LA Event: HOUPLA Presents Mantra 10

We're going to have our developer Andrew Clinton, in charge of Mantra, down from Toronto in a few weeks.

To celebrate, we'll be throwing a small social gather, following his presentation on the latest and greatest in Mantra.

Check out the link to RSVP for this event. Space is limited, so we can't let those not on the list enter.

Also, Andrew will be doing a master class on Volumetrics in Mantra the following day!

Tokyo Roundup - September 2009

Just got back from our visit with the Houdini users in Tokyo and IndyZone, the Japanese reseller of Houdini for almost 2 years now.

This was my 3rd time going to the Land of the Rising Sun, and John Courte's (Senior Houdini Artist) first.

Our primary purpose there was to meet with several long time clients and to get together with the Houdini Gurus in the area, many of whom were long time devotees and users of Prisms.

We also attended the CEDEC conference in Yokohama as part of the SGI presence. SGI was kind enough to have over all the way from Amsterdam, Paulus Bannink, Lead Technical Director at Guerrilla Games. He was kind enough to re-present his talk at SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans on using Houdini for Games in Killzone 2.

Just wanted to thank everyone who helped organize another wonderful trip while we were there. Especially the folks at SGI for not just our attendance at CEDEC, but hosting the Houdini Usergroup Meeting at the beautiful Yebisu Garden Place, home of SGI.

Here are a few photos of our time in Tokyo:

Hanging out with Daniel Ferreira, now at SEGA Sammy. He helped us build the Houdini 10 Crumpling and tearing tools while working on GI Joe at Digital Domain.

Paulus' presentation at the CEDEC conference in Yokohama.

American tourists in Tokyo. John and I on a photo-taking journey of Yokohama.

SGI slide showing a legacy of machines just before the Houdini Usergroup Meeting at Yebisu Gardens.

Ichiro Tanaka of IndyZone introducing John Courte.

Explaining some new UI enhancements in Houdini 10

Japanese users gather.

After party. Here I am with Abe-san from Square!

Japanese users eating and drinking!

We'll see you again in December Japan, for SIGGRAPH Asia!

Houdini 10 Review on VFX World

Not sure if you checked this out already, and sorry for the tardy post. But Dean Grubb over at Digital Domain recently wrote a review of Houdini 10 on VFX World.


Thanks for the positive review Dean !

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

See you in New Orleans!

We'll be at SIGGRAPH 2009 soon and promoting Houdini Education at our booth.

Even though we won't be doing any public presentations ourselves, do check out some stuff from our clients!

• Our friends at Rhythm & Hues, Lucio Flores and David Horsely will present on using Distributed Sims on "Land of the Lost"
  

• Guerilla Games' Paulus Bannink talks about how to use Houdini in Games Pipeline (as done in Killzone 2).

Houdini at 50% off!

We don't do them that often, so take a look at the promotion we have going for Master licenses right now!

GO|Procedural and save 50% on a Master Bundle where you get one year AUP included!

wall flowers

Once again, we've been surprised by a new way of using Houdini. This game never gets old, really.

Handmade Wallpaper done by Alex Stephan based in Toronto. Here's a little blurb about how it's all done, but you can't get too technical with everyone :).