Procedural Workflows for Games using Houdini

Houdini, ZBrush & Unreal Engine Workflow with Giovani Magana

Continuing on from Giovani Magana’s introductory workshop, where he covers the core fundamentals of building game-ready environments, this new workshop focuses on using Houdini to develop procedural workflows to create high-quality assets.

The goal of this 4-hour workshop is to walk artists through the entire environment creation process, using artist-friendly workflows in Houdini. Giovani guides mid-level artists who already have some basic experience with Houdini in getting started with using the software as part of a creative pipeline. He walks through building a stylized fantasy environment to showcase the tools and techniques involved.

The workshop begins in Houdini, where Giovani begins building key architectural elements, including walls, floors, and pillars, and setting up a clean, modular blockout. From there, he moves into detailing the set pieces. He discusses how to build out your own Digital Asset Library for faster iteration and walks artists through how he creates his own rock formations – with very little sculpting – while still retaining control and shape variation.

Giovani covers how to blend assets naturally into your environment, and how to create your own complex master material, giving you the power to blend multiple materials, add realism, and introduce variation to your models. Artists will learn how to generate complex crystal formations procedurally and how to prepare them for texturing and shading, setting the stage for a stylized fantasy vibe.

To conclude the workshop, Giovani takes a quick look at some of his favorite Unreal Engine features, including PCG and Fracture.