Part 1 - Houdini Boot Modeling

Houdini Boot modeling using traditional and procedural tools in Houdini. I modeled the basic boot in Houdini using traditional techniques. I started out with a box and then moved various points around. The radial menu that was introduced in Houdini 16 is amazing. It really improves the modeling workflow.

Here is the simple network for the laces. I placed curve points only on the eyelets of the boot and various points wrapping around the top of the boot. Once I was happy with the placemement, I added more points to get the exact shape that was needed for the boot. The laces were tied with the same curve by hand. I could not find a procedrual way to tie a knot.

My next step is to bring it into ZBrush and add stitching detail and treads. I will then bring it back to Houdini, create a low poly using the Topobuihe Games Baker ROP is part of the Houdini Game Development Toolset that can be found on GitHub here: https://github.com/sideeffects/GameDevelopmentToolset 

Once I get a good normal map, material ID, curvature, ambient occlusion, and roughness map it will be exported to Substance Painter. 

Houdini to Unity Digital Asset - Floor Creation

This is another Houdini Digital Asset I built for my developers and designers. The tool takes  a curve built in Unity and creates a floor or a ceiling. I started out creating a basic network within a Geo node.

The initial node network above in Houdini. Organization is key when working with Nodes. I have had assets that are just a complete mess, no guidance, no organization, no structure, extra nodes that are not connected to any other node.

Netboxes are a a good way of keeping your networks organized. It is also a great way of planning out how a node netowrk is structured. You can even add colors. Colors! Ok, I like adding colors.

This is what the asset looks like in Unity, once the asset has been built and imported into Unity. The same custom parameters I setup in Houdini are now showing in Unity.

This is what it looks like imported into Unity. 

I use the Houdini Digital Assets to quickly create a design of the floor that I will be creating in the future. This allows me to quickly make changes, assign materials and collision objects when needed.

Houdini to Unity Digital Asset - Column

This posting is for beginners learning Houdini. I figure I will try and post up as much Houdini Game Development for Unity as apossible.

 I needed to find a way to start procedurally building levels in Houdini and bringing them to Unity for my developers. Since I work in a really small studio I needed to give more control to my developers. This will give my developers control over the scaling, transforms, uv scale and with some assets they will have control over the procedural materials.

By no way this is the best way to do this, at least I don't think. I have not discovered a simple way yet, this is just me developing something to help my team in the time alloted.

This is developed using Houdini Engine for Unity. This asset is developed using Houdini 16.5.323 and Unity 2017.3. Don't forget to head over to Sidefx Github and download the Games toolset, it is needed for this HDA. I use the Game Dev Edge Group to Curve node early in the network.

Link: https://github.com/sideeffects/GameDevelopmentToolset

This is what it looks like Unity.

This is what it looks in Houdini. Breaking up the nodes into Network Boxes helps keep everything organized and informs the next user on what is happening in your network. It is not great to receive another HDA and it is really messy, with the user having no idea what is going on within the network!!!!!!!! Just needed to get that out there.

As you can see the Unity version looks cleaner than the Houdini version. Lets look at the first group of nodes. The unity version has eight (8) controls that control Scale, UV Scale, and bevel controls. Transformations are handled by Unity, no need to place an additional transform control unless we are creating cables. That will be a later posting.

Maintenance Platform Texture Update

Finally had a chance to texture this asset in Substance Painter. Great texture program, so much control over your textures.

Quick Update

Waiting on AE render to finish, I though I would post up the UVs to the maintenance platform that I created. UVs were fairly straight forward and easy. I actually enjoy creating UVs for models. Didn't get a chance to texture yesterday, probably finish that up tonight.

Maintenance Platform BG Prop

A new maintenance platform I made today in Lightwave. It took about an hour to finish modeling. I'll start texturing this later on today. I'll use Substance Painter to finish the texturing. I have found it to be extremely efficient to paint quality textures for rendering. UVs were created in Lightwave. I may switch to 3D coat to create quick UVs if the Lightwave ones don't hold up well to texel density. A quick F9 out of Lightwave before I start the texturing.

Sci Fi Prop Image

New image posted in the Images Section. Sci-Fi prop created in Houdini and textured in Substance Painter. Check it out here http://gdbello.blogspot.com/p/images.html