GAME DEVELOPMENT

Game developers face a growing demand to build huge immersive worlds populated with vast amounts of content. In order for studios to achieve great gameplay while meeting deadlines and containing costs, a procedural approach using Houdini offers a smarter way to create quality games.

Check out the GDC Presentations which highlight Houdini in Games.

Houdini has been used in many games as highlighted in the following customer reels.

PROCEDURAL PIPELINES

Game designers and developers use Houdini's procedural workflows for high quality, art-directable FX, modelling, and world building. Learn how technical artists can develop powerful procedural tools in Houdini - and share them with game artists throughout the studio.

PROCEDURAL PRIMER

EMBARK STUDIOS

SEGA

UBISOFT

PROJECT PEGASUS

Project Pegasus uses Houdini's procedural workflows to create an open world 3D environment that integrates with the latest technologies in Unreal Engine 5. As this project progresses, the tools and techniques created for this demo will be shared with the community as learning materials and downloadable content.

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PROJECT TITAN

Project Titan is an in-house tech demo designed to production test Houdini's procedural workflows while creating a 3D environment that leverages the latest technologies in Unreal Engine 5. The tools and techniques created for this demo have been shared with the community as learning materials and downloadable content.

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WORLD BUILDING

Bigger more Expansive Environments

Houdini makes it easy to create large scale environments using an art directable procedural workflow.

Rapidly iterate throughout a project’s lifecycle to bring your environments to life.

Image courtesy of Ivan Ilko

MATRIX AWAKENS

FAR CRY

TERRAINS

Procedural terrain generation in Houdini uses heightfields to quickly layer shapes, add noise and run erosion simulations. Using a workflow similar to compositing, you can quickly achieve realistic terrains for use in your game engine.

TUTORIAL

Image courtesy of Alex Draccot

SIDEFX LABS

Tools for Artists

SideFX Labs is a testing ground for tools designed to help artists get up and running quicker. The SideFX Labs tools wrap up and release common workflows and create tight integrations with software you use everyday. The tools are developed outside the regular Houdini development cycle which makes them more accessible for testing and feedback.

Below are just a few of the many Labs tools that help make artists more productive.

Wave Function Collapse

Mapbox

Simple Rope Wrap

Texel Density

Mesh Tiler

Physical Ambient Occlusion

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REALTIME FX

Bring feature film quality FX into your game with Houdini’s award-winning particle and dynamics tools. Houdini is ideal for prototyping in-game experiences using particles, fractured rigid body dynamics, fluids and more. Export to vertex caches, sprites, vectors, and flow maps to create optimized FX for your game.

VAT

Flowmaps

Flipbook Textures

HOUDINI ENGINE

PLUG-INS

Houdini Engine brings a procedural node-based approach to some of your favorite apps. In Houdini, build nodes networks that define a recipe that can be applied over and over, then wrap them up to create custom smart assets. Share these assets with colleagues who can load them directly into 3D apps such as Autodesk® Maya,® or Autodesk® 3ds Max,® or into game editors such as Unity® or Unreal Engine.®

Unreal

Open the door to procedural workflows with Houdini Engine for Unreal. Load Houdini Digital Assets into the Unreal Editor and manipulate parameters to get the right look for your game.

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Unity

Create procedural game art using Houdini Digital Assets loaded into the Unity game editor. Create unique environments and props that can be modified using parameters on the asset.

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Houdini Engine for Unity and Unreal
are now available for FREE!

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CINEMATICS

With Houdini’s rich history in feature film effects, it is the perfect tool for impactful cinematics and game trailers. Along with Houdini’s deep VFX feature set, powerful lighting tools and the built-in renderer provide a high-quality and efficient look development pipeline.