Artwork by Chris Kopic
London UK | September 10, 2026
Houdini HIVEalt is a gathering dedicated to the emerging and unconventional procedural 3D workflows shaping industries beyond traditional media and entertainment.
Explore how advanced visualisation and computing are being used across product design, architecture, automotive, science, 3D printing, AI and machine learning, synthetic data, cloud pipelines, and more. These disciplines may solve very different problems, but they often share the same creative tools, technical challenges, and ambitions.
Location: Curzon Bloomsbury The Brunswick Centre London WC1N 1AW
This is a live event. The presentations will be recorded and posted online after the event.
Houdini HIVE PRESENTATIONS
1:00 PM
David Burpee | Brooks Running
2:00 PM
Chris Kopic & Paul Ambrosuissen | Entagma & Bismuth Consultancy
Finding Procedural Logic in Architecture
Kay John Yim | Spink Partners | 9:30 AM
John shares how integrating Houdini into daily architectural practice transformed his approach to fast-paced, high-end residential design. Drawing on professional and personal projects, he explores how procedural logic can manage design change and coordinate complex relationships across scales, from building exteriors and interiors to furniture and site context. He shows how these methods can solve practical architectural problems while opening new possibilities for creative experimentation.
Kay John Yim is a London-based Chartered Architect and CGI Artist specialising in high-end residential architecture. Working at the intersection of design and emerging technology, he uses Houdini, Rhino/Grasshopper and ComfyUI to combine procedural methods with architectural visualisation. He develops custom tools that bridge design intent and production. His personal work extends into digital fashion, character animation and environment art.
Optimizing F1 Track Modelling in Houdini
George Pennyfather | Q3D Studios Ltd | 10:05 AM
Formula One is all about efficiency. Just like on the racetrack, even saving milliseconds can add up, and we use proceduralism to save far more time than that. After years of developing tools and pipelines in Houdini, we have produced a system that builds weeks’ worth of geometry in days.
Go behind the scenes with George from Q3D Studios for a tour of their track building pipeline and see how it has been applied in both F1 simulation and the Audi Flying Lap series on Sky Sports.
George Pennyfather is a Technical Artist for Automotive and Motorsport visualisation company Q3D Studios. Specialising in procedural tools, he is primarily responsible for developing pipelines to efficiently create digital twins of racetracks for a top F1 team’s racing simulator. He has been a presenter and masterclass host at the last two Everything Procedural Conferences, and was an Associate Lecturer in Technical Art at University for the Creative Arts.
Heavy CAD, Clean Sim
Pedro Maia | Ocean Infinity | 10:40 AM
An overview of the CAD-to-real-time pipeline: from complex SolidWorks assemblies, through procedural processing in Houdini, into Unreal Engine for simulation. Covers the in-house tools built to keep the process fast, robust, and non-destructive across constant model revisions, and what Houdini's proceduralism opens up for CAD-heavy pipelines beyond VFX.
Pedro Maia leads the Creative Studio at Ocean Infinity, a technology company transforming how operations are carried out at sea. An architect by training, CGI artist by passion. He has spent the past 12 years visualising subsea robots, remotely controlled vessels, and the unseen work they do in the ocean.
Take Control!
Will MacNeil | Freelance | 11:15 AM
As a designer for brands and immersive spaces, creative director and digital artist Will MacNeil is churning out concept art on a daily basis. His workflow, based around Houdini's SOPs and COPs, now incorporates generative art tools like ComfyUI, ControlNet, trained LoRA adapters and custom tools coded with language models. In this talk, Will walks through his process and explains how he maintains artistic control over his image making while exploiting the power of generative AI.
Will MacNeil is a creative director and digital artist fusing data, code, art, and storytelling into work that resonates. Spanning film, broadcast, experiential, fashion, sports, and cultural institutions, his work attempts to collapse categories — treating emerging tools as opportunities to tell better stories. His clients include Nike, Adidas, the BBC, EA Sports, and the British Museum.
AI Inside Houdini, Not Instead of It
Avner Engler | Freelance | 11:50 AM
Explore the power of Houdini MCP for building procedural setups, such as a LEGO generator that turns any geometry into bricks using Claude. You’ll see a project showcasing Houdini MCP in a simulation pipeline and learn how to create a velocity field with a prompt to direct a simulation.
Avner Engler is a 3D Motion Designer and Houdini FX specialist, working in the advertising industry doing freelance and contract work alongside running Huemains, his boutique CGI studio. Deep specialisation in FLIP fluids, Vellum cloth, Pyro, RBD, and grain simulations for brands including L'Oréal, Renault, Hublot, Estée Lauder, Adidas, and the United Nations. Most recently specialised in building AI workflows inside existing 3D pipelines, integrating LLM-driven tool creation and procedural acceleration into Houdini without replacing the craft.
Beyond Parametric: Houdini for Algorithmic and Biomimetic Design in Footwear
David Burpee | Brooks Running | 1:00 PM
As a Computational Designer, I have long had an interest in biomimetic, generative systems, and emergent behavior as design tools. However, traditional CAD design software is not well suited to these types of explorative processes. This discussion will highlight my use of Houdini in Footwear Design to unlock new paradigms in both creative and technical capacities. I will showcase workflows developed in Houdini for data processing, automation, computational geometry creation, direct-to-toolpath design, and more.
David Burpee is a multidisciplinary Computational Designer working across footwear, apparel, consumer goods, automotive, medical, and architecture. He has lectured on Computational Design and Algorithmic Thinking as part of a National Science Foundation grant on Engineered Living Materials. Over more than a decade he has delivered Computational Design, strategy, tools, and training for brands such as Nike, PUMA, Brooks Running, FILA, General Motors, Harry's Razors, and others. Originally trained as an architect with a Master of Architecture from USC, he has contributed to highrise and supertall projects in Los Angeles, Seattle, and across Asia. His work applies biomimicry, generative systems, and sustainable innovation to provide performance-driven solutions to complex design and engineering challenges.
Reinforcement Learning in Architecture
Yuto Ikeda | Foster & Partners | 1:35 PM
An introduction to the Reinforcement Learning (RL) integration within Houdini using the PyTorch library. Starting with my postgraduate thesis, in which I investigated the concept of an RL tool in architectural design, the presentation then displays more generic applications of RL in Houdini, specifically self-driving simulations. It will cover the initial preparation and integration setup, the process of training and inference, and showcase of the outcomes.
Yuto Ikeda is an architectural assistant at Foster + Partners and recent MArch graduate from The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London (UCL). His design course work and postgraduate thesis focused on the intersection of machine learning and computational design with Houdini in speculative architectural design. He is also a self-driven Houdini enthusiast who uses the software not just for a VFX but as a holistic design tool.
Fresh Lattice: Using Houdini for additive manufacturing and pushing it to the cloud!
Chris Kopic & Paul Ambrosuissen | Entagma & Bismuth Consultancy | 2:00 PM
Paul Ambrosiussen and Chris Kopic are joining forces to show you why a software used for creating fireballs in blockbuster movies might just be the perfect tool for your additive manufacturing pipeline! Chris will give you a simple walkthrough on how you can turn a CAD model into a 3D-printable cushion, using a custom lattice structure on the inside and a patterned shell on the outside. Paul will continue by taking this step into the world of thin client browsers, providing realtime parametric control to any of your clients who do not have knowledge of nor access to Houdini.
Chris Kopic creates Houdini tutorials, on any topic from simulating snowballs to implementing cellular automata, for Entagma and teaches CGI and Creative Coding at Nuremberg Polytechnic Georg Simon Ohm. While usually focused on things that happen on screens, he also loves transforming those same algorithms into physical artifacts through 3D printing and laser cutting—an interest that goes all the way back to his industrial design studies at Bauhaus University Weimar.
Paul Ambrosiussen is a freelance Senior Technical Artist at Bismuth Consultancy, specialising in procedural content generation, pipeline development, and the use of machine learning in creative production. He works extensively with tools like Houdini and Unreal Engine to build scalable solutions for studios. Previously, he led tool and workflow development at SideFX Labs, collaborating with teams across games, film, and tech. Paul thrives on solving complex pipeline challenges, prototyping experimental workflows, and bridging the gap between artistry and technology through talks, workshops, and community-driven initiatives.
Automotive Aero in Houdini
Ilyas Dizdar | Gear | 3:05 PM
Ilyas will present a process in Houdini to run an automotive aerodynamic simulation based on the Nvidia DoMINO-Automotive-Aero NIM IA model. He will show how to prepare the car model with point cloud projection and how to visualise the aero data in Houdini.
Ilyas Dizdar is a CG artist with a deep passion for technology. In 2015, he founded Gear-Production, a studio specialising in high-end automotive imagery. Beyond creating visuals, he designs custom setups and workflows for the industry — including parametric design processes that bring flexibility and efficiency to production pipelines.
Houdini for Architectural Visualisation
Luke Parkhurst & Shenton Morgan | Populous | 3:30 PM
Learn how to use Houdini to build procedural design and visualisation workflows that transform complex geometry, data and design rules into flexible, reusable systems. Integrated with Unreal Engine, it makes it possible to iterate rapidly, explore more possibilities and deliver high-quality real-time experiences at scale.
Luke Parkhurst is a Senior Creative Designer and Architect in Populous’ Experience Studios, working at the intersection of visualisation and computational design. He specialises in using Houdini and Unreal Engine to develop innovative procedural workflows for film and still images. His work combines architectural thinking with a broader curiosity for storytelling, image-making, and emerging digital tools, approaching projects with a balance of clarity, experimentation, and attention to detail.
Automotive Production in Houdini
Oscar Forsland & Hampus Hellqvist | Brickland | 3:55 PM
Learn how we use Houdini in different kinds of productions in the automotive industry. It will range from how we produce art-directable environments to visual effects.
Hampus Hellqvist and Oscar Forsland are both 3D artists from Gothenburg, working at studio Brickland. Both of them have chosen Houdini as their preferred tool, to create VFX, motion graphics and environments. They are currently serving clients such as Volvo, Polestar and Peak Performance.