An Evening with Houdini Technical Directors @ Pixar Animation Studios

Join the San Francisco Houdini User Group (SFHUG) for a memorable evening at Pixar Animation Studios. Seven talented Houdini TDs & Artists will be presenting their various workflows in Pixar films.

Agenda for the evening:

4:30 pm - Doors open
4:45 pm - Pixar Houdini talks start (from FX, Sets, and Crowds)
6:30 pm - Pixar talks stop; snacks are served
7:30 pm - Doors shut

-Please note this event cannot be recorded in any form.

Presenter Line-up -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tolga Goktekin
//Frozone vs Hydroliner: Large Scale Snow Simulations in Incredibles 2

At the end of Incredibles 2 Frozone tries to stop a large speeding ship, the Hydroliner, by creating mounds of snow to slow it down and cushion its impact. We will present how we created these large scale snow effects using Houdini's grain solver.

Krzysztof Rost
//Automaton - a short film - Houdini and collaborative workflow

A short bg animated film - Automaton - created using Houdini and Renderman. A collaborative workflow to accommodate multiple artist working simultaneously.

Hosuk Chang
//Live Subnet and Subnet Module

Collaborative workflow via granular version control of node network with Live Subnet and implicit parameter overriding and dynamic context management with Subnet Module

Eric LaCroix
//Frozone Ice Wall

Breakdown of Frozone Ice Wall effect's work. Collaboration with the animation, shading and layout departments while meeting the Director, Art Director and FX Supervisor expectations.

Alec Bartsch
//Growth-Inspired Pattern Generation

Physically-inspired growth simulations open up a world of pattern-generation possibilities beyond the traditional shading toolkit of noises, cells, and texture bombing. As one example, a fully-abstracted digital asset will be presented which generates seamlessly-tiling patterns inspired by the organic structures formed in the process of diffusion-limited aggregation. Packing the underlying simulation into a digital asset, with carefully chosen inputs, empowers it to function as an art-directable building block, and the addition of a few quasi-physical high-level controls allows for a surprising diversity of patterns to be created.

David Luoh
//Set Extensions for Coco and Toy Story 4

The Set Extensions group at Pixar changes dynamically from production to production depending on visual and technical direction. In addition to sky and cloud work, the team has recently more formally taken ownership of set construction that uses approaches outside the typical Pixar asset pipeline. This tends to leverage tools like Houdini and hacking USD, taking full advantage of proceduralism, scrappy workflows, animation, and shot work. Some examples of recent work are animated vehicles and skull shapes in the City of the Dead for Coco, and animated carnival lights and dust, debris, and cobwebs for Toy Story 4.

Special Thanks to Alicea Engquist who helped organize this event.