The village in the editor
Water sim preview
Sky blast concept
Waterfall breakdown
VFX 2021–2023 · Unreal Engine, Houdini · FX Lead
Karma & Jonar
Fire, water, sky and destruction for an animated series made in Unreal Engine.
Ibrahim Afara
Technical artist. Founder of EQLabs.
I make fire, water, wind and snow behave in real time, and I build the tools that let other artists do it faster.
Stockholm · In production since 2018 · FX Lead, Karma & Jonar · Senior FX Artist, Toadman Interactive · Founder, EQLabs · 122 editor tools for Unreal Engine
Selected work
Elements: 2,707 pieces
Wind levels
Pivots and parents
EQLabs 2026 · Unreal Engine 5.4–5.8 · Author
Pivot Painter Lab
Any static tree, swaying in Unreal, without a trip through 3ds Max.
Bone weights
Walking
EQLabs 2026 · Unreal Engine, Unity · Author
Vertex Animation Textures
Simulations baked into textures, playing back in Unreal Engine and in Unity.
00:00:07:00Scene capture
00:00:11:00Render target
00:00:14:15Deformation
00:00:17:06Niagara powder
Tech art and tools 2021 · Unreal Engine 4 · Technical art and VFX
Dynamic Snow Footprints
Snow that keeps every step. The same setup handles sand, mud and wheel tracks.
00:00:00:15Intact
00:00:02:12Tearing
00:00:03:15Severed
00:00:06:06Settled
VFX 2020 · Houdini, Unreal Engine 4 · Technical art and VFX
Dismemberment FX
Real soft-body tearing from Houdini, played back in Unreal Engine 4 on the GPU.
00:00:02:00Raw scan
00:00:10:00Cleaned and decimated
00:00:18:00Clipping box
00:00:24:15UV layout
Tech art and tools 2021 · Houdini, Unreal Engine 4 · Tool author
Auto-Photogrammetry
A Houdini tool that turns a 24-million-polygon scan into a game-ready asset.
EQLabs
EQLabs makes editor tools for Unreal Engine and Unity, built by someone who needed them on production. EQLabs Pro puts 122 of them in one plugin for Unreal Engine 5.4 to 5.8. Pivot Painter Lab, Painting Lab and Cinematic Lab also ship on their own.
EQLabs Pro
122 editor tools in one plugin, opened from one Hub.
Pivot Painter Lab
Any static tree or plant, baked into wind-animated foliage inside Unreal.
Painting Lab
Texture painting on a 3D mesh or a 2D canvas, in the editor.
Cinematic Lab
Camera, lighting, grade, render passes and editorial hand-off for Unreal cinematics, in one window.
How I work
Art with a frame budget.
An effect is finished when it looks right and fits in the frame it has.
Tools should disappear.
The best tool is the one an artist forgets they are using.
Show the breakdown.
Every case study here shows how the shot was made, not only how it ended.
Building something that needs to move?
Write to me. hello@iafara.me