The Art of Decomposition: Tackling Complexity with Houdini | Benjamin Sugar | OFFF HIVE 2025
27Learning Houdini is a wild ride of trial and error—breaking things, making mistakes, and slowly unlocking its endless possibilities. Through my journey with Houdini, I discovered how experimenting and deconstructing complex problems sparks creativity and reveals surprising connections to the natural world. Beyond FX, I’ll be making a case for Houdini as an educational tool—showing how its ability to visualize math and science can help students explore and understand the world in a whole new way.
Benjamin Sugar is a Hungarian-born visual artist and motion designer, primarily working in the field of visual effects for feature film and advertisement. His artistic practice is centered around the creative use of technology, which includes 3D design, proceduralism and audio-visual composition. Since settling in Berlin in 2015 he began to pursue a career in visual effects as an FX artist with a focus on natural phenomena, such as fluids, fire and soft-body simulations. He has worked for a number of leading german VFX studios, contributing to high-profile feature films and episodics and is currently the Senior FX artist for bEpic Studio in Berlin.
https://benjaminsugar.com/
00:00:07 – Welcome & Background
00:05:05 – Becoming a Houdini/Comp Artist
00:10:04 – Decomposition & Workflow Clarity
00:15:01 – Managing Chaos in Creative Systems
00:19:58 – Optimizing Setups for Performance
00:24:56 – Mindset: Thinking Modularly
00:29:53 – Personal Learning Approaches