Evolving USD Workflows: Powering The Last of Us Season 2 | RISE | FMX HIVE 2025
9Take a look at the latest developments in the Houdini USD pipeline at RISE Visual Effects Studios, and how they enabled the team to create the visually stunning post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us Season 2.
Andreas Giesen works as a VFX Supervisor at RISE | Visual Effects Studios. He is considered one of RISE’s swiss army knives who can take a shot, no matter how complex, from concept, through blocking, lighting, shading and rendering to final. However his focus is now on VFX supervision - mostly of FX intense shows as he worked many years as a FX Supervisor. Andreas latest work includes The Last of Us, Matrix Resurrections, the award-winning feature NYAD and the emmy-nominated series Fallout.
Jonas Sorgenfrei has been a senior FX/Pipeline TD at Rise FX in Berlin since 2020. Always interested in Computer Graphics techniques and visuals, his most recent work includes The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Matrix Resurrection & Hawkeye. Additionally he is the Head of FX at RISE | Visual Effects Studios and a Houdini and Computer Graphics instructor at schools such as FH Salzburg.
00:06 Introduction and Overview
07:38 Creating the Mountain Environment
12:11 Shader Layout and Lookdev Tools
16:52 USD Templates and Import Workflow
21:33 Shot Structuring and Sequencing
26:10 Parallel Layout Team Workflow
30:43 Populating the City Environment
35:14 Shot Structuring and Sequencing
39:58 Houdini 20.5 Parameter Integration
45:00 Hardware and GPU Scaling Strategy
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The Last of Us Statistics For Houdini
Houdini presently has 56,665 views for The Last of Us across 2 videos, with his channel publishing less than an hour of The Last of Us content. This makes up less than 0.10% of the total overall content on Houdini's YouTube channel.