1. Anatomy of a Good Prompt

    I'm learning bit-by-bit that there are certain elements that make for a better prompt. This is my attempt at capturing what those are from my current viewpoint.

    AI

    Sunday, 27 August 2023

  2. Houdini, USD and UE4 - part 1

    I want to see how much data I can move back and forth between Houdini 18.5 and UE4.26 using USD. In this first part, I prep the bar scene that SideFX provides to bring into UE4. Along the way I: Setup the USD kind and purpose. Create a proxy (realtime friendlier) mesh. Show some PDG fun to batch...

    VFX

    Wednesday, 9 December 2020

  3. Digital Artists of the Future

    As a digital artist, working in 3D, there's a lot to be excited about. In the future, there will be a shift in the skills that are valued. Technology is changing the world around us at a rapid pace. Our lives are better for it, and our jobs are easier to do. The acceleration in change can be scary...

    VFX

    Thursday, 26 March 2020

  4. Playful Permission Slips: Babies

    I was at a restaurant the other day, watching a mother across the room, dancing, waving her hands in the air, pulling funny faces. All for the joy and delight of her baby, placed on top of the table in his rocker. The father came back from the bathroom and joined in the silliness. Two parents, on a...

    Play, Empathy, Gift-giving

    Tuesday, 17 March 2020

  5. Stop Calling Yourself a [Software] Artist

    I get it. You're new to the industry. There's so much to learn that it can be overwhelming, from artistic principles to technical skills to a myriad of software packages. And then, when it's your turn to market yourself, you choose to identify as a artist. You're defining yourself on a...

    VFX

    Monday, 16 March 2020

  6. Video Training Sucks: Part 2

    This is a follow-up to an article I wrote about the poor state of video training and what we can do better. In that post, I identified key points that I thought needed to be addressed for video training to be more effective. They were: Limit your focus - get to the heart of what you're trying to...

    Education

    Sunday, 8 March 2020

  7. Mating in Captivity: A book report

    I don’t think Esther Perel’s book, Mating in Captivity would be the first inspirational choice for some. But I found myself captivated and excited with every page. The book explores the conflict between intimacy and sexual desire through a series of case studies and insights. On the face of a...

    Self Development

    Sunday, 18 August 2019

  8. Presenting at GDC 2017: A Postmortem

    Once a year thousands of people, from all over the world, gather in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference. Every aspect of game development is put on display where the community can share and learn from each other. Business, art, community development, writing, leadership and so many of...

    VFX

    Sunday, 31 March 2019

  9. Herding Rocks: Procedural Animation in Shape of the World

    SideFX invited me to give a quick talk at their booth during GDC 2017. I had already shown most of the work I'd done for Gears of War in a webinar the previous year so I wasn't too sure what I would show. Thankfully game designer extraordinaire and ex-colleague Stu Maxwell asked me to help out on...

    VFX

    Friday, 24 March 2017

  10. Realtime VFX for Games: Houdini ILLUME Webinar

    Towards the end of 2016 I was fortunate enough to share a lot of the work we did on Gears of War 4 using Houdini through a webinar organized by SideFX. At just under 2 hours there's a lot of info crammed in. I wanted to cover as much as possible at a higher level because I think the concepts can...

    VFX

    Friday, 17 March 2017

  11. Leadership in VFX: Marc Horsfield

    I posted this back in 2015 on my old wordpress site. In an effort to consolidate the various bits and bobs I have strewn across the internet I wanted to add this to my self hosted website. Below is the text and links as it was published previously. Apologies - the video is missing the first few I...

    Leadership

    Friday, 17 March 2017

  12. RBD Design - Secondary Fracturing

    One way to get some more variation and interest out of your rbd simulation is to add secondary fracturing.  This can be done in a number of ways but the basic idea is to setup your initial sim with a mixture of hero pieces and supporting pieces (I talk more about that in this video). Then create...

    Education

    Sunday, 12 February 2017

  13. Video Training Sucks (and what we can do to make it better)

    I'm just going to put it out there - the state of video training for a lot of subjects suck. The number of times I've almost fallen asleep from a lousy video tutorial or had the excitement for a new topic wrenched from me over hours of wasted watching time is beyond me. I love learning, and I'm a I...

    Education

    Thursday, 9 February 2017

  14. Learning Houdini Like A Language

    So here's an idea - what if a new student to Houdini approached the process like learning a language? There are 2 ideas that I think new users to Houdini could benefit from. The first is learning the 20 most common nodes in the SOP context first. This is similar to language learners starting with a...

    Education

    Tuesday, 7 February 2017

  15. Creating and Consuming

    My intent for this year is to create more and consume less (or at least be more conscious of what I consume). I see myself as a creator, an artist. My job involves creating visual effects for video games and I love it. I also like to create other things - art, code, food. What I noticed recently I...

    Self Development

    Thursday, 5 January 2017