Pavel Zosim

A technical breakdown of the lighting layer built on top of my Houdini → Unreal procedural environment system.
The generator itself remains unaware of lighting. Houdini publishes structure, placement metadata and stable identity; Unreal interprets that data and attaches engine-specific behavior to the generated instances.

For windows, a single placement decision can create a real Rect Light at a mesh socket and write the same result into Per Instance Custom Data used by the material emissive. This keeps the visible window state synchronized with the actual light source.

The same system also supports Blueprint Actors for streetlights, metadata filtering, deterministic selection, stable placement keys, and generated/authored/runtime scalar data.

The window material adds a separate cubemap-based interior system, allowing room variation without requiring modeled interiors for every instance.

This is part of the same procedural-system series as Controlled Procedurality and Houdini to Unreal — HISM and Blueprint Actor Routing.

Full technical breakdown:
https://www.pavelzosim.com/post/lighting-generated-geometry/ [www.pavelzosim.com]

#TechnicalArt #Houdini #UnrealEngine #ProceduralGeneration #Shaders

Hi,
I’ve been developing a procedural environment and level-design pipeline built around a Houdini HDA and Unreal Engine 5.
It started as an experiment with maze generation and pathfinding, mainly to generate modular spaces such as basements, caves, corridors, and labyrinths. Over time, it evolved into a broader system based on deterministic rules, artist control, gameplay dependencies, validation, and engine-side representation.

The main idea is simple: procedural does not have to mean random.
The current implementation uses JSON as an intermediate data layer, so Houdini describes procedural intent while Unreal handles engine-specific representation.

As the system grew, I also added typed placement routing. Gameplay objects can remain independent Blueprint Actors, while repeated structural elements are routed into HISM-based containers. This keeps procedural generation separate from the way Unreal represents the result.

The project has gradually evolved from a single HDA into a small pipeline with its own data format, documentation, validation, and engine-side implementation.

Main breakdown [www.pavelzosim.com]

Typed placement / HISM routing [www.pavelzosim.com]

Still an active R&D project. I’d be interested in feedback on the Houdini architecture and the separation between procedural intent and Unreal-side implementation.

Working on a procedural tire generator in Houdini.

The system builds tire geometry using profile-based construction,
radial symmetry, and procedural tread patterns.

The setup separates base shape, tread generation,
and secondary detail layers for controlled variation.



More details:
https://www.pavelzosim.com/post/procedural-modeling-tire-generator [www.pavelzosim.com]