Hello!
This is the archive of a development log compiling the progress of a procedural building toolset designed in Houdini. I started this project in November 2017, and was discontinued in late December. Be also sure to check out my profile on Twitter for more updated projects and generally what I've been doing lately.
The entries are ordered chronologically, meaning the ones on top are the most recent. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you like it!
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171224
Ever since I started this project I really wanted to walk around, in and out of my buildings. Too bad my computer can't run this smoothly in higher res, nonetheless I'm really happy about this!
171223
First time ever I put a result of my procedural building tools inside Unity! Hope I can show this off in more detail soon!
171215
Finished up and took the last setup a bit higher for a few mantra renderings.
171213
Many small improvements in the past days. Option to generate mirrored shapes became much more reliable. Stairwells have now manual placement and inner walls their own asset. Could go much higher if it wasn't for the hardware.
171211
A couple mantra renderings from the previous setup.
171211
I rebuilt the stairwell system once again and got a bit carried away. Still gotta fix some small issues, but this is looking promising!
171210
Got back to the building assets. Thinking further down the road, the stair system needed to be improved to support the type of buildings I'm envisioning (with stairwells). Still many things to implement, but it's a good start.
171208
Still working on the lowpoly tree asset, and I really like the results so far. I removed the slopes that were being generated within it, and I plan to make a new sub-asset to handle terrain input soon, also for the buildings.
171207
Kept working on that lowpoly tree asset. Here's a quick demo showing its current state. Not THAT lowpoly anymore, but I think it's alright. Maybe tapering and ramifying the branches would be next in line.
171207
Took a break from the building assets, and felt like we could definitely take up a notch and improve the lowpoly tree generator.
171207
Twenty meter high trees hiding our cabin in the woods. In this setup all of the current assets are being utilised.
171206
I was thinking about having multiple rooms at one floor's height, where you come up from the stairs and have to get into another module of the building to keep going up. The curves for the walls were hand-drawn.
171205
Still a few minor issues, but I've got a rough pipe system going on. I have to think about the best way to detect the allowed spots for them to be instanced.
171204
I did a bit of a cleanup and created the asset to handle these cool low poly trees. Here is a quick show-off, as promised earlier. This works of course on top of any terrain input. I think it goes really nice with the cabin!
171204
So I spent a couple of hours making a simple terrain generator, and some procedural trees. First time I attempt something like this, very simple setup but I kind of like it! I intend to present these trees in more detail soon!
171204
Quick and simple demo of mirrored buildings, showing almost all the current assets in action; this time full screen capture. This was sped up only roughly 4 times, and could've been done faster with some better hardware.
171201
Started to implement a kind of grille system for the windows. Think something like this might look really cool randomly spread in a tall building!
171130
I realised I had to rebuild the AC asset basically from scratch to accomplish what I wanted. Now I've got them working independently, reacting properly to the wall geometry behind it, to avoid misplacing tubes on windows.
171129
Gathering some ideas before implementing detail randomness. This A/C Unit model is pretty much complete now. Think I'll make some variations and have every iteration fetch a different model from the pool.
171125
Showcasing a very simple tower-like building mixing all of the current assets. Thinking about developing new stairs which adapt to curved walls. Rounded towers + spiral stairs would be nice.
171123
Fully habitable ten story experiment rendered with mantra inside Houdini. Stairs connect each of the floors, which are also fully independent. Wish I had access to the engine, bring this over to Unity would be dope.
171123
Been focusing on revamping all of our assets to support multiple instancing and have randomise options for independent positions and rotations. Today's progress was upon the Double Windows tool.
171122
A few mantra renderings. Really fast to uniquely generate whole buildings if wanted. All floors are also independent, and I think the latest addition with the closed balconies really brought something special to this.
171122
Almost closing up with the Closed Balconies asset. Really happy I figured out how to randomise the windows positions independently within the loops, using the current iteration as a variable inside the rand function itself!
171121
Further development of the closed balconies. This asset is following the same new structure implemented to the Doors (for having multiple of them), which will eventually be adapted into all of the others.
171120
Started working on a new Asset and got its base functionality interacting very well the rest. Closed Balconies will add another good layer of detail and variation to the whole. Next step will be their windows. Can't wait to stack'em high!
171119
Who's ready for some isometric goodness? Spent a great amount of time debugging and improving the ShapeGen asset (again) for more reliable outcomes. Still not 100%, but improved quite a bit! Felt like rendering a quickie.
171119
Differential growth solver experiment, just having some maze fun.
171118
Been working since yesterday on revamping our ShapeGen Asset to mutually generate inner and outer curves for the walls. Still quite buggy at times, but it's a good start. Doors Tool was also almost completely rebuilt to allow multiple of them at once.
171117
Now apart from manually placing stairs, we can also have them snapped to the walls and offset as needed! Also spent a good amount of time rebuilding the Door Tool from scratch to improve some future implementations. More on that soon!
171116
I just implemented a simple rooftop and also naked balconies options. Looking at you PUBG. Lets not forget this could go as high as we wanted!
171115
I wasn't quite pleased on how the balcony railings were behaving in concave spaces. Thinking a bit further down the road, where buildings might start to get pretty crazy, this little functionality could come in handy!
171114
First Mantra rendering inside Houdini, just to take a small break from the network editors. Still a LOT of things on my to-do list, but I gotta say I'm happy with how it's looking so far!
171113
I developed a very simple Shape Generator Tool using Voronoi fractures and clusters on a grid, just to get some more interesting setups going. This is my development's current stage. For now I'm happy with how I handled the flooring system. Let's keep at it.
171112
Bringing things together and adding more complexity to my networks. This was also showed off on Reddit a couple days ago. I still had issues with the floors, and didn't like how I managed it, to be frank. I took a step back and redesigned some core features.
