This year marks the 25th anniversary of Side Effects Software. The company’s Houdini product rides high as the go-to tool for procedural and effects animation. We talk to co-founder, chief executive officer and president of Side Effects Kim Davidson, and two of Side Effects’ staff honored at this year’s Sci-Tech Oscars, Andrew Clinton and Mark Elendt, about the invention and integration of micro-voxels in the Mantra renderer. This work allowed, for the first time, efficient rendering of volumetric effects such as smoke and clouds in a micro-polygon imaging pipeline.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/side-effects-software-25-years-on/ [fxguide.com]