Turbulence is what happens when a team of animation rebels decides to turn mid-flight panic into art.Directed by Christopher Rutledge and brought to life by Denmark’s Tumblehead studio in collaboration with SideFX’s R&D crew, this short film is a wild mix of technical prowess and visual absurdity.Turbulence is a stylized, chaotic animated short—like a fever dream of fluid simulations, caricatured humans, and airborne mayhem.Produced entirely within Houdini’s full pipeline, the film leverages integrated tools for rigging (KineFX/APEX), layout (Solaris), rendering (Karma XPU), and compositing (COPs). It’s an ode to Houdini’s end-to-end power: weird, gorgeous, and fully committed to the chaos.As Rutledge puts it, they didn’t aim for realism—they aimed for feeling. And the feeling is: buckle up.
Director, CG Supervisor, FX Supervisor: Christopher Rutledge Director, CG Supervisor: Magnus Møller
Producer, Director: Peter Smith
Production Manager: Inez Kristina
Animation Supervisor, Character Design, Character Modeling: Jesper Andkjær
Storyboards, Animatic: Benjamin Agersted
Sets Modeling, Sets Lookdev: Cæcilie Rahbek
Props Modeling, Props Lookdev: Dennis Sangill
Credits Design, Illustrations: Tom Goulet
Pipeline TD, Tool Development, R&D: Søren Noræk
Technical Artist, Lighting, Compositing: Remy Sandvej
General Lookdev, Lighting, R&D: Danny Laursen
Character Lookdev: Liam Archibald
Animation: Mette Rank Tange
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Turbulence is what happens when a team of animation rebels decides to turn mid-flight panic into art.
Directed by Christopher Rutledge and brought to life by Denmark’s Tumblehead studio in collaboration with SideFX’s R&D crew, this short film is a wild mix of technical prowess and visual absurdity.
Turbulence is a stylized, chaotic animated short—like a fever dream of fluid simulations, caricatured humans, and airborne mayhem.
Produced entirely within Houdini’s full pipeline, the film leverages integrated tools for rigging (KineFX/APEX), layout (Solaris), rendering (Karma XPU), and compositing (COPs). It’s an ode to Houdini’s end-to-end power: weird, gorgeous, and fully committed to the chaos.
As Rutledge puts it, they didn’t aim for realism—they aimed for feeling. And the feeling is: buckle up.
Director, CG Supervisor, FX Supervisor: Christopher Rutledge
Director, CG Supervisor: Magnus Møller
Producer, Director: Peter Smith
Production Manager: Inez Kristina
Animation Supervisor, Character Design, Character Modeling: Jesper Andkjær
Storyboards, Animatic: Benjamin Agersted
Sets Modeling, Sets Lookdev: Cæcilie Rahbek
Props Modeling, Props Lookdev: Dennis Sangill
Credits Design, Illustrations: Tom Goulet
Pipeline TD, Tool Development, R&D: Søren Noræk
Technical Artist, Lighting, Compositing: Remy Sandvej
General Lookdev, Lighting, R&D: Danny Laursen
Character Lookdev: Liam Archibald
Animation: Mette Rank Tange