The show made extensive use of a USD-based pipeline, which introduced an additional layer of technical complexity alongside the FX work.

My responsibilities covered a wide range of effects, including pyro and RBD simulations, car crashes, sparks, fire, shattered glass, muzzle flashes, destruction, and atmospheric effects.

I worked on the project for a significant period of time, which gave me the opportunity to contribute across a broad range of FX tasks—from developing complete simulation setups and FX assets to refining, polishing, and integrating existing work at the shot level.

Some sequences were particularly complex, including fully CG shots and large chase sequences, where FX asset management, simulation data, lighting, rendering, and shot assembly all had to work together efficiently.

Alongside the production work, I also spent time developing USD-based workflows and pipeline tools to help manage scene complexity, asset referencing, layering, dependencies, and large-scale FX scene assembly.

This became especially valuable on shots containing large numbers of assets, simulations, and interconnected data. The layered and non-destructive nature of USD made it easier to manage scene composition and exchange data between departments without rebuilding complete scenes for every change.

With Houdini Solaris and deeper native USD workflows, the same concepts became even more useful for multi-shot workflows, look development, lighting, FX integration, and scene assembly.

Overall, the combination of Houdini, USD-based scene management, and procedural FX workflows helped make complex shots and multi-shot sequences easier to organize, update, maintain, and scale throughout production.