Fantasy Towers

The Challenge:

My biggest goal for this project was to create a Houdini tool that leverages procedural generation while still giving artists control. In the past, my projects have mostly either been primarily procedural (where the artist tunes some input parameters and then scrubs through random seeds for an output they like, ex: my cherry blossom l-system project) or primarily art directed (where the artist specifies all details which directly create an output, ex: my pagoda making tool). My goal was to create a process that takes advantage of both of these approaches.

The final solution was a tool with the following workflow:

Terminology: “layers” are the large structure pieces like pillars and roofs that make up the tower. “features” are the smaller details that are dressed on top of layers.

1. The artist defines the overall structure by authoring tower layers (ex: pillars of different materials and tiled roofs). This allows the artists to quickly define the broad strokes of the tower’s structure.

2. Next, features are procedurally placed onto the layers by the tool (ex: windows, wood paneling, and balconies). This allows the tool to take care of the tedious work.

3. After finding a seed they like, the artist bakes the generated features into a menu. Then the artist can fine tune features as they please (ex: tweaking positions of windows or adding an extra balcony). This allows the artist to still art direct the results as much as they want.

You can see this workflow being demonstrated in the video on the right.