Simon Holmedal: Minimalism, Maximized | Forward Festival

Simon Holmedal explores Panoply’s intricate interplay between complexity and simplicity for some of their most recent work, breaking down the layers to their creative process. Discover how Panoply’s evolving experience with Houdini unlocks transformative potential, showcasing the art of harmonizing complexity in design.
00:00:17 Introduction
00:00:33 Panoply Studio
00:02:11 Marvel & MBA Projects
00:04:51 Energy Visualization
00:23:55 Seattle Sounders Project
00:29:15 Water & Environment
00:35:21 Visual & Sound Exploration
00:36:31 VRE & Real Time

[@mohanpugaz]

This guy is a true wizard. All of his presentations are always mind blowing.

[@bharat5194]

Wake up babe, Simon Holmedal just gave a new Houdini talk

[@YanivGorali]

These are so impressive both technically and visually. Amazing work!

[@behrampatel4872]

what the heck has Simon been smokin for all these years. sidefx should bundle that with a license ;) incredible work. cheers

[@TheBradlackey]

Legend. Reason I went down the path with H years ago.

[@nickjito]

Simon always delivers.

[@blackspear217]

Yes!! i've been keeping an eye out on when this seminar was going to be released! Simon is always a blast to see what he's been up to

[@andrewmcbride8162]

amazing talk. I am trying so hard to learn houdini. And this is a great resource. Simon, this ia a FANTASTIC approach to explaining each step. Bravo

[@altberg__]

master technicians. chapeau!

[@GrayYang]

That's amazing！

[@peterxbuilt]

This is amazing. Is there someone out there that teaches this kind of stuff?

[@barbiechm08]

entagma

[@jookjung]

Really cool.

[@shawnastrom]

Brilliant as usual!

[@lega-xyz]

incredible work!

[@Handcraftedcc]

Don't get the complaints in this comment section :D I think this is amazing work. When you're working on a package like this with hundreds of hundreds of deliverables you have to produce a procedural system that will work across the board, which yeah will make everything look similar aka consistency... He's definitely sharing on a very high level, not a node by node tutorial, but that's how talks usually go. If you know enough Houdini you can deduce at least some of what's happening! He was also not talking to a Houdini crowd. Honestly feel like his talk was wasted a bit on his audience, if it would have been a Houdini crowd he probably could have gone much more in depth of how things worked in Houdini!

[@3DCGIrelated-oz4yh]

whatever. ❤

[@eliasffs]

I have to agree with some of the other comments here. We've all seen Simons talks and YES, he's a technical genius. But he's not interested in teaching anyone anything, which I think is an important part of these talks posted on this channel. You have to be an extremely skilled artist to be able to watch this talk and then implement it into your own setups. It's just a bit frustrating lol

[@dukevera4216]

you cant teach what hes doing in 5 minutes, it would take years what are you even talking about lol.

[@eliasffs]

@@dukevera4216 I understand that, but after watching like 10 talks from Simon it’s all about just showcasing his stuff, not actually teaching anyone anything. My favorite talks are often a combination between inspiration and education. Why even show a node tree when it’s completely out of context anyways? Nvm, he doesn’t owe me anything, just thought it could be nice to switch things up a bit and actually dive in and show us. I’ve seen a lot of talks where that part is possible, even with a short timeframe.

[@irql2]

Were we supposed to find something useful from this? I feel like I should print one of his works and put it on the fridge.

[@MotionPunk]

legend

[@polimpiado]

Complex monotony

[@dukevera4216]

Simplistic moronism....

[@dinosaursneverexisted8985]

every time I see this guy he's rushing through to explain everything, what's stopping him from just putting out his own 2hr video where he explains in detail what's going on? he seems to only open his mouth if it's for a short presentation where he has to talk so fast he gets out of breath, it's extremely annoying.. this presentation needs to be 1.5 hrs minimum

[@Dartagnan65]

I did this 40 years ago in Max. Minus the renderer.

[@jasonloader8149]

I dunno - maybe we've reached peak Houdini as far as motion graphics is concerned. I much preferred the work that Simon was involved in years ago at Man vs Machine. There was form, wit, and creative thinking in abundance. The C4 film idents, Nike ads and Honda spring to mind. All this mathematically generated goo is impressive and all that but where's the storytelling gone - where's the fun? Also - the ESPN thing is very similar to Raoul Marx's The Crown title sequence - and that was done yonks ago in C4D / XParticles. I think Simon is a genius and all that - I would give my right arm to have half his talent - but this current Houdini Wars fixation has eclipsed narrative to the extent that it's beginning to look like AI generated nonsense - which will undoubtedly replace it before long.

[@chargedbystars]

100% agree. Its techbro-wanking into each others face. Impressive for people that know, but for the layman, its just stylish metaballs.

[@pandalayreal]

You are not wrong, but don't forget that this is 100% art directed. He is exploring stuff, he is being fluid with content.

[@dukevera4216]

Do you use Houdini?

[@jasonloader8149]

@@dukevera4216 Nope. I'm in my 60s now - too much of a learning curve at my age. I'm a C4D guy - you can get 80% there with vanilla C4D and the most recent iteration of XP if you're so inclined - but most of my work is consumer goods - figurative stuff and so apart from some simple particle/fluid sims there's not much call for the kind of Houdini exotica Simon is demonstrating.

[@jasonloader8149]

@@pandalayreal I get that - my point is that it seems to be dominating the creative process. ie: This looks cool - how can we shoehorn it into this client project? I do loads of experiments to expand my knowledge and free me up from my usual work paradigms but I'm conscious that technique shouldn't steer content.

[@besjansertolli5684]

As always, he never gives tips and tricks. Yes, he might be a genius but what's the point if you don't teach others stuff? I prefer Mark Fencher's presentations. He is a genius and kind enough to go through all the nodes and process to actually be helpful. Simon's presentations are more like "look at my amazing skills" type of presentation!

[@besjansertolli5684]

@@chargedbystars I'm commenting the presentation here. I'll let you know if I get interested of commenting his personality.

[@JulianAbreu]

Agree

[@dukevera4216]

thats not his fking job lol, why do you feel entitled to his secrets? he explained how its done as well as he could, the node tree has like 300 nodes in it. It would take 40 hours to go through it and try to get you to understand what is happening with the data in the background. grow up.

[@forton615]

If you need to know what every node does there are many tutorials that show exactly what he did. I would suggest to start with the stuff entagma makes. (And they have great blender tutorials too if you use that software).

[@besjansertolli5684]

@@dukevera4216 Firstly, you need therapy mate. Why you get mad over nothing? Yes, it's not his problem yet everyone is free to give opinions here! Secondly, I like how NAB handles presentations, kinda like Mark Fencher style of presentation. Artists show some amazing animations they've worked on, and they talk about a specific effect on their work on detail. No need to go through every node. At least pick something on that spot and give detailed information so people can actually learn some new tricks and not just watch some magic on screen and learn nothing. We can do that on social media these days this is not how presentations should be in my honest opinion.

[@whocares6302]

looks like exactly same copy of a copy of a copy of previous presentations. nothing to learn here.

[@pavelbalagazov3647]

where files hips...

[@mithunkrishna3567]

🤣🤣

[@xanzuls]

@@misanthrope_01 what part of his comment is about blender? get a life dude.

[@Francis-yc9nc]

i was thinking of: pano♥ply 😆