Advancing VFX Workflows with Houdini Solaris in House of the Dragon Season 2

This work presents a successful real-world transition of a major VFX studio, Rodeo FX, from a multi-software pipeline to a unif ied Solaris and USD-based workflow. Motivated by the growing complexity of episodic and feature film productions, such as Red One and House of the Dragon Season 2, the shift aimed to consolidate disparate departments and eliminate redundant tasks by using Houdini Solaris as the central platform for asset development, Crowd, CFX, FX, lighting, and rendering. The core of this pipeline transformation involved standardizing USD layer stack composition, introducing reusable HDAs and Rodeo Chunks, and automating per-shot workflows using Shotgun event triggers and dispatch graphs. We detail implementation specifics such as the USD Payload Package concept, layer stack auto-generation, and robust automation systems that allowed for efficient iteration, shot synchronization, and cross-departmental collaboration. Finally, we demonstrate production-level results using case studies from House of the Dragon Season 2, including environment builds of King's Landing, Silverwing dragon shading, FX instancing workflows, and automated shot renders. This abstract outlines practical strategies for large studios aiming to migrate to a scalable, artist-friendly, and automation-driven USD pipeline.