This tutorial starts with an explanation of the way Houdini creates curves, and the difference between edges in Houdini and other modelling programs. Then it looks at some nodes which can be used to create and edit curves . These are the Line, Curve, Curvedraw, Add and Ends nodes.

The rest of the video is used to demonstrate some different ways that curves can be used to create procedural geometry from scratch. We make a procedural racing track generator, which takes an input curve and landscape and creates a road and road markings, with barriers along the inside of curves, and piles of tires along the outside. Then we place trees on the landscape that update to avoid being placed on the route of the track.

Other new nodes that are covered in this tutorial are the Sweep node and the Ray node

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CREATED BY

HoudiniKitchen
SUSIE GREEN

Houdini Kitchen tutorials are aimed at experienced 3D artists who are new to Houdini, and focus on creating procedural geometry for video games. Each tutorial covers a single node or concept, and will usually finish with a demonstration of how that tool might be used in asset creation. There are easier ways to use Houdini – commonly used nodes can be set up automatically using shelf tools, and useful networks are now embedded in higher level nodes – but I believe that to be able to fully harness the power of Houdini it is important to understand the basics. I have worked as a Technical Artist in the Video Game industry for 15 years, and my credits include Killzone 2 & 3, The Getaway 1 & 2 and Playstation VR Worlds. I have been learning Houdini since 2005, and have been using it in production for the last 5 years. I also have a degree in Archaeology and have completed several 3D projects for the British Museum.

More from Susie Green

COMMENTS

  • absorbentghost 5 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Can some one go in depth about real world scaling work flows from nuke ,maya and houdini scaling setup please , these are great video , really wish to see workflows on bring in and simulating particles for real scale objects

  • Alex Amos 4 years, 11 months ago  | 

    Tutorial is great, network is crazy messy however.

  • 3dvrman 4 years, 3 months ago  | 

    Please use a mouse pad. We hear annoying sound when you move your mouse all the time.

  • theodoredaley 3 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Has anybody tried to redo this and gotten stuck on the Add point (middle group) + Sweep node to create the middle hash lines on the road section? When I follow and recreate it, the sweep does not work as expected. I opened the scene example file and recreated based on that but still gives the issue.

    A CopytoPoints node works as expected but does not orient to the path. Also have to select on the Sweep node "Construction / Up Vectors / Use Target End Up Vector" for the sweep to follow the surface.

  • SerjKirchano 3 years, 8 months ago  | 

    same here, stuck on the first add

    I think my sweep not looks like from the newer version and might not work like the one from 17.5

  • SerjKirchano 3 years, 8 months ago  | 

    Tutorial is great tho!

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