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GridMarkets Blog
Tips, news, tutorials, and behind-the-scenes stories that make complex VFX, animation, and rendering workflows simple.


"You’re the Ones Making My Dream Possible” - How Guilherme Powers Big VFX Projects with GridMarkets
“You’re the ones making my dream possible.”
VFX artist Guilherme Casagrandi shares how GridMarkets cloud rendering transformed his studio workflow, letting him focus on creativity and deliver ambitious projects faster.
1 day ago2 min read


Rafael’s ComfyUI Toolkit for Houdini - A Journey of Creativity, Innovation, and Houdini Mastery
Houdini artist Rafael Drelich Valentim merges creativity and AI with his ComfyUI Toolkit, letting artists run diffusion models, AI-driven animation, and batch image processing directly in Houdini. From Brazil to Canada, his journey shows how GenAI can enhance and not replace some VFX workflows.
Jan 63 min read


From VFX artist to producer: Neil Scholes' journey to co-founding his own independent film production company
Independent filmmaker and VFX director Neil Scholes shares his journey from commercial work to creating original IP, founding Bloodaxe Studios, and building the ambitious Supervoid franchise. He reveals how embracing generalist skills, micro-budget experimentation, and cloud rendering empowered him to compete on a global scale.
Dec 18, 20257 min read


Target Winter Holiday Campaign: How a remote VFX team delivered a high-profile studio-quality CG animation
How a remote VFX team delivered a high-profile studio-quality CG animation.
Six fully CG-animated 15-second shots displayed across digital screens in NY and LA.
Dec 1, 20256 min read


Álvaro Conejo Cañaveras 3D artist, The Rookies Awards Finalist.
Álvaro Conejo Cañaveras 3D artist, Rookie Awards Finalist, Draft Selection, Portfolio of the Week, Grade A Quality Certificate, and Editor’s Choice Award.
Nov 20, 202511 min read


Cloud Rendering & Creativity: Scaling Art with Houdini & GridMarkets by A. Kirichenko
Aleksandr Kirichenko’s journey from IT into the world of FX and Houdini is a story of persistence, discovery, and creative problem-solving. What began with web design and early experiments in drawing and music gradually evolved into a passion for storytelling through digital art, 3D modeling, and animation. Along the way, Aleksandr embraced Houdini for its scalability and freedom, tackled ambitious projects like his animated short Strive, and learned hard lessons about optimi
Sep 29, 202516 min read


From Crayons to Fluid Simulation and Cloud Rendering
Interview with Marcelo Cermak, award-winning FX Technical Director and Visual Effects Artist. Fluid dynamics has become his specialty.
Sep 17, 20254 min read


GridMarkets 3D Rendering & Simulation Service now supports Houdini 21
News: GridMarkets 3D Rendering & Simulation now supports Houdini 21
Submit Solaris/USD from LOPS easily in GridMarkets
Sep 6, 20252 min read


Yuansi Ivy Mai Brings a Post-Apocalyptic Flying Car Crash FX Shot to Life
Yuansi ‘Ivy’ Mai is a FX artist graduated from Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Los Angeles. Her artwork was recognized with Best of Term prize and collected to school reel of 2024. She is a talented and detail-oriented artist coming from a 2D illustration and media background.
Sep 5, 20253 min read


250 Frames of Delicious Chocolate Created with a laptop & GridMarkets.
Gianni Ritschard is a freelance 3D artist and 2D character designer based in Winterthur, Switzerland, with over nine years of professional experience in both studio and freelance environments.
Sep 5, 20256 min read


MPM Solver effect Houdini Solaris & Karma
This project was created using the new MPM solver introduced in Houdini 20.5. It was developed in SOPs, look dev built in LOPs, and rendered using Karma on GridMarkets.
Sep 5, 20254 min read


Manuela Cárdenas Overcomes Computer Limitations to Bring Her 3D River Bridge Personal Project in Houdini to Life.
Manuela Elena Cárdenas de la Miyar is a Junior FX Artist based in Seville, Spain. She studied the Master of VFX and Compositing at Animum Creativity Advanced School in 2023, Málaga, Spain. She also has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Granada, Spain.
Sep 5, 20254 min read


Acrylic Paint Effect Houdini: 86M particles
This acrylic paint effect was created in Houdini version 20.5. The new Copernicus context was used to extract the main colors from an initial image, which were then applied in the Flip simulation. Finally, the effect was rendered in Karma. on GridMarkets.
Sep 1, 20254 min read


Realistic Snow Simulation MPM Solver in Houdini 20.5
This case study explores the creation of a realistic snow environment using Houdini 20.5 and the Material Point Method (MPM) solver, enhanced by character animation and cloth simulation, and rendered through GridMarkets Renderfarm. The project tells the story of a medieval soldier’s returning home from the battlefield, walking across a snow-covered landscape under a hopeful morning sun.
Sep 1, 20254 min read


Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of the Sun
Josh Meister created custom solvers for electric and magnetic fields to drive particle interactions by implementing real world physics. Using GridMarkets, he was able to simulate and render several orders of magnitude more detail than he could otherwise.
Aug 29, 20254 min read
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