SideFX

SideFX develops 3D animation, procedural modeling, and visual-effects software for film, television, games, motion graphics, visualization, virtual production, and AI/ML-oriented synthetic-data workflows. Founded in Toronto in 1987 by Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic, the company built its approach around procedural, non-destructive systems that let artists create and revise complex scenes as connected operator networks.

Its flagship platform, Houdini, grew from the earlier PRISMS procedural 3D suite and supports modeling, animation, character work, effects, compositing, rendering, and pipeline development. The software is designed for production environments that need reusable tools, scalable simulations, and integration with established digital-content-creation and game-engine workflows.

Production capabilities

• Procedural modeling, world building, and tool development
• Particle, pyro, fluid, cloth, wire, finite-element, and rigid-body simulation
• Character rigging through KineFX and character-effects and grooming workflows
• USD-based look development and lighting with Solaris
• Rendering with Karma, plus legacy Mantra workflows
• Task automation and procedural pipelines through PDG and TOPs
• Real-time integrations through Houdini Engine
• Image processing and compositing with Copernicus
• 3D Gaussian splatting and synthetic-data generation for machine-learning applications

SideFX serves studios and artists through commercial and educational licensing, technical support, production builds and bug tracking, procedural-pipeline consulting, SideFX Labs tool development, curriculum support, certified school programs, and community training through Houdini HIVE and IGNITE events.

The company remains an independent private business led by co-founder Kim Davidson, its President and CEO. Epic Games made a minority investment in 2020; SideFX retained managerial independence and continues to support multi-platform pipelines across rival DCC tools and game engines.