LAHUG | Los Angeles

Life in the VFX Trenches

VFX Artist Eric Rosenthal discusses a variety of Houdini VFX shots from various projects as case studies. For each shot, he gives some insight and techniques behind it, and talks about what worked and what didn’t. He also shows and dissects some examples of "cheating" and talks about how you can use tricks to meet deadlines without sacrificing quality. 

BGHUG | Belgrade

Proceduralism in Print

Nikola Damjanov shares his daytime Houdini work and then his nighttime explorations in Houdini and how it is translated to print form (2D, 3D).

Don't Over-complicate

Bogdan Amidžić and Igor Žanić look at a complex FX shot and suggest simple approach to achieving the look. These tips not only encompass and affect what you do in Houdini (kitbashing FX, separate HDAs for trails and splashes, etc) but also your hardware resources because caches can be costly .    

H19.5 SOP FLIP Fluids for Film/TV

Igor Žanić - Newly introduced SOP-based FLIP fluids in Houdini 19.5 allows for fast setups without having to exchange data between SOP and DOP networks. Over many Houdini releases, Igor Žanić has been an active and contributing force in helping to improve performance, stability and workflow of FLIP fluids. Having been part of this most recent H19.5 beta, Igor rigorously tested SOP-FLIP tools and workflow and will be demonstrating custom boundaries (FLIP Boundary SOP), and simplified examples of how to take low resolution simulations, partially upres and blend between the two.    

SHHUG | Shenzhen

Elements of Houdini in the Creation of a Game

In this talk, we will be dissecting how proceduralism in Houdini can be used in the more efficient creation of a game. This will be done by looking at a hypothetical game as well as already existing successful customer stories. Learn how Houdini FX, Modeling, Terrain, Worldbuilding and Optimization workflows are being used to bring your game creation to the next level.    

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.

Mai Ao is a new member of SideFX Labs team and a technical artist who previously worked in game productions creating procedural pipelines, FX simulations, and shaders. He's here to drink coffee and develop tools, and he's all out of coffee at the moment.

SPHUG | São Paulo

Rigging a Tree

In this presentation, we will explore some workflows to fully rig a tree, including the tiny branches, use it in a vellum simulation to make It grow, and then deform It using KineFX workflows.

Guilherme Casagrandi is a Mathematician, working with Houdini for 10+ years. Currently owner of a small 3d-FX studio, HardcoreFX and teacher at Brave CG School.

BEIJINGHUG | Beijing

Application and experiment of Houdini in Motion Design

The latest in our ongoing Worldwide HUG series comes to use from Beijing, China. Meet motion graphics artists Lewis Orton , Krystal Ding ,PB_zz and Yuesheng Zheng, who will take you through some of their latest Houdini work. Hosted by Fan Zhang and Zhuo Zhenyuan.

PB_zz is a a motion designer with more than 3 years of work experience, currently working at UoU Studio. 

Yuesheng is a founder of BadPrinter Studio. BadPrinter Studio is a creative agency based in ShenZhen, specializing in Web interactive development, real-time Cg, interactive devices.   

Krystal Ding is a FX artist in Shanghai, China. She is a graduate of University of Washington,Seattle  and also an alumni member of Lost Boys Studio. She is passionate about improving the lives of others through design and constantly looking for a novel way to visualize with abstract, vibrant and colorful characteristics. Her work focused on fashion and advertising industry mainly using Houdini and Redshift. In the last few years, she has worked for many top-tier brands to design motion graphics and interactive solutions, such as Cartier, Bosie and Lenovo. 

Lewis Orton is working as a multidisciplinary motion designer. Lewis has been bringing novel visual experience to famous clients by utilizing powerful tools like Houdini. He also runs a startup company focusing on developing new tools, to improve the productivity of digital artists from various fields. 

LAHUG | Los Angeles

HDAs for Level Generation in Unreal Engine

In this live presentation, Victor Skarbye will present HDAs for Level Generation in Unreal Engine. This is the result of his bachelor's degree final project, where he created game-ready HDAs using Unreals BSP brushes to create a level generation system inside of Unreal Engine. By doing so, he had to learn VEX scripting, and implement the work inside of Unreal Engine; both of which he had nearly no experience in before this project. Victor worked in this game production pipeline with programmer Mikkel Laursen. The presentation will go through the creation of some of the HDAs, getting it inside of Unreal, and showcasing how the tool works inside of the engine.

Victor Skarbye is currently a student at Truemax Academy based in Copenhagen. He is 24 years old and just completed his bachelor's degree using Houdini and Unreal Engine. He is educated as a 3D generalist, however he learned Houdini on his own while he was at school, to become more specialized in hopes of a career using it.

LAHUG | Los Angeles

Mardini Highlights

For this LAHUG David Torno will be presenting select highlights from two of his Mardini entries. He will focus on his Houdini work for "Fantasy" (tree trunks and swaying vines) and "Valley" (simple art directed mountains). Welcome to Mardini, the gauntlet that will push you to your limits daily. It will force you to find solutions, ANY solutions to get it done. You are creative, skilled, and ready to tackle it all. Then five days into this challenge you realize that you foolishly signed up yet again for 31 days of no sleep, crazy builds, rendering nightmares.... basically absolute mayhem for a month straight. At the end of it all you achieve Iron Heart status, find yourself pleased, waiting for your free T-Shirt, and ready for the next one. That is, once you finish sleeping for about a week.

David Torno is a self-taught visual effects professional with a passion for the technical and educational sides of VFX. He has worked on films, commercials, music videos, and large scale multimedia projects. In 2008, he started sharing his wealth of knowledge through video tutorials, project templates, and utility scripts. In recent years, David has focused mostly on 3D volumetrics and particle animation. Via Fendra Fx, David continues to create helpful tools, and informative training videos for the creative community. 

CAIROHUG | Cairo

Arabic [Not Translated]

The VFX Industry in Cairo

This is the first gathering for CairoHUG community, we will have a discussion “in Arabic", with two great artists, Mahmoud Ageena, will talk about how Houdini hand to hand with Unreal engine have improved his creativity and productivity as a Flame / VFX artist working in broadcast branding field, and how this can make a great impact to other artists who have never tried before this workflow in Cairo. Mohamed Krak will then talk about Houdini in tv commercials and film industry, and how the demand on VFX works is rising in Cairo, and Houdini is changing the gameplay to a whole new level of flexibility of use and complexity of great FX.It will be a great inspiring discussion, showing the newbies / non-Houdini users where to start their career in these fields.

Mahmoud Ageena, is an award-winning Flame / VFX artist and designer from Egypt, He has 20 years of experience in tv commercials and broadcast branding.He is working at MBC Group in Dubai UAE, and before that he was working at Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha Qatar. His workflow between Flame, Houdini and Unreal engine is helping him do bigger projects, faster production with UE4 real time rendering.

Mohamed Krak, is a FX artist with 8 years of experience in film making and tv commercials in Egypt. Currently he is a freelancer, He was using many 3D softwares for FX, but for the last 4 years he switched his workflow to Houdini.

ORLANDOHUG | Orlando

World Building in Houdini

Simon will in this talk give an overview on world building in Houdini for game engines.  He will go over creating procedural terrains in Houdini to asset placement in the scene. The talk is focus more on outdoor scene like a forest or desert. Further will be shown how to bring it in the game engine and also show industry examples of Houdini used for world building.

Simon Verstraete is a Tech Artist at SideFX that is passionate about building procedural tools and assets. By exploring these procedural techniques, he is able to build 3D models with speed and flexibility. During his studies at Digital Arts and Entertainment, he taught himself Houdini then started working on Indie games such as “Ary and the Secret of Seasons.” by eXiin. 

LAHUG | Los Angeles

Fun with Solaris and Renderman 

This is an overview of Hardi's first project as an intern at SideFX where he was tasked with making a small project of his own idea and had to use Solaris and Renderman; both of which he had barely touched before. The journey entails: prepping USD assets, getting FX into Solaris, and other Renderman Solaris quirks.

Erhardian (Hardi) Siswadi is an FX Artist who is currently a SideFX Intern. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the Academy Of Art University in San Francisco where he first learned about Houdini, FX, and the VFX pipeline in general. To view more of his work visit his website.

A Shot from Start to Finish 

Kenny Clark will present "A Shot from Start to Finish", a quick overview of how to plan and execute a shot for your own demo reel aimed towards Houdini students or newcomers who might be struggling with their first personal projects. Kenny will cover what to avoid, what to prioritize, and how to get a nice and clean final result that showcases your knowledge of Houdini.

 Kenny Clark is currently a CG Intern at SideFX LA, prior to that he was a Junior FX artist at MPC FIlm, and a graduate of Lost Boys FX Artist Program in Montreal. You can find more of his work on his website.

STHUG | Stuttgart

USD in VEX 

VEX is the amazing programming language we all love, but have you ever used VEX snippets in combination with USD? This talk will go over the most important USD concepts and the VEX functions you need to know to be able to effectively edit your USD scene using VEX.

Matthias Pichler got his education in VFX at PixlVisn in Cologne then started working as an FX Artist at Pixomondo in Stuttgart, working on shots for movies and TV shows together with an amazing team. After 18 months of working at Pixomondo, he was able to shift his focus from working on shots to working as an FX & Pipeline TD. Together with Mariusz Wesierski, Tonio Freitag, and Yannic Schoof, they started Stuttgart's HUG (which has sadly been on a COVID-driven hiatus). To this day, you can find Matthias answering Shotgun Tickets, writing Python code, or debugging Deadline jobs - if he's not in a Microsoft Teams meeting right now.

MadHUG | Madrid

No todo es Vellum en la simulación de telas 

En esta presentación hablamos de la importancia que tiene el trabajo realizado antes y después de una simulación para conseguir el resultado deseado.

It's not all about Vellum in Cloth Simulation 

In this presentation we talk about the importance of the work done before and after a simulation in order to achieve the desired result.

Santiago Jiménez Francés is an FX artist and Houdini teacher at Trazos School (Madrid), freelance since 2008, working for TV series and advertising.

Santiago Jiménez Francés es un FX artist y Profesor de Houdini en Trazos School (Madrid), freelance desde 2008, trabajando para series de televisión y publicidad.

NYHUG | New York

Abstract Hydrodynamics with Houdini 

This talk will be about how to create Jupiter’s atmosphere in Houdini. Kate and David will go over how to produce these atmospheric effects by using some awesome hydrodynamic tools, particles, and ideas. As well how you can approach a project like this in an abstract way, while at the same time incorporating scientific ideas.

Kate Xagoraris is a VFX artist at Mr X in Toronto, Canada. She has a passion for researching science and its interaction with the world of visual effects. She also runs a VFX site (katexagoraris.com)  for artists to better understand Houdini and to think outside the box. Previously, she has worked on popular TV productions such as The Boys and Umbrella Academy. Kate taught herself Houdini while learning 3D Animation at Humber College. She has been passionately studying the software for three-plus years.  

David Ertsinian is a VFX artist  currently working as a visual effects artist at Pixomondo in Toronto, Canada. He started learning VFX back in 2016 at Seneca College and has worked for a couple companies in the industry such as SideFX and Soho VFX. Before Seneca, he studied animation at Mohawk College. During his time at SideFX, David was also responsible for testing and providing input for Houdini’s then new ocean tools such as the guided ocean layer and the spectrum/masking tools.

NYHUG | New York

MIDI in Houdini 

Using MIDI devices with Houdini is a great and easy way to supercharge creative workflows, whether it's modeling, animation, or getting better results from procedural generators. In this brief presentation, Maria will share some technics and approaches to setting up a convenient iterative workflow. 

Maria Mishurenko is an award-winning virtual and augmented reality developer, artist and game designer based in Brooklyn, New York. She is also a co-founder of the design studio Synesthetic Echo, which focuses on creating interactive experiences for emerging technology. Her recent virtual reality game Bizarre Barber was funded by Oculus and NYU Game Center Incubator.

LAHUG | Los Angeles

Blending VFX + Scientific Visualization

This live talk will be about how to incorporate scientific theories and ideas into your VFX productions. Kate will go over how to make scientific visualizations applicable to a production workflow, talk about how physics has already been used in film, and how we can push the boundaries further. As well as other possible uses for the software.

Kate Xagoraris is a VFX artist at Deluxe Entertainment in Toronto Canada. She has a passion for researching science and its interaction with the world of visual effects. She also runs a VFX site for artists to better understand Houdini and to think outside the box. Previously, she has worked on popular TV productions such as The Boys and Umbrella Academy. Kate taught herself Houdini while learning 3D Animation at Humber College. She has been passionately studying the software for three-plus years.

BRUHUG | Brussels

Python states: Take HDA to the next level

This talk will introduce you to the python viewerstates. Python viewerstates are powerful and take your HDA’s to the next level. With the viewerstates you can build and extra layer of interaction with HDA’s. The talk will go over some of the examples build-in Houdini. Like adding points based on mouse clicks, using keyboard to change parameters and more. At the end of the talk you will get an overall idea on how to create Python viewerstates and build custom tools.

Simon Verstraete is a Tech Artist at SideFX that is passionate about building procedural tools and assets. By exploring these procedural techniques, he is able to build 3D models with speed and flexibility. During his studies at Digital Arts and Entertainment, he taught himself Houdini then started working on Indie games such as “Ary and the Secret of Seasons.” by eXiin. 

MHUG | Montreal

Houdini Ocean Tools Quickstart  

Looking at the suite of tools available in the Houdini Ocean toolkit can be overwhelming.  Sean will look at some of the theory behind the Houdini Ocean tools, offer a broad overview, introduce the primary shelf tools individually, and then take a brief look at how and when to use each one of them.

Sean Lewkiw brings over 20 years of Visual Effects production experience as an artist, manager, and supervisor. He has an impressive list of credits on films such as Lord of the Rings, X-Men, The Golden Compass, Cloud Atlas, and Transformers to name a few.  Sean brings a strong knowledge of Houdini, having used it since inception in 1999, and has worked closely with SideFX over the years as a consultant and guest speaker and content creator.  He is currently Lead Houdini Instructor at Lost Boys School of VFX in Montreal, and Senior CG Supervisor at Cinesite VFX in Montreal.

CHIHUG | Chicago

Mighty Metaball 

This 3 part series will take an in depth look at the often overlooked features and uses for the metaball tools in Houdini.

Part 1 | Basics | Oct 1 -  The focus will be on the fundamentals of the meta field, including turning metaballs into geometry, the use of the magnet sop, and the meta force sop. 

Part 2 | Building Tools | Oct 15 - This presentation is dedicated to appropriating the code supplied in the pop meta force to build new tools. We will create a sop meta deformer and a sop meta interpolate sop. 

Part 3 | Gas Meta Force | Oct 29 - Take a deep dive into creating a Gas Meta Force that will include noisy temperature sourcing to create the beginnings of a cool nuke blast. 

Todd Dufour is the Fx Supervisor at the Mill Chicago.  He has over 17 years of Houdini experience. Before the Mill Chicago, Todd was the Fx Supervisor at Atomic Fiction. He has also worked at Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, Mirada, Asylum, the Mill LA, and ILM. 

LONHUG | London

Imaginary Colour, Clinical Hypnosis and Quasi-Monte Carlo 

Paul Simon Richards will present how he has used Houdini to produce award winning experimental films. The discussion will be as much aboutideas as it will be about technique, asking philosophical questions of familiar visual effects tools and processes. We will sense our way through the psychedelic world of 'imaginary' or 'impossible' colour using L*a*b colour and how Paul worked with a clinical hypnotist to build a 'solver' to produce images and text. The presentation will include discussion of Paul's ongoing work Looking at the historical context of Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo methods in visual effects. 

Paul Simon Richards is a Visual Artist and FX Technical Director based in London. His work has been presented internationallyin museums and art galleries and film festivals. Quasi-Monte Carlo is an ongoing project which receivedinitial seed funding from Film London in 2017 and has subsequently been supported by Arts Council England, Nvidia, British Airways, GridMarketsand Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer.

SINGHUG | Singapore

Yunus Balcioglu is a Senior FX Technical Director with experience from studios such as Industrial Light & Magic and MPC. Feature film credits include Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Aquaman, Alien: Covenant, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and many more. He previously worked in Silicon Valley building an interactive lidar, radar, camera analyzation and visualization tool for Lyft's Level 5 Autonomous Vehicle Division in Palo Alto. Before working in feature-film visual effects, he worked in the game industry as a Technical Artist at EA.

SFHUG | San Francisco

Transformation, abstraction, repetition, and how to think like a chef 

Working through some example projects to discuss a few foundational principles in generative design, and reflections on how to break through the staleness felt in the current digital content creation environment.

Han Han Xue is a Designer and FX Technical Director from Montreal, Canada. He is currently working on autonomous vehicles as a Product Designer at Lyft in San Francisco.

LAHUG | Los Angeles

Character Animation in Houdini 

For this presentation we’ll focus on taking a glimpse into Houdini’s animation tools. We’ll learn how to setup our f-curve interpolation for Pose-to-Pose animation blocking, how to polish animation, and we’ll also learn how quick and convenient it is to simulate a handheld camera with Motion FX.

Delano Athias has over 15 years of experience, he has worked as an animator and character TD on a variety of projects, ranging from blockbuster films, commercials, episodics, and games, for companies like Digital Domain, Method, Zoic, The Mill, and Psyop. He's been apart of such works as Ready Player One, Deadpool, The Good Place, The Walking Dead, and Future Man.

MEXHUG | Mexico City

Set Dressing with Eggs in Houdini: 
Artistic and Procedural Focus

In this presentation, I'll talk about the tools created for the set dressing team used in the movie "Un Rescate de Huevitos". I'll cover the creation of straw props to create the farm-like environment; how they work, as well as a bit of VEX, what you can do with it and a quick example. I'll also show two tools created for grass generation and stylized trees, and go over why it was better to create them instead of using existing tools. After each tool, I'll show how they were used and show an example. 

Alberto Juarez has 15 years of experience in CG and has used Houdini since 2008. He is currently a freelance VFX/CG Supervisor at Huevo cartoon. He has worked in advertisement as a generalist and TD, and in animation as a CG and FX Supervisor. In 2015, he worked on the animated TV series "King Julien" and "Mac an Moxy" as an FX artist.

Lighting in Houdini

Lighting in HoudiniIn this presentation, Ill talk about the benefits of using Houdini as a lighting package and how the tools in Houdini helped improve it.

Carlos Anaya is a lighting artist. First starting out in VFX with almost 10 years of experience using Houdini, it became his favourite software to use. He has held multiple positions such as CG Supervisor, Lighting artist and FX artist.

SPHUG | São Paulo

CHOPs FOR MUSIC AND CONSTRAINTS  
7 PM BRT  / 6 PM EDT | July 15

 In this presentation we will show some uses of CHOPs in the areas of music, MIDI and constraints and how It can improve workflows.

Guilherme Casagrandi is a Mathematician and Technical Director who has been working for more than 10 years with Houdini. Founder of the 3d FX Studio HardcoreFX and teacher at Brave CG School.

Fabricio Chamon is a 3D Artist and Technical Director with more than 15 years of experience, currently working as a freelancer for companies worldwide.

LAHUG | Los Angeles

"ESCAPE" PROJECT WORKFLOW  
5 PM PDT  / 8 PM EDT | July 8

 This presentation will cover the entire workflow of a Houdini cinematic project, titled "Escape", under a tight production schedule. It will include planning, modeling, FX, and final rendering in Solaris.

Arnold Song is currently an FX intern at SideFX and a teaching fellow at New York Film Academy - Los Angeles. He specializes in making cool effects and procedural models in Houdini.

THUG | Toronto

COFFEE TIME w/ ХАРКОННЕН 
+ ALEXEY VANZHULA 
1 PM  EDT | June 26

Come hang with us next Friday, as we talk with XAPKOHHEH (otherwise known as Anatolii Iudanov) and Alexey Vanzhula. There will be excessive laughter, talking about 3D, stories from the past, and also there will be a presentation from XAPKOHHEH, revolving pyro and vellum. What about those two things? Well you have will to join in to find out :)!  

Anatolii Iudanov In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero. He was Xapkohheh, a mighty princess forged in the heat of deadlines. The power...the passion...the danger. Xapkohheh possessed a strength the world had never seen – a strength surpassed only by the power of his heart. He journeyed the Earth – fixing pipelines and battling the tasks of his wicked stepmother, Hera, the all-powerful queen of bad clients. But wherever there was evil, wherever an innocent FX artist would suffer, there would be Xapkohheh.

Alexey Vanzhula is the creator of the modeling toolset "Modeler", which is a collection of specialized tools geared towards interactive modelers, in Houdini. Alexey has designed a UI and menus for accessing these tools and offers a workflow that blends both Houdini non-destructive environment, with high interactivity (more common amongst traditional 3D modeling packages apps). Prior to Houdini, Alexey was using Maya for 13 years. 

VHUG | Vancouver

VEX TRAFFIC SIMULATION
Franco Pizzani | 7:00  PM PST | June 24

We will take a look at a simple traffic simulation system built in a popnet using VEX. We will start by quickly going over a reynolds boids setup showcasing some of the principles of crowds simulation, and we will learn about some useful VEX functions and ways to interact with other particles in the simulation. Then we will move into the traffic simulation itself and we will see how making use of modular functionality snippets make for a versatile and scalable setup.    

Franco Pizzani is a 3D artist working on games for several years. Transitioned into Houdini a little over a year ago by going to school in Vancouver. Recently worked as a VFX artist at Method and just started a new job as a Technical Artist at Applied Intuition.

GENERATING G-CODE
Ivan deWolf | 7:40 PM PST | June 24

After buying a toy drawing machine, I could not find a good system to build gcode for it from an SVG file, so I made a system that generates gcode for a drawing machine directly from a python SOP, and have generated several ballpoint pen plots from Houdini using the system. The presentation will touch on CNC software toolchains and file formats, Houdini python coding, and a running machine and sample generated drawings will be shown, and source code will be provided.

Ivan DeWolf started his career in 1994 working on films using Side Effects software tools. He taught himself how to code, and started a software and visual effects production company called Martian Labs. Martian Labs sold ocean surface simulation tools and other systems to DD, R&H, Asylum, and other companies. He now works at Sony as a software engineer.