Ahmed Hindy

Pipeline TD / VFX Pipeline Developer

Ahmed Hindy

  • Pipeline
  • Houdini
  • USD
  • Maya
  • Unreal
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Overview

Pipeline Technical Director for Houdini, USD, Maya and UE5

I am a Pipeline Technical Director based in Cairo, Egypt. I build tools and workflows that sit between artists and pipeline engineering: publishing, render handoff, validation, farm debugging, and cross-DCC support.

5+ years of VFX experience and 3+ years focused on pipeline work.

I started in Houdini FX, so I know the artist side of the problems I now solve: heavy scenes, broken caches, bad paths, failed farm jobs, missing versions, and USD composition issues. Outside production, I like tinkering with C++ game mods, basic Rust, Docker homelab setups, local LLMs, and Vue JS projects.

Primary focus
All things 3D pipeline related: Houdini, Solaris/USD, Maya, Unreal, Deadline, and PySide/PyQt GUIs
Production work
Cross-DCC pipelines involving Publishing, Farm Rendering, Validation, and Scene Debugging
Departments supported
FX, Lighting, Character, Groom, and related teams.
Current direction
A generalist Pipeline TD, with most experience being with Houdini, USD, Unreal and Substance

Experience

Pipeline work grounded in real production problems.

2023 - Present / Trend VFX

Pipeline TD

Designed and maintained hybrid USD publishing and render handoff workflows used across FX, Lighting, and Character departments. Built Python tools, PySide/PyQt interfaces, HDAs, and utilities for validation, render submission, asset handoff, and production debugging across Houdini, Solaris, Maya, Deadline, and PDG.

2022 - 2024 / Trend VFX

Houdini FX TD

Created Houdini FX work for photoreal projects using pyro, RBD, POP particles, vellum, muscle, and crowds. That background helps me build pipeline tools with a practical understanding of artist scenes, caches, render errors, and handoff problems.

2021 - 2022 / Freelance

FX Artist

Delivered Houdini FX work for international clients, with a focus on clean setups, reliable caches, and production-ready simulation results.

Public Tools

Production tools, experiments, and side quests.

Featured tools

RenderKit image sequence conversion interface

RenderKit

image-sequence conversion tool. supports burn-ins and contact sheets.

  • PySide6
  • OpenImageIO
  • OpenColorIO
  • FFmpeg

h_denoise_utils

Standalone denoising GUI, with bundled OptiX and OIDN. Support multi-AOV EXRs

  • Nvidia
  • OptiX
  • CLI
  • Intel
  • OIDN
  • PySide6
  • EXR
Substance Painter USD Creator plugin interface

Substance Painter USD Creator

Substance Painter plugin for publishing layered USD assets.

  • USD
  • Substance Painter
  • Materials
  • Publishing
Arnold OBJ light to USD translator running in Houdini Solaris

Houdini / USD Utilities

Houdini/Solaris utilities including an Arnold OBJ light to USD translator.

  • Houdini
  • Solaris
  • USD
  • Arnold
  • Artist Tools
Kitsu dashboard open in the Kitsu Desktop application

Kitsu Desktop

Windows desktop client for artists using Kitsu, with connection checks and system-tray actions.

  • Tauri
  • TypeScript
  • Kitsu
  • Desktop

Pipeline / USD utilities

Materials Processor

Material ingestion and conversion tool for standardizing networks across USD and MaterialX.

  • Houdini
  • USD
  • MaterialX
  • Arnold
  • Redshift

USD Scene Audit

OpenUSD audit tools for mesh prims: naming, hierarchy, materials, layers

  • Python
  • OpenUSD
  • SanityCheck
  • CLI

hou-scene-inspector

Houdini .hip inspector for reading node data.

  • Python
  • Houdini
  • HIP Files
  • Parser
  • CLI

Infrastructure & experiments

Kitsu Docker Prod

Production-ready Kitsu docker stack.

  • Docker
  • Kitsu
  • Postgres
  • Traefik
  • Pipeline

Homelab / Local LLMs

Docker-based homelab for self-hosted tools and local LLM workflows.

  • Docker
  • Homelab
  • Local LLMs
  • Self-hosting

Side quests

Hitman ItemSpawner

Hitman 3 mod for spawning items in-game, built on top of ZHM Mod SDK.

  • C++
  • ZHMModSDK

Skills

Tools and workflows I use in production.

My strongest area is Python pipeline development for DCC tools, USD workflows, validation, farm support, and artist-facing interfaces.

Core strengths

  • Python
  • Qt / PySide6 / PyQt6
  • Houdini
  • Solaris
  • USD
  • Publishing
  • Validation
  • Deadline
  • PDG
  • Artist-facing tools
  • Production debugging
  • Documentation

Production working knowledge

  • Maya
  • AYON
  • Kitsu
  • MaterialX
  • Arnold
  • RenderMan
  • Redshift
  • Rendering
  • Farm support
  • Git
  • Cross-DCC handoff

Supporting / side experience

  • Docker
  • SQLite
  • Postgres
  • Bash
  • Basic C++
  • Basic Rust
  • C#
  • Unreal Engine basics
  • JavaScript / Vue enthusiast

Contact

Let's talk pipeline, tools, and production workflows.

I am open to Pipeline TD, Houdini Pipeline TD, USD Pipeline Developer, and DCC Tools Developer roles, especially on teams building practical tools for artists and production.

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