In 2026 Everything Procedural is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In the years since they started, they have gained strong recognition as a leading conference in the field of procedural content for games. This amazing event offers many opportunities to meet and share knowledge with fellow artists and developers.
This year SideFX is bringing Houdini HIVE presentations to the EPC Conference and three Houdini IGNITE workshops covering a variety of topics. Be sure to sign up on the EPC website to secure your spot. All the workshop tracks are happening at the same time so please only register for one of them.
PRESENTATIONS
EPC
CONFERENCE
April 7 & 8
WORKSHOP
TRACK 1
KINEFEST
Intermediate/CharacterApril 9 & 10
WORKSHOP
TRACK 2
TITAN EVO
Beginner/GamesApril 9 & 10
WORKSHOP
TRACK 3
MASTERCLASSES
AdvancedApril 9 & 10
CONFERENCE | HIVE Presentations
Here are the Houdini HIVE presentations coming to EPC. Please note that times have not been set at this point. Check with the EPC website for the scheduling of these talks.
TUESDAY APRIL 7
Roy Kristoffersen | Qvisten Animation Max Rose | SideFX
George Hulm & Feike Postmes | Natsura
Erik Östsjö| Embark Studios
WEDNESDAY APRIL 8
Nikola Damjanov | Nordeus
Pawel Kowalski | CD Projekt Red
Tuesday | April 7
Dragons Breath
Learn how to model texture and rig a dragon from scratch in Houdini. You will use the KineFX tools in Houdini which are powered by APEX which provides all of the rigging components as well as an animation context for fast rig evaluation.
Roy Kristoffersen is the Lead 3D Artist at Qvisten Animation. A 3D generalist with 20 years of experience in Maya, he has a deep passion for character modeling, rigging, and animation. Over the past four years, he has been exploring Houdini’s powerful procedural tools to enhance character creation.
Tuesday | April 7
Freedom Through Structure: Character Pipelines at Embark
In this session, Erik guides you through Embark Studios character pipeline. He discusses leveraging Houdini and USD as the core of their workflows. Learn how it allows them the flexibility of having technical and art focused team members to work in the same shared space. The presenter explores having a procedural mentality, showing concrete examples of working within a range from manual to automated. One focus is how the team used USD in combination with Houdini's PDG and Solaris contexts in order to maximize artistic freedom while minimizing repetitive work. This enabled Embark to support their games Arc Raiders and The Finals, each with varying needs, while continuously exploring new solutions in live production.
Erik Östsjö is a technical artist at Embark Studios developing character workflows for Arc Raiders and The Finals. He works primarily with Houdini and Universal Scene Description (USD). His focus is exploring where artistic control and procedural automation meet.
Wednesday | April 8
Good COP, Bad COP
Think COPs are just for texture synthesis? Think again. In this rapid-fire 30-minute investigation, we’re playing around with Houdini’s revamped Copernicus context to see how versatile it is. We’ll blast through a "Good COP" lineup of practical examples—ranging from material creation, texture variation, and trim sheets to the more unusual suspects like live video, real-time VFX, and animated illustrations. Along the way, we’ll dive into some technical details while providing a brutally honest "Bad COP" verdict: separating the production-ready workflows from the experimental features still on probation.
Nikola Damjanov is a Game Artist by day, procedural tinkerer by night. He has spent the last 10+ years at Nordeus turning nodes into pretty pixels, helping shape titles like Top Eleven and Heroic. Sometimes working together with friends at SideFX, Substance and View conference. If it’s node-based, generative, or involves Houdini, he is probably obsessing over it and telling others about it.
Wednesday | April 8
Generation of simplified representations of the city, characters and vehicles for Cyberpunk 2077
Learn how we generated simplified representations (HLODs/proxies and appearance proxies) for the city, characters, and vehicles in Cyberpunk 2077 to make an extremely dense open world renderable in real time. I walk through the automated, large-scale pipeline and the main algorithms used to build proxies, backed by real production scale and statistics.
Pawel Kowalski is a Machine Learning Engineer for Game Technology at CD PROJEKT RED. Before taking this position, he worked on procedural content generation, and on Cyberpunk 2077 he contributed as a Technical Artist and pipeline/DCC tools developer. He also supported large-scale content processing workflows such as automated proxy generation. In his spare time, Pawel enjoy exploring new ML and graphics techniques and turning them into practical tools.
IGNITE WORKSHOP 1 : KineFEST
PROCEDURAL CHARACTER STORYTELLING | INTERMEDIATE TRACK
Bring your characters to life from sketch to final frame in this two day Houdini character sprint at KineFest. You will build production ready characters with procedural modeling, rig them using the latest Houdini 21 KineFX and APEX tools, and bring them into character driven storytelling with animation, FX, and stylized lookdev. By the end, you will understand the core steps needed to create a complete animated character short entirely inside Houdini within a modern USD based pipeline. The sessions are designed to flow together, so staying for the full track will give you the best experience.
Who this track is for
- Intermediate Houdini users
- Comfortable with the basics of SOPs and the Houdini interface
- Some prior exposure to rigging or animation is helpful but not required
THURSDAY APRIL 9
9:30 AM
SESSION 1 | KineFX Rigging | Roy Kristoffersen
Learn how to create a character from scratch using Houdini’s procedural workflows and sculpting techniques. You’ll explore the full process—from initial concept to a fully finished model—rigged with APEX.
1:00 PM
SESSION 2 | Animation Workflows | Saša Budimir & Magnus Møller
Learn how to use Houdini's APEX animation state and animation tools to bring character to life. You will go through all the steps in this production simulated scenario, from storyboard, rough animatic and layout, blocking, all the way to the final polished animation.
FRIDAY APRIL 10
9:30 AM
SESSION 3 | Cartoony Eye Rig | Magnus Møller + Max Rose
Go through all the steps needed to rig a cartoony eye rig with Apex Graph. Students will learn production techniques on how to prototype a rig and then how to implement that rig for an existing character.
1:00 PM
SESSION 4 | Stylized Rendering with Copernicus | Max Rose
Learn how to leverage Copernicus along with Karma to create stylized renders in Houdini.
Roy Kristoffersen is the Lead 3D Artist at Qvisten Animation. A 3D generalist with 20 years of experience in Maya, he has a deep passion for character modeling, rigging, and animation. Over the past four years, he has been exploring Houdini’s powerful procedural tools to enhance character creation.
Saša Budimir is a freelance 3D artist/animator from Zagreb, Croatia with over 20 years of experience. During that period, he has worn many hats and has worked on numerous commercials, short animated films, and festival/TV/film openers. His great passion is making things that move around, especially in the form of quirky characters, while exploring different visual and animation styles.
Magnus Møller loves quirky, cartoony characters with an existential crisis — and he's built a studio around making them. As co-founder of Tumblehead Animation Studio in Viborg, Denmark, he works across look development, rigging, and art direction. With a foot in both the artistic and technical sides of production — from painting moods to writing code — Houdini is his ultimate playground for creating characters and worlds. The Animation Workshop in Viborg holds a special place in his heart — a school where the craft of drawing and animation comes first. Magnus studied there and keeps coming back as a guest teacher, sharing everything from life drawing to rigging to game development. At Tumblehead, Magnus has co-directed and art directed several short films that have won prizes at festivals all around the flat earth. In 2025, he was nominated for Best Short Film at the Annie Awards for "The Swineherd," co-directed with Peter Smith.
Max Rose is a 3D animator and technical artist known for blending strong character performance with deep procedural and rigging expertise. His work spans advanced KineFX and APEX-based systems, along with forward-thinking explorations into AI-assisted animation workflows. As Senior Character UX Specialist at SideFX, Max is helping to shape the future of character tools in Houdini, making complex systems feel intuitive and artist-friendly.
IGNITE WORKSHOP 2 : TITAN EVO
PROCEDURAL GAME WORLDS | BEGINNER TRACK
Build a small but fully playable game environment in two days using Houdini as your main content creation tool. You will block out a compact world, create modular game ready assets, generate tillable materials and trimsheets in COPs, and prepare everything for a smooth real time experience on modern hardware. Along the way you will learn core node based workflows, procedural thinking for environment art, simple Houdini tools for layout and optimization, and how all of this fits into a production ready pipeline for games.
Who this track is for
- Intermediate Houdini users
- Comfortable with the basics of SOPs and the Houdini interface
-
Beginner to early intermediate Houdini users
Comfortable with basic 3D concepts and navigation
Some familiarity with game engines or game art is helpful but not required
THURSDAY APRIL 9
9:30 AM
SESSION 1 | Houdini for Game Production 1 | Simon Verstraete & Kornelia Borycka
Learn how Houdini can be fully leveraged inside Unreal Engine 5 to build powerful procedural workflows for real-time production. You’ll discover how to use Houdini’s new Copernicus nodes to create high-quality textures and VFX, and learn how to develop custom Houdini tools tailored specifically for Unreal Engine.
Designed for technical artists and developers, this session focuses on practical, production-ready techniques that enhance flexibility, efficiency, and creative control.
1:00 PM
SESSION 2 | Houdini for Game Production 2 | Kornelia Borycka
Continued...
FRIDAY APRIL 10
9:30 AM
SESSION 3 | Houdini for Game Production 3 | Simon Verstraete
Learn how Houdini can be fully leveraged inside Unreal Engine 5 to build powerful procedural workflows for real-time production. You’ll discover how to use Houdini’s new Copernicus nodes to create high-quality textures and VFX, and learn how to develop custom Houdini tools tailored specifically for Unreal Engine.
Designed for technical artists and developers, this session focuses on practical, production-ready techniques that enhance flexibility, efficiency, and creative control.
1:00 PM
SESSION 4 | Houdini for Game Production 4 | Marn Schokker
Continued...
Simon Verstraete is a tech Artist that loves building procedural tools and assets. By adding more and more procedural approaches to his workflow, he is able to build 3D models with speed and flexibility. During his studies at Digital Arts and Entertainment, he taught himself how to work with Houdini. After his studies, he worked on multiple AAA games and with SideFX.
Kornelia Borycka is a technical artist focused on improving real-time VFX performance and production efficiency. His work combines profiling, optimization, custom tooling, and Houdini-based simulations designed for seamless integration into Unreal Engine. He previously worked on Mortal Kombat 1, LEGO Horizon Adventures, and port of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Enhanced for PS5.
Marn Schokker
is a technical artist with a focus on procedural world building with Houdini in the games industry. He loves VEX and geometric problem solving, and has been making tools for over 6 years. 3-4 years of AAA co-development experience at Electric Square.
IGNITE WORKSHOP 3 : MASTERCLASSES
HOUDINI MASTERCLASSES | ADVANCED TRACK
Push Houdini beyond everyday use in this advanced masterclass focused on production proven tools, environments and effects. Across a series of deep dive sessions you will plug external AI and machine learning models into Houdini with ONNX, build custom datasets and synthetic renders for training, create procedural building and PCG systems, design interactive Python State driven tools, develop a texture creation pipeline using COPs, and build advanced destruction and VFX tools tailored for games. Along the way you will see how experienced artists structure complex networks, debug and optimize heavy setups, and turn experiments into robust assets that fit into modern studio pipelines.
Who this track is for
- Experienced Houdini users comfortable with core contexts and attributes
- Technical artists and TDs with some Python experience
- Artists who want to integrate AI and advanced tooling into their Houdini practice
THURSDAY APRIL 9
9:30 AM
SESSION 1 | Moving the Statue: - Rigging and Animating Gaussian Data | Bogdan Lazar
In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to import and work with Gaussian Splatting data inside Houdini and transform captured point-based scans into animation-ready assets. The session covers converting splat data into usable geometry, building skeletons, skinning, and creating procedural rigs using KineFX and APEX workflows. Students will explore animation techniques directly in Houdini and conclude by rendering Gaussian data using Karma. The workshop focuses on practical production methods that bridge modern capture technologies with traditional character animation pipelines.
1:00 PM
SESSION 2 | Deploying and Scaling Machine Learning in Houdini | Josh Karlin
This workshop provides a deep dive into the various AI and machine learning tools and workflows within Houdini. You will learn everything from the fundamentals of model inference with ONNX to the creation of custom, production-ready datasets and ML tools that solve real-world pipeline challenges. By the end, you will be able to integrate external AI models into procedural Houdini workflows, create synthetic data for regression and computer vision AI model training, and have a solid understanding of how to create and use machine learning models for various 2D and 3D production tasks. This is an advanced workshop, proficiency in Houdini and some Python knowledge is required.
FRIDAY APRIL 10
9:30 AM
SESSION 3 | From Procedural Buildings to Playable Cities | Mohamad Salame
Generate procedural buildings using Houdini and Unreal Engine USD & PCG.
1:00 PM
SESSION 4 | Thinking in Systems: Designing Controlled Chaos | Grayson Cotrell
This masterclass explores how to design Houdini systems and workflows for games. Through destruction-focused case studies, the session examines tool creation and the core philosophies behind building scalable pipelines for AAA production.
Bogdan Lazar is a CG Supervisor and VFX artist with over 20 years of experience in computer graphics, working across games, feature films, and advertising. Over the last decade, he has specialized in Houdini, developing procedural workflows for rigging, animation, and complex visual effects production. He is co-founder of Wave VFX in Bucharest and has contributed to international productions as both artist and technical supervisor. Alongside production work, Bogdan is an educator and speaker, known for bridging artistic animation practice with technical innovation and emerging technologies.
Josh Karlin is a Technical Artist at SideFX in Los Angeles. He currently specializes in creating and prototyping machine learning workflows within Houdini, focusing on synthetic data, digital twins, computer vision, and generative AI. During his time at SideFX, he has also worked with the SideFX Labs team developing real-time VFX tools and workflows for Unreal Engine.
Mohamad Salame is an Environment/ Technical Artist (Games) at SideFX Labs team. He likes procedural world building, making video games and playing volleyball.
Most of his work have been focused on Houdini/ Unreal game pipelines with the occasional Houdini chess/ flippy bird shenanigans :)
Grayson Cotrell is a Senior Technical Artist at Naughty Dog specializing in team-focused tool creation and destruction workflows.
He develops Houdini and Unreal systems that make complex setups usable and scalable in production.
Hes passionate about helping artists work smarter through better tools.