Visual Effects (VFX)
Plates, simulations, integration, finals. Smoke, fire, water, destruction, magic — simulated, lit, and seamlessly composited into live-action plates or fully CG environments.
What this service is
Visual Effects is the discipline that puts impossible things into believable footage. We build Houdini simulations for smoke, fire, water, destruction, and magic, lit and rendered to match the plate, and composited into the live action so seamlessly the audience never questions it. We work shot-by-shot, bid shot-by-shot, and deliver shot-by-shot to your finishing house.
Pricing context
USA/AU VFX shops: $8,000–$40,000 per shot. EU mid-tier: €6,000–€28,000. DARK: from $3,600 per shot — Houdini-grade work at Italy cost structure.
How the price is formed
How we run it · 5 stages
Plate review & R&D
Week 1We break down each shot, identify the FX brief, run lookdev R&D. Shot-by-shot bid with risk flagged.
Layout & tracking
Week 2Match-move on plates, scene reconstruction, camera bake. CG geometry locked into the live action.
Simulation
Week 3–8Houdini sims — pyro, FLIP, vellum, RBD. Iteration on motion, scale, dissipation. Clients review proxy renders.
Lighting & render
Week 8–10Lit to match plate, rendered in passes (beauty, AOVs, deep). Holdouts, mattes, tech checks.
Compositing & finals
Week 11–12Nuke compositing, grain match, edge work, integration. Final EXR or DPX delivery to your finishing house.
Tools & technology
Houdini
Industry-standard for pyro, fluids, RBD, destruction. We use proprietary HDAs to compress turnaround.
Nuke
Node-based compositing — keying, rotoscoping, lens distortion match, deep compositing.
PFTrack + 3DEqualizer
Pro tracking and matchmove. Lens grids and survey data ingested directly.
Mantra + Karma XPU
Render side — XPU gives us GPU speed with CPU fidelity for production-grade FX.
What you receive
- FX simulations
- CG plates
- Compositing
- Look development
Stack
Related portfolio work
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