

JUST THE TIP(S)

Matt will present another round of quick tips to make your Houdini life easier. One of the great things about working in a big team of Houdini artists is the number of tips that get shared around. Everyone uses Houdini slightly differently, and the program itself is so deep, that almost every week someone will share a trick they thought everyone knew, to hear all the folk around them say 'Wow, I didn't know you could do that!'. The last collection of mini tips for beginners that Matt posted went well, so he's gone back to friends, co-workers, online groups, and made a fresh set of tips. This will be a mixed bag of stuff for beginner, intermediate, advanced, so hopefully something for everyone.

Matt Estela is VFX Lead in Residence at UTS ALA. He teaches VFX and VR as part of a Masters of Animation and Visualization. Matt also maintains CGWiki, a popular website for Houdini training, and has 20 years experience in 3D.

PRODUCT PROCEDURALIZATION: 

PDG AS A PATH FROM DATABASE TO RENDER

Houdini’s power as a procedural 3D software package does not stop at the standard tasks we do daily, it also includes an array of tools for performing repetitive processes across huge datasets. Here’s how I used Houdini’s PDG to accomplish a hard-flooring retailer’s mission to show their product range across a variety of household interiors.

Kyle Sowry is a high school student in Auckland, New Zealand. After first dabbling in digital art when he was twelve years old, he fell in love with the world of 3D, soon discovering Houdini, with its focus on proceduralism, and quick access to the data that a project is built upon. Now working on setting up a small studio, he’s developing his portfolio by the day (and usually night, too) with a diverse range of projects. When he’s not trying to make fancy software do his work, Kyle enjoys being out on the ice playing curling, making films, or working on robotics projects.

NEURAL VIDEO STYLE TRANSFER LEVERAGING PDG

Neural Style Transfer is a method of transferring a style of one image to another image using Machine Learning. Video Style Transfer also includes temporal consistency - meaning, there is no flickering inbetween frames.This project focusses on leveraging PDG to distribute work needed for the stylisation. It also gives an example of how PDG can be used to parameterize all kinds of processes to increase availability to less technical artists out there.

Manuel Köster is a Technical Artist/Director who has been working in VFX/Animation with movies such as Dr. Strange, Cpt. Marvel, Lego Movie 2 as well as Peter Rabbit 2. He recently switched to the Game industry and joined Crytek in an effort to enhance their procedural workflows. He has also been teaching Houdini for his previous University and online with his website shadesoforange.de.

MASTER THE FUNDAMENTALS

So you want to learn houdini and do dynamics? Great... But don't skip over the fundamentals! In this presentation i'll be talking about the fundamental building blocks of what makes houdini great and how understanding the fundamentals helps make you a better artist and learn a lot quicker.

Tim van Helsdingen is a freelance CG generalist and Houdini FX artist who gets to work for a lot of cool clients.  He also creates educational content about Houdini and anything related to CG, Houdini or working as a freelancer.

MAYA TO HOUDINI TRANSITION GUIDE

Maya artists interested in working with Houdini are often faced with transitioning existing skills into a whole new world. In this presentation, you will learn the similarities and differences in the tools and workspace layout then dive deeper to understand how each of these applications work under the hood. You will also learn about the Houdini Engine for Maya plug-in which allows you to share Houdini Digital Assets with colleagues working in Maya.

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 such as the Houdini Foundations book which are designed to help artists get started with Houdini. In the past, Robert worked for 10 years at Alias|Wavefront where he developed tutorials and training, including the very first editions of Learning Maya and The Art of Maya.

HOUDINI FOR THE MAD SCIENTIST

Five's Sam Swift-Glasman talks through some novel Houdini use cases. This powerful platform can be a fantastic tool for prototyping models, testing algorithms and data visualisation to support Autonomous Vehicle development.

Sam Swift-Glasman leads a Synthetic Training Data team at Five. He has a VFX background, previously having spent over 10 years at studios in London's West End. He is a drummer, guitarist, pedal builder, vertical-farmer, father and general geek.

UPDATES AND SOME SNEAKY PEEKY

If you were wondering what the state of things are at SideFX, let's say that the temperature of the R&D space is more cool in the office but all CPUs are going at maximum load from home! As such, I am excited to show you a bit of what's been cooking in the SESI kitchen. Of course, you won't see the full menu but, just a taste :)

Fianna Wong is a Technical Marketing Lead at SideFX and is most known as the robot voice of the Houdini Quickstart videos. She loves hardsurface modeling pr0n and still cannot believe that after so many years (since starting out with Infini-D and Bryce), the CG industry continues to innovate!

VIRTUAL PRODUCTION STRATEGIES 

FOR HOUDINI ARTISTS AND TEAMS

Virtual Production and Extended Reality are new terms for real-time content production, and they’ve captured the imagination of many producers who’d typically be working in live events. Join us for an orientation to VP, content production pipelines, strategies for managing work on a tight calendar, strategies for collaborating as a team, and the differences between the real-time engines I work with: Notch, Unreal and Touchdesigner.

Ted Pallas is the founder of Savages, a small studio serving real-time content needs for concerts, live events and extended reality. Recent studio clients include Satore Studio, Integrated Visions, Worldstage Inc, Monstercat, Audi, BMW, Atticus Finch and Sophia Saze. In addition to daily Houdini use, Ted spends a lot of time driving Notch, Unreal and Disguise media servers.