CGMA - Procedural Modeling for Production in Houdini

This course will be an in-depth look into procedural modeling in Houdini; throughout the course, students will gain a strong understanding of how proceduralism can be used to create powerful modeling workflows. We will explore a variety of concepts used to create procedural assets, with each lesson having a finished product demonstrating the principles of that week. We will learn how to organize your workflows and create artist-friendly interfaces for reuseability. Together, we’ll create several finished model assets with fully procedural controls.

Week 1 | Hard Surface Models Part 1: Chandelier

Build a generator to for creating a customizable chandelier | Explore how we can use point attributes to give extra levels of control & complexity through proceduralism | Learn the basic attributes used to control copies (N, up, pscale, scale)
Week 2 | Hard Surface model Part 2: Mechanical Bird

Explore the tools we can use to get a hard-surface mechanical look | Explore methods of add slight imperfections to our setup to add believability | Learn methods for troubleshooting bad topology | See how, with the proper procedural setup, a “rig” comes for free, and we can control and pose the bird via the controls we created | Explore methods for adding a detail pass to our model
Week 3 | Organic Models Part 1: Succulents & Cacti

Build a generator for a cactus model | Explore how to use the topology of the mesh to generate ridges and spines | Build a generator for a succulent | Learn methods for duplicating and controlling the shape, bend, and distribution of the petals
Week 4 | Organic Models Part 2: Coral Reef

Explore how we can paint areas on a terrain to specify where to populate geometry generation | Build generators for a few different coral reef types: Tubular, Digitate, Laminar Sheets, & Branching
Week 5 | Structures Part 1: Pagoda Foundation

Build the foundation of our pagoda | Create the base of the pagoda, generate stairs that match the height of the base, build repeatable stories, construct the roof, and add railing.
Week 6 | Structures Part 2: Pagoda Adornments