https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2678034/ Lego Movie 2: Brick Environments; Houdini RBD and HDAs based on layout geometry. This was for multiple sequences in the film and needed to be integrated with the studio pipeline which was not Houdini based. I had to pitch this to the show to convince them effects could do it without breaking everything. How to Train Your Dragon 2: Fire Sword; Procedural and simulated volumes. The fire was emitted 'in place' via a procedural setup to give it shape and avoid emission/blurring artifacts. Compositing over daytime sky was also a bit tricky. Trolls: Hair Camouflage/Reveal; Houdini procedural curves and in house hair system. To get the 'stop motion but not' quality that we were asked for I used a setup that begins as highly tweakable procedural curves and changes over right at the end to a subtle spring system to get the final bob in her hair. Madagascar 3: Bear "Flash Dance"; Houdini procedural and simulated particles. Similar to the fire sword, I emitted most of the curves in place to really get the nice swooping arcs. I think half of this may have been done in Maya, I was between software packages at the time. How to Train Your Dragon: Nightmare Fire; in house volume tools, Maya particles. I realize this is old and not that impressive anymore, but this show holds a special place in my heart and I wanted to put at least one shot on my reel. This was the show we developed VDB's for, though back then they were called MFs (multi-fields) and so 90% of this effect was command-line tools. Guardians: High Speed Sand Magic: Houdini procedural particles. When a VFX supervisor stands up and yells "Yes, that's it!" you feel a little tingly on the inside, especially when the whole team is trying to hit the mark of what 'black sand magic' looks like and you're the one that nails it. Save for a bit of falling sand off of the trail this whole shot is procedural particles, it was too fast to sim anything and get nice shapes. HTTYD Christmas Special: Yak Nog; Houdini particles and VDB surfaces. This was a fun, gross shot to do. I used a trick where I emit two independent particle sims, one runny and one viscous, and then combine them together for a single fluid surface. The contrasting motion looks like spoiled milk. The foam were particle clusters that just sat on top. I liked my render better, the shadows at the base of this foam are too heavy and they make it look disconnected from the liquid imho. Megamind: Freeway explosion; Procedural and simulated volumes, some particles. The initial rolling explosion from the underpass are rotating volume spheres. These were much easier to keyframe to the character's motion rather than trying to do it with a sim. HTTYD Christmas Special: Water Pool; Third party tools for surface, Houdini particles for bubbles. This was so long ago I don't remember the name of the liquid solver. I always liked these bubbles though. I needed to do several passes to get the 'tube' that follows the egg and the filigree bubbles. Advecting through very low res fluid sims seems to always give the best motion. Guardians: Ice Wave Explosion; Basically everything. This is one of the few shots where I was handed a blank canvas. I needed to model whatever I thought a 'frozen black sand wave' looked like and then blow it up. The frozen wave was procedural SDF/polysurface, and the explosion were particles that emitted other particles that emitted even more particles that were converted to volumes for the chunks/pixie dust/smoke elements. I made a custom, non-simulated version of the existing Jack Frost ice magic which I layered on top and used for the lighting. How to Train Your Dragon 2: Bewilderbeast Ice Breath; There was an existing setup for the water blast that was not giving us the density we needed for this shot/angle, so I recreated the look with a volume 'tube' for the main body of the blast, some particle clustering for the whitewater, and some very careful compositing for the final render. The ice spikes were procedural volumes (with a great shader that I can't take credit for) and some particle sims for the chunks/snow/steam. Trolls: Card Glitter; Particles. I love doing glitter shots. Also this is basically me and my wife. Music "Happy Reunion" Colter Wall and the Scary Prairie Boys. While living in Canada I got really into alt country/bluegrass. Never in my life had I listened to country (I grew up a metal head) but something about these ridiculous, overly folksy songs really made sense while we were up there. Also, when I was interviewing new hires at Animal Logic, everyone's demo reel had some super modern, neo-dubstep, ambient background music and I wanted the opposite of that. I think I succeeded. This suits me more. I'm old.