As I started developing this entry for the game jam. The core idea was put into test my Houdini abilities to develop procedural generators for games.

At first I was aiming for a dungeon crawler, but since I have a day job, I couldn’t afford to work that much on complex tile sets to develop the game. So I went for a different approach: An open world level, I had very little experience doing such kind of levels, so it was the perfect chance to delve into it.

When I began making the terrain generator I wasn’t even sure what kind of level I wanted, but I was sure I wanted to use Quixel Megascans for it.

The first attempts and testing in Houdini looked really funny as you can see, but they totally worked.

Since Houdini terrain tool opens the tab for procedural terrain sizes and types, it also have a vast array of tools to expose variables, by using an object merge node, I could just select in engine which assets I wanted to use to add to the level. Also, this also let me use in engine geometry such as Brushes or Boxes to deform the Terrain to add limitations. Also, Houdiniallows me to set masks to set my material layers.

After using the asset, the landscape and rocks were scattered, all I needed to do was add some basic assets I already had done for the game, to define my level navigation.

I could honestly not picture myself without Houdini to create this entry, since the complex creation of a level terrain from scratch can be a lot to do, and I could do it manually, making the whole process a matter of minutes while getting a great amount of detail.

As part of the jam entry, I decided to give away the HDA I created for this game jam so you can use it on your own projects, under the sole condition of crediting me and adding a link to this devlog entry or the game page. 

NOTE: You will need a Houdini Engine plugin for this to work in Unreal, you can get a free copy from the SideFx Github