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.

SIGGRAPH 2009 Wrap Up

Thanks everyone who came to our Education Booth at the show and said hello! We had a great turn out for Go Procedural t-shirts and Learning DVDs.

Here are a few pictures of our week at SIGGRAPH in NOLA this year.

Having drinks with Rhythm & Hues (Mark Elendt, David Horsely, Lucio Flores, Jeff Lait). These guys did a great technical talk on "Land of the Lost".

Houdini and Side Effects sponsor Thursday's SIGGRAPH Reception at Mardi Gras World.

Side Effects Team: Richard Hamel, Peter Robbinson, Aliza Sorotzkin, Jeff Wagner, Janet Fraser, Leyla Tirgari

fan mail

We get a lot of interesting mail sent to us at Side Effects. While most is pretty generic, every once in a while a great piece of fan mail comes in that makes us smile. Thought I would share one from someone I'll keep anonymous.

I love you guys. Seriously. (I'm not intoxicated.) Your software kicks
ass, but it's the small things that count...

You provide emails without having to resort to using 350 image slices
or 95 HTML tables. You provide intelligent hyperlinks which contain
the URL in your emails instead of the usual "click here". You provide
cryptographic checkums for file downloads. You don't spam the hell out
of me. Your file links are actual file links, rather than JavaScript
wrappers which would prevent the usage of GNU wget(1) or BSD fetch(1).
You don't use the exclamation character in extraneous ways like most
companies, e.g: "New Product!!!!!!" You guys know the correct way to
use an apostrophe. (You'd be surprised.) You provide daily software
builds. Your website isn't, last time I checked, caked with the latest
industry buzzwords like "technology" or "2.0". You provide packages of
your software for non-officially-supported platforms. Your hyperlinks
work without JavaScript.

I have no corporate agenda. I'm not sucking-up for free gifts. It's
just nice to see that there are companies who don't completely ruin
even the simplest things.

Autodesk killed Maya PLE. I'm jumping ship.

Houdini use at Guerilla Games

We just posted a great story on how Houdini was used on Killzone 2 at Guerilla Games in Holland.

Check it out!

Coraline story on Side Effects site

We just posted a great story about how Houdini was used in the almost entirely hand made stop motion project Coraline at LAIKA in Portland.



Great job to the LAIKA team and big thanks for helping us get this story out for the Houdini Community!

Congratulations to all the VES nominated Houdini folks!

We'd like to announce that we are very proud of the following artists for their nominations at the 7th Annual Visual Effects Awards!



(please note: we have only mentioned names we are familiar with and know from the community. If you are a nominee in the Houdini community, we'd love to hear what project you worked on! Feel free to comment or write to community@sidefx.com)

• Andy Boyd from Method Studios
• Christoph Amman from Double Negative
• Dan Seddon from Framestore London
• David Mellor from Framestore NYC
• David Hulin from Framestore NYC
  
• Nikos Kalaitzidis form Digital Domain
• Jack Zaloga from Method Studios
• Jason Iversen from Rhythm & Hues
• Sho Hasegawa from Rhythm & Hues
• Spencer Lueders from Framestore NYC
• Zsolt Krajcsik from Digital Domain

David Robert (Account Manager for the Bay Area) and myself will be attending this year's ceremony to help support our users. Look for us in formal attire, and let's have a toast!

Local Event: Toronto

(Janet Fraser and some Houdini peeps at the Overdraught in Toronto)

If you're in the Toronto area don't forget to go meet up with the local Houdini Community with THUG at Overdraught restaurant!

date: Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
time: starting at 6pm EST
place: Overdraught restaurant and pub

156 Front Street West
Toronto, ON M5J 2L6, Canada
(416) 408-3925
map

Please note: A few key members of the Side Effects Staff are currently in India with FICCI Frames. Please contact us at community@sidefx.com if you'd like to organize a meeting.