Procedural Modeling

PROCEDURAL MODELING

Houdini’s procedural modeling workflow gives artists the freedom to build complex, flexible geometry with unmatched control. By using a node-based approach, every step of the modeling process is editable, repeatable and easy to adjust at any time.

ORIENTATION HANDLES
The Curve tool has new interactive states for manipulating the shape of the curve and orienting the tangents.

BEZIER HANDLES
The new Curve tool has bezier handles along with the ability to edit multiple points at one time and draw more than one curve at a time. The interface for this tools is built using Python states.

ROUNDED CORNERS
The Curve tool includes the ability to define rounded corners which can be controlled as a group or one at a time. These can then be baked to continue to work with Bezier handles.

CHAIN LINK
Another feature of this new Curve tool is the ability to be embedded into other tools. This Chain Link example shows a digital asset that includes a bezier curve with all of its handles.

MODELING IN PRODUCTION

Gran Turismo 7 | Polyphony Digital

Akira Saito – Chief Technical Artist of the Scenery Design Team at Polyphony Digital – walks through some of their Houdini workflows for the making of the Gran Turismo series of games – including scenery creation, car modeling, and procedural modeling. Akira also discusses Polyphony Digital's use of several custom HDAs (Houdini Digital Assets) to handle specific tasks in GT7 – such as polygon reduction in landscapes, generating junctions on roads, and landscape modeling.

MODELING UX

Houdini has been making UX improvements to existing modeling tools and new tools that make it easier to work procedurally. From the Bend tool to Bevel and Sweep, there are lots of useful improvements to the tools you use everyday. And Terrain now has advanced terracing capabilities for more realistic results.