Animal Logic | A Glimpse into USD ALab and Asset Building at Animal Logic | Houdini HIVE SI...

Earlier this year, Animal Logic announced the open source release of USD ALab, a fully realised USD Scene that aims to encourage further collaboration and exploration by the wider community. USD ALab provides great insight into Animal Logic's USD production assets and explores the capabilities of Houdini Solaris and Karma.This session will take a deep dive into the studios customised USD Shade material workflows and associated proprietary renderer integration, and explore how the Tree Building system “Spruce” was added to Houdini Solaris.
Christian Lopez Barron joined the Assets TD team in 2017, to work on Animal Logic’s first hybrid live action/animated feature, Peter Rabbit and The LEGO Ninjago Movie. After studying Animation and Digital Arts in Mexico, he started his career working in Digital Advertisement in Guadalajara, where he focused on animation and rigging, though his technical interest led him to explore python. After gaining a Technical Director role, he began managing the pipeline for a small team, before accepting a role in the Animation Film Industry in Spain with Wonder Park, as a Senior Technical Director for Layout, Previz and Scene Assembly. Christian is originally from Mexico and, since he was a child, he has loved animated movies (and movies in general). He also enjoys music, photography, travelling and dancing.
Balaji Kutty Premkumar has been working in the VFX and animation industry for 15 years as a Software Engineer and Pipeline Technical Director, specialising in Rigging, Cloth, Fur and Pipeline Development. He is currently a Lead Pipeline Developer at Animal Logic’s Vancouver studio, where he manages the Assets Pipeline, which covers the Modelling, Rigging, and Surfacing Departments. After graduating with a Bachelor of Electronics and Communication Engineering from Madurai, India, Balaji followed his interest in gaming and VFX by teaching himself the CG/VFX pipeline and workflow, before starting his career as a Character Modeller. He then moved into Rigging and more technical departments in the pipeline.
Mohammed Kamal is a creative and technical professional with extensive experience in digital effects and developing creative procedural systems. He is currently working as an Assets Technical Director at Animal Logic’s Sydney studio, where he has a deep interest in the convergence of automation, real-time, procedural generation and geometry processing systems that allow beautiful images to be realised with efficiency.Originally from Palestine, Mohammed has also worked at Mr. X in Adelaide as an FX Artist on the Oscar nominated film, Love and Monsters. He founded the group, Standing Man Post, to share and create abstract artwork and simulate photorealistic natural phenomena.
Ankit Sinha joined Animal Logic’s Sydney studio in 2019 and is currently a Lead Pipeline Developer. Originally from India, Ankit started his career as an FX Artist and TD for Rhythm and Hues in Mumbai. He has a passion for python and a keen interest in Rust programming language and its application with CG pipeline. He also enjoys painting, bouldering, camping and travelling.

[@workflowinmind]

Thanks for this, very interesting to see the though process behind AL USD workflow

[@SLPCaires]

c o n v o l u t e d A F

[@parapobabam]

Would be awesome if more than half the words were actually legible. How about adding some English subtitles or getting someone with better English.