D&AD Awards 2017

May 2, 2017

SSE Neon House has picked up a couple of Graphite Pencils at the 2017 D&AD Awards for “Animation” and “Special Effects” https://www.dandad.org/profiles/jury/668223/film-advertising-crafts-2017/

15th Annual VES Awards

January 17, 2017

https://www.visualeffectssociety.com/post/15th-annual-ves-awards-nominees The Mill has received 7 VES nominations, one of which is for Sky Q in the category of “Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Commercial”. themill.com/portfolio/2736/sky-q- SSE: Neon House is also nominated for “Outstanding Animated Performance in an Episode, Commercial or Real-Time Project” well done to our outstanding animators who continue to produce life-like … Read More

Houdini Tip: Toggle Update Mode

December 17, 2016

I often find that Houdini wants to cook at inconvenient times. To stop this you can enter Manual Mode which is located in the bottom right of the UI. To make toggling between Manual and Auto mode easier and quick it can be scripted and dedicated a hotkey. Googling brought up this feed http://www.vfxoverflow.com/questions/toggle-update-mode-in-houdini which … Read More

Sky Q: Silver LIAs

November 10, 2016

Sky Q picked up a couple of Silver Awards for VFX and Animation at the LIAs this week. Gold went to the fantastic work created by the guys and girls at The Mill, London for ‘SSE Pier’. http://www.themill.com/millchannel/945/the-mill-wins-10-lias-including-post-production-company-of-the-year-2016

Sky Q: The Mill ‘Making Of’

March 5, 2016

The Mill has, this week, released a blog post interviewing Dan and Francois (Creative Directors and 2D/3D Leads) on the ‘Sky Q’ job. With a nice ‘Making Of’ video to boot. The Mill’s blog post, with interviews, can be found here: http://www.themill.com/millchannel/663/crafting-cg-fluid-viewing-for-sky-q

Sky Q: Making Of

February 13, 2016

Sky have also uploaded a little Making Of for Sky Q to give a sense of what was involved in this project. The video shows some of the slow-mo macro fluids we recorded for reference. It was a delight watching those videos over and over and over again. Fluids at macro-level is some seriously cool … Read More

Sky: Sky Q

February 13, 2016

So, here it is. The first in a campaign for Sky for their new “Sky Q” service. This job was mammoth, I spent 6 months working on this bad-boy, my first foray into the crazy world of FLIP fluids in Houdini. Things of note: gas surface tension, viscosity and particle separation are very important and … Read More

14th Annual VES Nominations

January 18, 2016

Lipton “A Revolution in Tea” has been nominated for “Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Episode, Commercial, or Real-Time Project” https://www.visualeffectssociety.com/14th-annual-ves-awards-nominees Well done to Tom and Christos who lead and designed these beastly sims.

T.O. by Lipton: Making Of

December 30, 2015

The Mill have posted a fantastic “Making Of” showing the huge amount of work that went in to making “A Revolution in Tea” for Lipton, from the initial practical FX RnD, to the rotomation, sims and seamless compositing. Full descriptions and explanations can be found here: http://www.themill.com/millchannel/617/behind-the-scenes-of-lipton-‘the-revolution-in-tea’ Here’s the “Making Of” Behind the Scenes: Lipton … Read More

Houdini Tools Development: Version Up

December 8, 2015

Having begun the switch to Houdini, I’ve been learning how to implement my Python knowledge into Houdini. My first tool is an incremental saver (something I find hugely important), which accounts for files that already exist and warns if a naming convention is not adhered to. This .zip contains the .py script, the code for … Read More