Bryan Holt | Houdini FX

Houdini users have been asking for native 3D object tracking for over a decade. And it's finally here. KeenTools, the team behind GeoTracker for Nuke, Blender, and AE, shipped a Houdini beta this week. And I was able to get my hands on it to test!🧵

Starting dev on the simulation part of the latest shot. Here is the low res river. Love it when simulations kind of just set up themselves at this stage. Going to be a fun shot. At least its not a volcano?!

Did a bit more work on the forest shot and detail. More to come, this is turning into my favorite of all the shots in this sequence so far. Still preview with holdout water as I dev this. All Houdini, rendered in Karma XPU.

Early tests on a another shot I am working on with the Tree, rock and terrain assets. The water is currently a hold out till I can sit down and simulate. Rendered in Karma XPU, everything assembled in Solaris and developed using Houdini.

Happy Halloween 🎃💀 A quick fundamentals exercise from my Surface Appearance class at @lafilmschool that I kept going with. Maya + Arnold, comped in Nuke, USD assets from Houdini. Not a fan of USD in Maya, personally. Maya or Houdini for USD? #Houdini #Maya

The more I try and do final in Maya using Arnold, the more I just want to stay in Houdini lmao.

Is it this difficult to start using USD in Maya after using Solaris/Katana for a few years? Ugh.

Latest daily on the forest shot I am working on. Getting there. First iteration with clouds in. Rendered in Karma (2 Layers). All assets developed in Houdini. Tree generator created by me, clouds using a Skybox.

I did a bit more thinking. We like to eyeball Viper as the next to go, but we have to realize that SFMM does have an aging lineup. The 2010s into the early 2020s haven’t really been a good replacement period for the marquee rides that SFMM built and became known for. Pre-2010s we had X/X2, Tatsu, Apoc, Déjà Vu (RIP), and going even further back we had Goliath, Batman, and Riddler’s. We did get Full Throttle and Twisted Colossus. But outside of those two, the park hasn’t gotten big, record-breaking, or imposing attractions. If you look at the lineup: Viper is end-of-life, Ninja is practically end-of-life, Apoc is really struggling (I don’t think it’s being removed anytime soon), Riddler’s isn’t popular, Scream (lol), Superman (SBNO and not returning), and of course we just lost X2. So from a corporate standpoint, if you’re just looking at the numbers, one of your cash cows (SFMM) is about to enter a long period of decline if you don’t shore it up. All this to say, CapEx really isn’t going to be a thing for a while if Six Flags manages to stay afloat. And if they sell, welp. It’s tough to realize, but this current SF2.0 company is just too heavy and saddled with debt right now to make big financial moves. So yeah, it still feels like a panic button, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it came out that this was SFMM all the way from the purchase date. Keep in mind, after next year we’re likely looking at RailBlazer and maybe (I doubt it) Flight Deck moving. I think RailBlazer fits perfectly in Xcelerator’s footprint—I have to double-check—but it would fit really nicely in a KI or similar park as well. And before all the Xcelerator fans run me down: I operated Xcel as a Lead/RO for 4 years. I’m incredibly proud of KBF and the crews for keeping that thing alive and running to this day. But eventually you just gotta call it what it is. It’s a money pit. /rant

Again don't agree with this move. But also, I think there are a few better options for this. I still think it could technically fit in the front of the park, and have a great use as a marquee attraction. But also there are other options. Maybe Doom's days are numbered 👀 youtu.be/kRQBX_b7kT8?si=eUdT…

I preface this by saying I am against this decision (So Cal native, KBF is my home park, SFMM is my close second). But this reeks of something larger happening behind the scenes at the corporate level. High debt load, massive PR issues everywhere, Jana urging a sale. SFMM is in a warm climate, and 3mil+ a year. X2 was a big draw of that, I think this is a panic pivot. We don't know the 2026 numbers yet, but I would bet a lot of money that 2026 numbers have dipped from 2025 at this point (and that was 4% from the previous year). And they are anticipating a drastic drop with the price changes on the passes for 2027. I honestly believe KI was getting AF1 until X2 had to close. With all of that said, to reiterate, this is a pretty terrible decision.

Uh What. Was no where near my bingo card for 2026. This is just insane. Also, has to be a behind the scenes pivot by corporate. Something is up.