Houdini FX Supervisor Demo Reel 2024
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
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ABOUT ME
Hello! My name is Ahmad Ghourab. I'm a 16-year VFX veteran.
My portfolio includes 22 titles, a VES Nomination, 6 years in leadership roles (FX Supervisor/Head Of Department), and two relevent degrees - MSc (Distinction) and a BA(Hons) in Computer Visualization And Animation from the NCCA (National Centre For Computer Animation), Bournemouth University.
My expertise lies in technical development, namely; Efficiency driven FX setups, procedural solutions, dynamic rigs, workflows, and pipeline tools.
But I'm also an artist at heart with an keen eye for physicality and a penchant for perfectionism.
THE PROBLEM - MAKE YOUR WORK CLEAR WITHOUT BREAKING THE FLOW
Traditional reels have a problem. One that everyone hiring has struggled with. One that could prevent your demo reel getting the recognition it deserves.
They often use static, off-frame text to denote the author's contributions.
This can break the viewing experience by taking a viewers eye away from the action, sometimes even causing key portions of your work to be missed in the process.
But it can even end up confusing viewers, especially when coupled with obscure production terms or vague references in complex shots.
This demo reel is both my portfolio, and my solution to that problem
THE SOLUTION - CALL OUT CAPTIONS
To overcome the pitfalls of traditional reels, I used large clear call out captions that appear only momentarily.
This instantly catches the viewers attention. It clarifies their contribution without ever breaking the flow of the viewing experience. And it reduces viewer distraction from the overall viewing experience.
If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the comments section below.
DISCLAIMER
This demo reel, taken as a whole, isn't meant to be the ideal format for getting hired.
I don't put all my best work in the first minute. You absolutely should.
Demo reel's should rarely ever get past 1.5-2 minutes long.
The OCD levels of editing were for the viewers enjoyment, and aren't necessary.
BREAKDOWN
__ MOONFALL __ Supervision ___
00:10 - Cloud Atmospherics
00:15 - Ground Dust, dirt, grains
00:17 - Meteor, snow mounds and ground interaction setups
00:28 - Explosion all, cloud cover all
00:30 - Moon reentry friction setups, moon debris setup, shock-wave
01:02 - Avalanche Volumetric
01:11 - Moon debris impact dust setup, ship impact dust
01:15 - Sandstorm
__FINCH __ Head Of Simulation Supervision ___
01:19 - Sandstorm setup
01:21 - Tornado, debris shot running
__ STRANGER THINGS 4 E7- E9 __ FX Supervisor ___
01:27 - Disintegration setup
01:34 - Impact debris, RBD, dust, grain, CG fire
01:40 - Pyro setup
01:52 - VES NOMINATED - Procedural vines and mould growth setups, custom space colonization based solver, building collapse dust
__ LOGAN __ FX Lead ___
02:05 - Dust, grains
02:06 - Fence dynamics rig (all)
__ EUROVISION STORY OF FIRE SAGA __ Head Of Simulation Supervision ___
02:13 - Building crowd department and training, crowd tool development, procedural ‘build’ workflow approach, shot work, mocap recording, mocap clip refinement, mocap acting
__ THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2 __ FX Technical Director ___
02:28 - FBM based electrical FX
02:31 - Teargas
__ THE SHALLOWS __ FX Lead ___
02:35 - Whale oil, fluid advected bubbles and meshing
02:37 - Water simulation, custom water patch skinning setup
__ POINT BREAK __ FX Technical Director ___
02:39 - Cloud dual advection solve
02:43 - Procedural dust from rocks setup
__ TRANSFORMERS AGE OF EXTINCTION __ FX Technical Director ___
02:47 - Volumetrics, sparks, transformer blood splashes
02:51 - Volumetrics (except fire), impact debris
__ Playmobil Movie __ FX Supervisor ___
02:52 - Full feature animation FX supervision, bidding, internal FX pipeline development, farm submission scripts, file management, team development and training
__ THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2 __ FX Technical Director ___
02:55 - Electrical explosion elements, point cloud based targeting/growth
__ JURASSIC WORLD __ FX Technical Director ___
02:57 - Automated procedural dynamics forest mega-setup. Procedural fully automated tree dynamics rigging and simulation to work in tandem with automated, database lookup, layout replacement based on velociraptor proximity.
__ WHITE HOUSE DOWN __ FX Technical Director ___
03:04 - Slow motion (120fps) explosion that grows from small cart to engulfing camera in 2012. Required custom solver approach.
__ MARVEL ETERNALS __ FX Technical Director ___
03:06 - Eyebeam FX, impact fire, dust
03:08 - Procedural growth custom space colonization solver, full automated population of ‘wall of memories’
__ CHAPPIE __ FX Technical Director ___
03:09 - CG Dust, missile trails
__ ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTERS __ FX Technical Director ___
03:12 - Fire, smoke, embers, CVEX development, render-time procedural render slicing and recombining setup
this is really super amazing mr ahmed ❤❤❤❤, I hope someday to be an amazing FX Artist like you. If you have a short time could you please just recommend or guide me to some courses that I should take to start my career in order to in work in film/TV industry like rebelway courses for Houdini and Nuke! , my best wishes Ahmed Mahmoud
Hi Ahmed. Thank you so much! I honestly don't know much about the courses out there, it's been so long since I've done any if I'm being honest. I do hear good stuff about Rebel Way. For courses, the students we hire from lostboys-studios.com/ generally tend to be the best. Additionally, if you want to go down the technical route like me (I tend to code tools, build setups, etc...) then the MSc program at Bournemouth University, www.bournemouth.ac.uk/study/courses/msc-computer-animation-visual-effects, was great for helping me launch my career!
m doing fx work from past 1 year ....seeing this kind of work stimulate my nerves to work more hard at fx... it would be honour to work with you someday. Awesome work man.
You can do it! Just pick some footage out there of a real world effect, say a real building demolition, then work away trying to match it. It's always best to have a real reference, and show that you were able to make a CGI version that closely matches it, than to do something standalone. That way you are forced to learn how to control your simulations and see what makes them look real (size, speed, scale of noise etc...)
amazing work brother .where should i start? what are the prerequirments to make something like this ?
Thank you! I actually commented on another user's (MisterWombo) who had a similar question. Let me tag you there and let me know if you have any questions!
انت مصري ؟ نفسي الاقي حد مصري شغال علي هوديني
لا، أنا فلسطيني. لكن هناك الكثير من العرب والمصريين يعملون في هذه الصناعة :)
Очень крутые работы, наверное долго к этому шёл)
Спасибо! 16 лет, не считая школы. Но, честно говоря, большую часть того, что я делаю, я узнал за первые 5-7 лет :)
Amazing mannn 🔥🔥
Amazing work!👏👏👏
Thanks a lot!
you dont do workshops for students?
Unfortunately not at the moment. But it was something on my radar to eventually do!
why do this not have a million views?
haha, right?:p Thank You @eggyrepublic!
superb Ahmad! a kick ass reel and a kick ass guy!
Thanks man, really appreciate it!
So it was you ! sick work man
Thanks a bunch!
So talented !
Thank youuuu!
Stunning reel! Amazing shots, captivating flow and a nice touch on the "contribution labels " ;)
Thank you! :)
Wow! Excellent job! Loved the stranger things 4 especially!
Thanks a bunch. The Stranger Things parts were actually some of my favourite to work on too! :)
Looking great Ahmad :)
He has talents with a great personality 😊
Thanks a ton, you're too kind!
Wow! Speechless! Great work Ahmad!
Thanks @Mikus_Ficus, appreciate it :)
Congraglulations. Great video sir!!!
Thank you!
After this thumbnail this has to be great
Hah, if only you knew how much deliberation went into that darn thumbnail lol. Thank you!
You are as amazing as your works🔥🔥🔥
Thank you so much 😀
I have been Influenced 😮
Happy to hear it :)
🤘
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Superr work 😲👏👏👏👌
Thank youuuu :)
amazing work. also i love the "call-out" idea
Thank you, this means a lot. The demoreel ended up taking 3 months because I kept trying different solutions, then canning them before settling on this. Still would try some more ideas in hindsight!
@@AhmadGhourab It used to be a bit tedious having to pause and check the bottom of the screen to understand the role, but this callout approach is much clearer. Awesome idea . i would use in mine
Would love to see the results when you do! Let me know if you ever do do that :)
LOVED IT!!
Thank you Ariel!!
Amazing stuff
Thank you! :)
Insane stuff🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thank you!
cool stuff mate!
Thanks Carlos!!
Insane work
Thanks you!!
eyegasm
Thank you!
wow
Thanks :)
Hi sir! i have a question! And i really wanna know ur opinion as 16-year VFX veteran that u are.
Would u recommend focusing on just one or 2 softwares to improve in VFX?
Is an smart move go beyond that ammount? What about 3 or 5?
As a begginer this doubt crossed my mind and i have no one who ask to.
Thank u very much btw! and amazing video! 🫡
Hello! Thank you for the kind words :)
So it depends, when you say VFX, do you mean FX like what I do, or do you mean some other field like lighting, animation and so on?
If you mean FX then I would make three arguments.
The first is, you only really need to learn Houdini. Don’t overstretch yourself trying to learn everything.
The second is, it’s not about the software, its about the art! A great VFX artist isn’t the person who knows the software the best, it’s the person who can make the most physically accurate effects in the shortest time.
The third is focus. Focus on one discipline, like volumetrics (smoke/fire), destruction, or fluid simulations. This will allow you to spend a lot more time learning all the associated tools, watch reference footage to understand their physicality, then land a job. After that you can diversify. But the most important thing is, get reallllly good at one thing so you can get your foot in the door.
A bonus 4th point is, please avoid any abstract work unless you want to go into something like projection mapping. That sort of work can look cool, but ultimately it’s really difficult to hire people who do abstract cause most the work in VFX is realism based!
@@AhmadGhourab Woah! I didn´t expect such a good and elavorated answer!
You not only answered my question but even more!
So thank you very much! =)
With your first argument u already hit my doubt.
As a begginer i tend to stretch myself pretty hard trying to learn everything just by the sake of learning.
Im actually learning Houdini but plus to that i added some more softwares..
(Nuke, Blender, Unreal Engine and Davinci Resolve)
And I realized that the learning curve is pretty slow that way.
So maybe I need a change of strategy.
Lucky me that you gave me a good "map" to follow with your answer!
So once again sir, thank you very much! 🫡
@@AhmadGhourab thanks for your insightful advice.
My pleasure! Nuke would actually be useful, but up to a point. A good FX artist generally creates renders with the mindset of using AOVs in Nuke to make them look great.
For example, with fire I generally don't just render the fire and call it a day. I render AOVs (temperature passes, depth, etc) and then in Nuke I use color corrects to make the fire look hotter, bring out more detail, integrate it into the shot better etc...
But first I have to have a good sim and good renders! So definitely do that first then move to Nuke to see how you can get the most out of it. That way you'll only learn what you need to learn about Nuke!
@1ne7evN
It's inspiring to see amazing Arab artists shine huge respect man
Thanks, really appreciate it!