Training For Trainers

Side Effects Production Consultant Judith Crow shares her special techniques in this workshop designed to help studio training heads and educators learn how to get their teams and students going procedural in Houdini quickly and effectively.

In the Clouds!

We've had to keep a really cool thing tight under wraps at Side Effects for the past few months. And now we're allowed to talk about it!

Check out our HQueue Cloud Computing for Artists using the Amazon EC2!

Beta testing has officially begun and we're already getting tons of great input. Make sure you check out the really expansive Userguide on the link above and learn more about it!

Great Houdini 10 Event in UK

Thanks to all of you who turned out to see Jeff Wagner and Janet Fraser at the Canadian High Commission on November 17.

We had a great turn out, a great overview on new Houdini 10 Features, and a wonderful presenter, Jacob Clark from Framestore showing off some new work.

Here are a few photos from the event, kindly provided by our friend and FX artist, Alvin Yap.

Janet Fraser, Sr. Account Executive and Jeff Wagner, Snr. Technology Consultant

Jacob Clark, from Framestore London

Janet Fraser talks to local UK users.

Jeff Wagner continues to discuss Houdini 10 with presentation attendees.

Houdini in London on November 17th!

We will be hosting TWO Houdini Sessions on November 17th in London.

Afternoon Session: 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM

In this session Senior Technology Consultant and Houdini guru Jeff Wagner will cover working with grid based Fluid systems. The various ways of setting up a distributed and up res fluid simulation will be covered. Interaction with fluids and other dynamic objects will be investigated. Advanced concepts like adding advection stages to existing solvers to create custom fluid behaviour are explored and are a good step to understanding how extensible the fluid system is in Houdini. Many particle effects are now driven by volume primitives. Particle advection of various extracted volumes from the fluid simulation will be demonstrated.

Evening Session: 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM

In this session In this session Senior Technology Consultant and Houdini guru Jeff Wagner will be working with grid based Fluid systems. General set up and adding other Dynamic objects that interact with the fluids will be covered.

Many particle effects are now driven by volume primitives. Particle advection of various extracted volumes from the fluid simulation will be demonstrated.

Guest presenter FX Technical Director Jacob Clark will join us to present some examples of the work that Framestore has assembled for the upcoming feature film Prince of Persia. He will demonstrate how Houdini was used to create specific effects within the film pertaining to the "Sandroom" sequence.

For more details on the EVENING session and to register click HERE

** Please remember to use the appropriate link and RSVP for this event as space is limited.

Houdini Boot Camps In Santa Monica

In our training room, close to the beach, but no laps involved! These pictures show veteran Side Effects trainer, Peter Robbinson, at our September bootcamp. Attendees were from Idaho, Atlanta, Vancouver, Philly and Singapore. Our next bootcamp is next week, a rare class with our senior consultant, Judith Crowe. Keep an eye on sidefx.com for more classes to come.

Triggering Sounds and Virtual Audio Recording

The house was rockin' with Andrew Lowell as he walked the standing room only crowd through the making of a virtual sound track.

Porsche Spot

Asylum Visual Effects in Santa Monica just recently wrapped this spot for Porsche.





Millimeter magazine posted a recent story on the spot featuring a few of our friends on the credits list, mainly Zach Tucker - CG Sup.

Lead Technical Designer: Jeff Willette

Effects Animator: Jens Zalzala



Great work guys!