Hyper Light Breaker | Heart Machine

Technical Artist Randi Reynolds explains how game studio Heart Machine utilized Houdini to build the vast environments of Hyper Light Breaker. By combining procedural systems with Unreal Engine 4, the studio’s small team overcame performance constraints and technical limitations. Learn how they streamlined their workflow using Copernicus to translate hand-painted Photoshop files into height fields , which are then synced via TOPs and a custom tool they built called Hyperdeck. This pipeline slashed iteration times from days to under 15 minutes, demonstrating how procedural systems empower studios to create high-fidelity content and gameplay tools at scale.