Master Procedural Workflows for Games Using Houdini
The Gnomon Workshop has released Procedural Workflows for Games Using Houdini, a guide to procedural asset-creation workflows, recorded by Respawn Entertainment’s Giovani Magana.
It follows Magani’s introductory tutorial Creating Assets & Architecture for Games Environments, and provides over four hours of video training in Houdini, ZBrush and Unreal Engine.
Create environment assets for videogames using Houdini
The workshop runs through the entire process of creating a stylized fantasy environment suitable for use in a videogame, using artist-friendly procedural workflows.
Magana begins in Houdini, building key architectural elements, including walls, floors, and pillars, and setting up a clean, modular blockout, before detailing the set pieces.
He also discusses how to build a custom Digital Asset Library to speed up iteration, and how he creates rock formations with very little sculpting, while still retaining control over overall form.
Next, Magana explores how to blend assets naturally into the environment, creating an Unreal Engine master material to introduce variation into the 3D models.
To complete the stylized fantasy theme, he also explores to how generate complex crystal formations procedurally and how to prepare them for texturing and shading.
Finally, Magana takes a quick look at some of his favorite features in Unreal Engine, including the Procedural Content Generation framework (PCG) and Chaos Destruction’s Fracture mode.
About the artist
Giovani Magana is Senior Environment Artist at Respawn Entertainment, and has been working professionally in the games industry as an environment artist for nine years.
His credits include The Walking Dead, God of War Ragnarök, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Pricing and availability
Procedural Workflows for Games Using Houdini is available via a subscription to The Gnomon Workshop, which provides access to over 300 tutorials.
Subscriptions cost $57/month or $499/year. Free trials are available.
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