Week 13 - Houdini Workshop

 Building Scaffolding Demo

This lecture was a really fun assignment as it helped me get a much better understanding of procedural geometry generation for Houdini and Unreal. Specifically in exposing the parameters to Unreal to further edit. I wanted to go ahead and map out the process for future reference while working on my procedural foliage generation tool for my Tech Art Final.

Breakdown

This section focuses on making the core pillars for the scaffolding, the normal2 and rendered_collision_geo serve to  adjust the normals of the mesh and harden them, as well as add in collision geometry in our Unreal scene.

These nodes focus primarly on setting up the geometry at which to lay the columns out, as pointed out in the previous node normal1 and rendered_collision_geo do the same process.

This node section is focused on combining all of the elements shown, move_to_grid_points duplicates the column points and places them at the vertex of each of the base points. match_size places the points at the top of the column so theres no intersection.

Finally, the copy01 is what duplicates the levels of the scene ontop of each other over and over. This node is connected to the size of the column node at the top (specifically the size.y) with +.1 to account for size differencing. When exporting to Unreal Engine both the column_size.y and copy1_translate.y (renamed to Floor Number) as parameters.

Module in Unreal Engine with exposed Floor Numbers and Floor Height.

Week 13 - Studio Logos & R&D Outline

 

Logo Vectorization

Current Research & Development

Current R&D Prompts to research based on feedback from 11/20/25 Art Style Guide Presentation

- Splines for the arms

    - How would this interact with the rig on the model?

    - What is the best way to texture this?

        - Material with tiling uvs?

        - Shader with world position?

    - Cheryl has a vine-arm rig, would this be fine to use as a base or do we need to tweak it?

- How does Unreal 5.4 Post process material changes affect the shader on a numerical level?

    - Is there an easier way to tone down/bring up the emissive intensity of neon signs in side of the scene depth fog without affecting performance?

- What are the steps and best processes for mimicking the shadow look of The Long Dark

- Is there a way to procedurally assemble buildings utilizing Houdini?

- How do-able is procedural movement for multi-legged creatures?

Week 13 - Procedural Foliage Generation for Landscapes

What

For this project I'll be focused on building a Unreal procedural foliage tool focusing on populating a landscape with different kinds of trees and grasses. This project will utilize Speed Tree, Houdini, and Unreal Engine.

Why

I have a really big fascination with Houdini and specifically the procedural modeling associated with it, this project combines my decent knowledge of SpeedTree and Houdini by giving me new material to focus on.

Additionally, this project will assist with Capstone efforts for Regradable, which has a problem of minimal 3D artists but high celing in terms of scope. With this project, I can focus a bit more on assisting our one environment artist with foliage population while providing a tool to our level designers to make it as simple as possible.

How

This project would focus on useing SpeedTree to create the meshes of the foliage, for the purposes of this project I would kepe the sclae small and constrain it to two tree types, two bush types, and two flower types, this gives me six different foliage types to play with.

Then I would utilize this assets in Houdini to understand the logic of where the plants go and create a HDA to decide the randomness, density, biome types, mask strength and more.

From there I would bring the HDA into Unreal engine and utilize the in-engine terrain tools to create a variety of spaces for the foliage to spawn. Unreal would then be utilized for rendering and further tool polish.

References

Utilization of SpeedTree and Unreal Engine

• Picturesque English Countryside Crafted with SpeedTree & Unreal Engine
• The Procedural Nature of the Horizon Zero Dawn
• Between Tech and Art: The Vegetation of Horizon Zero Dawn
• Foliage Creation Exploration
• Forest Valley

Example of HDA tool in Unreal Engine

Tangentally related Resources

• FMP - Weeks 23-25 - Foliage Process + Progress
• Creating an Explorable Environment in UE4: Witches' Library

Week 13 - Exceptions & File Handling

User Query

Debug Log

Perforce

Week 12 - Ice Druid Sculpt

First version Sculpt

Reference Board

Character Summary

Purah is a once-mortal satyr healer who died and was reborn by the winter goddess Auril, her body now sculpted from ice while her one remaining mortal piece—her heart—is tainted by Yeenoghu’s savage curse. Exiled from the tribe that raised her, she walks the world as a quiet, eerie spirit of frost, gentle in her healing yet frightening in the cold ferocity that lives beneath her surface. She is both omen and protector—a blizzard’s ghost with a warm, wounded heart trapped in ice.

Design Ideology:

Shape Language

Purah’s shape language is relatively circular, her horns curl back, her eyes pull upwards, her ears tilt down - all on curves. However, she is not all angles, specifically in her face she gets very angular. No matter how much she adorns herself, there is something villainous at her core. Typically sharper angles will be seen in her eyes, her ears, and her jaw.

In her earliest iterations, Purah was suffocated by the large angular forms of her cloak. In image, she was this imposing figure, hulking over the other party members in a threatening manner, however this is in contrast to how she played. She was very kind to her party,

Colours

After her death, Purah loses all mortal color. Her warm autumn palette—the oranges, browns, and muted golds that set her apart from the endless white of Icewind Dale—is gone entirely. Her skin, once earthy and alive, is now bleached to icy tones, a near-white with subtle blues and greys. She is no longer the outsider visually fighting against her environment; the land that raised her has finally accepted her, absorbing her into its palette.

Iconography

In life, Purah’s symbols were warm, autumnal, and rooted in nature. In death, those icons become pale, brittle interpretations of themselves.

Owls remain central to her identity—Allomere’s shape appears in the patterns of frost that form on her skin, and the silhouettes of Great Horned Owls seem to follow her like drifting spirits. Their imagery is no longer warm or wise, but watchful and silent, guardians of a druid who walks between life and ice.

Finally, her tiger and sabertooth iconography becomes more skeletal. Where once she carried the shape of Lox in strength and memory, she now carries him like a revenant echo. The tiger marks become faint spectral stripes across her limbs, appearing only when her divine energies flare. Lox’s presence, once protective, now feels ancestral—guiding her, but from a colder place.

Known Critique

Nick (Faculty)

• Look at Dungeons and Dragons references for collectable figures/minatures
• Keep in mind the thickness of the pieces
• She currently looks pretty young - early 20s - when shes supposed to be 28
• Recommends Marko Ploof - Kaos Agents

Kate (Cohort 22)

• Add small dangles to the back if its too empty, however make sure there is still an area for resting the eye

Kaleighia (Cohort 22)

• Add tertiary detail to the stomach emblem

Mark (Cohort 21)

• Get the pose figured out sooner than later - you might need to adjust the fabric afterwards
• Finish all the sculpting that requires symmetry and transition the pose after that
• On the printing side, make sure everything is thickened and merged. All clothing will need thickness and stuff.
• Think about hiding seams in smart places when cutting apart the model.

Willow (Cohort 20)

• The design feels a little greedy, it has its fingers in so many pots that its hard to tell what the story is.
• The silhouette is getting a little bulky, dont be afraid to push te ribs inwards to create a more refined shape.
• The left has all te competing elements, ideally I would say to chose the most important so we can focus on those and have the others more in the background
• With two gods, the Yeenoghu elements should be more subtle than Auril's. The Yeenoghu elements could be in slight disrepair or have been incorporated in or taken over by Auril elements
• The metal elements specifically throw me off because they seem like such a harsh juxtaposition to all the natural elements.

Dasha (Cohort 18)

• I would recommend inflating or scaling the small/thin details like the chains, horns, and the feathers (or just merge the feathers with the dress). These will likely break during printing or when you're removing the supports.

Sarah (UCF GaIM Alumni)

• The biggest thing is figuring out what fabric or what fabric weight the dress is made out of since it will affect how it drapes and lays. Right now it reads more like a thick, heavy weight fabric but if you're aiming for something lighter, it'll need some tweaking. I recommend this post for differences in fabric weights
• The belt feels like its making a very chunky silhouette and takes away some definition in the waist area.
• The skirt is tilted a bit too far forward and should lead more towards the back
• The chains - specifically those in the back - and beads should rest on the skirt, right now they're hovering.

Week 12 - Shader Experimentation

 Lighting / Shader Research

Continuing last weeks assignments, I was tasked with playing with different ideas for how our game's main shader could look.  For this experiment, I continued the scene I made last week and worked on making a shader to utilize scene depth fog so our team can programatically set how foggy the scene is without affecting the overall lighting through the exponential height fog.

Unfortunately Unreal 5.4 removed one of the key settings for post process materials, 'Render Before Tonemapping' was removed, as such it breaks a lot of the previous tutorials. You can see some of the examples of how this changes the visual look of things here.

Scene Depth + Pixelation Shader

Overall the shader complexity is relatively low, only showing red on overlapping smoke particles in the distance and the transparent glass on the police car.

Overlay Material

The overlay material was made largely in concern of emissives within the shader, as well as the effectiveness of  highlighting objects while the scene is heavily obscured.

Week 12 - First Bake - 'B' Stage

Witch Player Model Textures

   God Rays

 

Master Material 

Perforce Proof