May 20th, 2010

Side Effects Software's Senior Technology Consultant, Jeff Wagner and Senior Account Executive Janet Fraser recently wound down a busy two weeks of traveling through Europe and the UK. They had the opportunity to be a part of FMX 2010 in Stuttgart, Germany followed by a visit to Framestore's studio in London, England.

Training was the focus of this trip. At FMX 2010 in Stuttgart, Jeff participated in a series of Masterclasses along with a Houdini Town Hall.

After Stuttgart, their next stop was London, England where Framestore graciously hosted what was an intensive week of training.

From Ciaran Devine Framestore's Head of FX

We're delighted with the recent Houdini Training sessions here at Framestore. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Framestore has a long history with SideFX, and it's great to be able to build upon that relationship with events such as this.

Framestore's film division has over 30 FX TD's working on various projects. The majority of that team are Houdini users, with Framestore's commercials team adding another dozen Houdini users - so this was the perfect way to strengthen our Houdini squad. It also provided many with a practical introduction to Houdini.

We're also really happy that we opened up the doors to host these sessions as a public event. We had Houdini users from many different companies here - all the major VFX houses in London were represented, which got people talking and provided a cross pollination of ideas. Jeff was a marvellous tutor, and his endless enthusiasm kept the sessions dynamic and interesting - providing focused knowledge for newbies though to experts. With a grand total of nearly 30 hours instruction, everyone came away having picked up something new.

Framestore's dedicated training centre proved to be a great venue, and we've recorded and captured all the sessions for those who couldn't attend. These will shortly be available online with all Jeff's files from the sessions.

We're now looking forward to organising the next event, and making this a regular occurrence in the VFX calendar.

From Janet and Jeff

We appreciate the invitation from Framestore to train their very talented staff on a variety of Houdini topics. They also generously opened their space to other companies in the London community. Thanks to Ciaran, Stefan Habel and Stephanie Bruning for organizing the space and hosting Jeff and I. It will be fantastic to see the edited versions of Jeff's sessions available to everyone in the coming weeks.