Brown Barn Studios
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Visual Effects · Games & VR · Mobile · Web

Built like a barn.
Shipped like software.

Brown Barn Studios has built software for clients since 2005. We lead with visual effects and technical art — Houdini, shaders, real-time content — and build the games and VR, mobile apps, and web and desktop software around them.

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Since 2005
Two decades of client work: a museum installation, photo pipelines, and multiplayer games shipped on multiple platforms.
Houdini + Unity
Procedural modeling, physics simulation, and hand-written shaders, integrated straight into the engine.
Remote-first
Twenty years of remote collaboration with clients and studios.

Capabilities

Four disciplines, one pipeline.

Visual Effects & Technical Art

Procedural, simulated, real-time.

Houdini is the core of our effects work: procedural modeling, physics simulation and VEX, with assets that land in the engine ready to use. We write shaders by hand and build the workflows that let artists move faster.

  • Houdini — procedural modeling, physics simulation, VEX, Unity integration
  • Shaders in ShaderLab, HLSL, Cg and compute
  • Stylized characters and assets in ZBrush, Blender and Substance
  • ML-assisted texture and image generation inside Houdini
  • Motion graphics and video in Apple Motion and Final Cut Pro
  • Color correction and calibration from a decade of production prepress

Games & VR

Five years in commercial VR.

In-house at a VR game studio from 2020 to 2025 — UI systems first, then technical art — on top of Unity game development for ourselves and for clients since 2012.

  • Unity and C#, from prototype to release
  • VR interface and interaction systems
  • Custom multiplayer engine with a PlayFab backend
  • Cross-platform releases, shipped on multiple platforms
  • Stylized characters built for rigging and animated in Unity and Houdini
  • Tech demos that prove an idea before production commits

Mobile

Apps with the servers behind them.

iOS apps built in various Frmeworks and backed by our own APIs, multiplayer games on phones and tablets, and mobile input experiments going back to 2006.

  • Mobile apps in Unity, React Native, Flutter, Dart
  • Python and Django APIs behind the app
  • Cross-platform mobile multiplayer with PlayFab
  • Photo-library and remote image-processing features
  • Responsive, multi-device interface design
  • Mobile keyboard and text-input R&D

Web & Desktop

Full stack, from the database up.

Responsive web applications, custom APIs and the servers they run on — plus desktop software that meets hardware, like a photo booth that corrects color and publishes a web gallery almost instantly.

  • Angular, React, Bootstrap and Material Design
  • Python, Django and custom API authoring
  • MySQL and other SQL databases, Elasticsearch
  • Linux servers, in the cloud and on bare metal
  • Webpack and Grunt build pipelines
  • Interactive museum installations

How a build goes up

Four phases, in order, because each one needs the last.

Phase one

Survey

Analyze the problem, then state it plainly: who it’s for, what it has to run on, and what already exists. A clearly stated problem is half solved.

Phase two

Frame

Assemble the right toolchain from what’s available — engine, DCC tools, frameworks, backend — and prove the riskiest part with a working tech demo.

Phase three

Raise

Build in short loops with your feedback inside them. Find the pain points, change the process to remove them, and go again.

Phase four

Finish

Integrate, polish, and hand over tools and documentation your team will actually adopt. A pipeline nobody uses isn’t finished.

Tools on the wall

VFX & art

HoudiniVEXZBrushBlenderSubstancePhotoshopIllustratorKritaStable Diffusion

Engine & shaders

UnityC#ShaderLabHLSLCgCompute shadersPlayFabRider

Motion & A/V

Apple MotionFinal Cut ProAudio post-production

Web & API

AngularReactBootstrapMaterial DesignDjangoWebpackGrunt

Languages

C#PythonJavaScriptHTML/CSSVEXHLSLSQLC

Data & infra

MySQLElasticsearchLinuxCloud & bare metalNetworking

Contact

Tell us what you’re building.

Send a paragraph: the problem, the deadline, and who it’s for. A Houdini tool, a VR prototype, an app that needs finishing — we’ll start by stating the problem back to you, so we both know what we’re solving.

hello@brownbarn.com

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