First a little background: I have some ideas for a set of related games, all taking place in a world I created long ago. Because of this, the continent where all the stories take place have many predetermined features and points of interest already, but the rest of the world (and the PoI themselves) could be procedurally generated, as otherwise it would take too long to create it.

I have been looking at a few different terrain and landscape generating tools, and while their creations can be very beautiful they lack some of the important features needed to create the world I'm looking for. So I turned to Houdini as much of what I need seems to be possible in Houdini.

What I have is a rough shape of the continent where all these stories take place, together with a set of major features and other major points of interest. Like for example there needs to be a large grassy plain or steppe (The Great Plains) at a certain location. It should be bordered to the north by a large chain of snow-covered mountains with small streams and rivers crossing the plains to the south border of the plains where The Great River flows (think the Amazon, Nile or Mississippi rivers). There are swamps and jungles and deserts and rolling hills full with sheep and forests and archipelagos and canyons shaped like the a crescent moon, and a few large settlements, towns and cities. Roads, paths, lakes and other streams and rivers. And and a central position there's a lonely, tall mountain peek, where The Great River has its source.

Now what I need is a tool that allows me to create the rough outline of the continent, place the main biomes and locations and features and points-of-interest in their suitable location. But the rest I want to have procedurally generated. Things like the central mountain peak, or the northern mountain range, or the plains could also be procedurally generated, and then placed.

Is this possible with Houdini? How much does the standard nodes help me with this, how much VEX or Python code do I have to write? And what books, tutorials or courses do I need to buy or read or look through to learn all this?

Thanks!

I think Houdini would probably be the absolute BEST option for you to do this. In 20 they really stepped up the biome tools etc. Check out the Labs Biome Tools and all the tutorials on the SideFX site. This one goes over the Labs Toolset pretty well:

PROJECT DRYAD: BIOMES [www.sidefx.com]

and a few more:

TERRAIN NODEBOOK [www.sidefx.com]

Biome Region Delineation [www.sidefx.com]

This seems to be exactly what I was looking for!

Thanks!

PHENOMDESIGN
I think Houdini would probably be the absolute BEST option for you to do this. In 20 they really stepped up the biome tools etc. Check out the Labs Biome Tools and all the tutorials on the SideFX site. This one goes over the Labs Toolset pretty well:

PROJECT DRYAD: BIOMES [www.sidefx.com]

and a few more:

TERRAIN NODEBOOK [www.sidefx.com]

Biome Region Delineation [www.sidefx.com]