I have been involved in the Visual Effects Industry since I graduated in 2002 with an Msc In Computer Animation at Bournemouth University, U.K.
For my first job in the industry, I was fortuitous enough to get work as an FX TD at the famous but unfortunately now closed, Jim Hensons Creature Shop in Camden. Those first two or so years were responsible for some of my fondest memories of my working career. Since then I have worked at a lot of the major studios in London as well as some in Los Angeles , Toronto and New Zealand.
After initially starting in effects, I ventured a bit into lighting and tracking before going back into effects. I find effects to be a multifaceted discipline suitable for someone like me who is just as interested in the technical as the artistic aspect of a task. In almost every effects job I have done so far, I have had to be able to troubleshoot the data from other departments, model, animate, create shaders, light/render and composite as well as actually do the effects. This is what makes effects interesting to me, but also quite frustrating when deadlines loom and things beyond your control are getting in the way and you have to find a work around.
Houdini is my primary software of choice and I am happy to see that it has gained popularity and prominence in the industry over the years. When I started using Houdini at university, even though initially it was weird just because the interface was so different from the standard packages, after a week of getting used to the way it works I knew , this was the software I wanted to use. The procedural workflow of Houdini seemed compatible with my way of thinking and it allowed me to do things which are quite tricky to do in packages like Maya without knowing a lot of coding and using the API. The workflow allows you to build tools and setups from the basic nodes to make very complicated setups that can be easily shared and plugged into an existing pipeline. This not only makes it fun to create things but it also helps you to learn more about what you are doing in 3D because you are building things from the ground up and even if you are using other peoples tools, it’s almost never a complete black box like other packages.
Although I use Houdini predominantly, I have experience with other packages like Maya and Realflow and several in house tools and workflows from various different companies I have had to learn over the last 10 years.