Houdini's HEXs & HIVEs: How's It Going

In February, Houdini launched their HEX series, a thorough interview with Artists and Game Developers. HEX is published monthly in a stream format on YouTube. So far, we have 3 episodes available and you can check them out below with a list of topics provided.

• Nikola Damjanov / The Dawning – In February, we launched an animated short film called The Dawning. Project lead Fianna Wong speaks with one of the artists from the project, Nikola Damjanov.
• Moeen Sayed / Mardini Daily Challenge – Learn about Mardini - the daily art challenge - and hear from last year’s Houly challenge winner, Moeen Sayed.
• Tim van Helsdingen / SideFX Snacks – In January we published a Houdini course on creating a chocolate bar. Fianna speaks with the author of that course - Tim van Helsdingen.
• Jacob Reynolds / Epic MegaJam – Meet Jacob Reynolds - the Houdini category winner of the Epic MegaJam.
• Worldwide HUG Updates – Fianna Wong and Paola Catano provide some info on HUG presentations.
• Chris Wallis / RenderMan Art Challenge – Ben Mears speaks with Chris Wallis - the winner of the RenderMan Art Challenge.
• Chris Rydalch / USD Pipelines – Jeff Wagner speaks with Blue Sky’s Chris Rydalch about developing a USD pipeline.

• Free Houdini Engine Plugins for Unity and Unreal – SideFX is pleased to announce that Houdini Engine for UE4 and Houdini Engine for Unity is now available for commercial customers for free. Learn more in this segment with SideFX's Judith Crow and Christopher Hebert.
• Unreal Engine Plugin V2 – SideFX's Simon Verstraete and Damien Pernuit chat about the latest and greatest version of the Unreal Engine plug-in for Houdini.
• New Crowds Course – Fianna Wong chats with MPC's Mikael Pettersén, the author of the newly released Crowds Course.
• Mardini Daily Art Challenge – Meet Carl Drifter, the first animation category winner.
• Making of Joji '777' Music Video – Debra Issac chats with Saad Moosajee and James Bartolozzi about how they utilized Unreal Engine with Houdini to create a full troupe of CG dancers based on the captured movements of just one.
• KineFX – SideFX's Fianna Wong and Henry Dean chat about the progression of KineFX, tools in Houdini designed for motion editors, riggers, and animators.
• Indie Game: Shoulders of Giants – SideFX's Ben Mears chats with indie game developer Patrick McAvena about his latest title and how Houdini played a role in creating assets for the game.
• SideFX Labs – SideFX's Paul Ambrosiussen chats with Matt Estela - Mr. CG Wiki himself - about SideFX Labs.
• Sci-Viz with Houdini – Debra Isaac talks with Kate Xagoraris about the possibilities for using Houdini for scientific visualization, and particularly for outer space.
• Learning Path Enhancements – SideFX's Robert Magee takes you through the latest enhancements to the learning section on SideFX.com.
• Henry Foster, Chief Architect, MOPs – Jeff Wagner interviews MOPS’s Henry Foster.
• Moritz Schwind, Co-Founder, Entagma – Jeff chats with Moritz Schwind.

• Ingenuity Studios – S.W.A.T. Chad Wanstreet and Grant Miller speak with Christopher Hebert about how they incorporated Solaris into their pipeline as they digitally reconstructed street scenes from Downtown Los Angeles for S.W.A.T.
• Axiom Update – Axiom Houdini plug-in creator Matt Puchala chats with SideFX's Rob Stauffer about the latest updates to his GPU-accelerated volumetric fluid solver.
• Demon's Souls – Sparx* A Virtuos Studio - Jerome Hereng breaks down the Houdini-generated VFX found in their beautiful new game cinematic.
• Bottleship VFX – Hristo Velev and Fianna Wong catch up and chat about Bottleship VFX's latest work in the Netfix feature 'Space Sweepers'.
• Deep Learning for VFX and Games – Paul Ambrosiussen speaks with Valentine Kozin from Rare about his work involving Machine Learning / Deep Learning with Houdini.
• Project Titan – Simon Verstraete, Rob Stauffer, and Christopher Hebert reveal what's to come with a new SideFX demo and learning project for 2021.
• KineFX / Crowds – Jeff Wagner speaks with Rob Hopper from Union VFX.

Regarding Houdini's HIVEs, the next HIVE is planned to be in Europe on May 4, 2021. It is promised to feature sessions on motion graphics/advertising, VFX, character FX, Solaris lighting, lookdev & layout, rendering, and more. If you are an Artist or a Game Developer, you should definitely join the Europe HIVE for 6 days of online workshops and conferences.

Learn more about the upcoming HIVE by visiting SideFX's website. Also, don't forget to join our new Telegram channel, our Discord, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.