LANDSCAPING TOOL

DESCRIPTION

I'm trying to build a Authored Procedural Tool Connecting Houdini, Quadspniner Gaea and Unreal Engine together in a simple customizable worflow.

The system allows the user to sculpt landscapes easily, by simply placing Stamps around which will morph the landscape, instead of sculpting them with brushes.

ROLES AND TASKS

During the Development Cycle of the tool,

Researched Houdini Landscaping Implmentations across studios like Embark, Ubisoft, Twirlbound etc
Prototyped Paper Plans to keep Scalability of the tool in check
Iterated on several implementations
Im

Overall Idea

One of the main reasons why I started working on a Landscaping Tool was because there wasnt any good Alternatives.

Unreal has its Basic Landscaping tool which allows the user to sculpt it by hand, but its often really tedious and works on a very Destrubctible Workflow. Since most levels go through several iterations, its very time consuming to sculpt and resculpt landscapes for iterations

The Idea was to make the worflow as similar to how a level designer works in production,
- Have a Custom set of Assets

- Which the Level Designer can place around to make a blockout

Current Prototype of the Tool in Action

Pre-Production & Paper Plan

After researching multiple implementation methods, I decided to write down a Paper Plan on how the the tool is supposed to work, The Main tool is divided by Multiple HDAs. The Central World Generation HDA handling the Unreal Landscape Imports and Writing to Disk.

The other HDAs then Reimport the Disk Save adding their own modifiers and then exporting to a Additive Unreal Landscape Layer

I noted down a list of features I was planning on implementing, but focused on the making the main skeleton features work first.

To keep the scope in check, and have the tool work in every stage. I divided the set of features into multiple stages, Prototype, Functional, Playable and Presentable.

How The System Works

Initial Research

The system works through a Houdini HDA placed in the world, It allows the user to add the landscape and Stamps to the HDA, after which Houdini cooks the process and sends it's results back in an additional layer

Ease of Use

To make the worflow as quick and easy as possible, I made a Custom UMG Window which allows the user to select the Houdini Instance and Build at a click of a button.

The Exposed Houdini Nodes, also allow the user to add Landscapes and Shapes in a quick format

What Happens Behind The Scenes

How the Project Stamp HDA Works

Reflection

Overall, I'm very happy with how the system has progressed, Most of the time went into understanding what a level designer actually needs from a tool like this, and how they would use it, Iterating on the UMG Windows, to understanding and making the Pipeline work in Quick and Functional Way.

Im still working on the tool, Now that I've Finalized the Pipeline process and have made the bare skeleton work, Im working on other additional features, Namely Actor Tags for Stamps, so that the user wont have to add them manually to Houdini Anymore, Using Gaea's Tor Processer for Erosion on Landscapes, as well getting a Pipeline working for Custom Stamps.

Home