TUTORIALS

Over the next few months, this section will be updated with discussions and tutorials which will explore production techniques used for Project Pegasus. This will provide a deeper insight into how Houdini and Unreal Engine 5 can work together.

00 | Building a Collaborative Pipeline

Nov 28, 2023 | Project Pegasus brought together a group of artists working in different locations. For this reason, it was important to build a collaborative pipeline. Learn the purpose of Houdini Package files and how to create them. Then, take a tour of the Project Pegasus folder structure and learn the importance of version control.

Phase 1

01 | Landscape Creation

Nov 28, 2023 | Project Pegasus features a 4-kilometre-wide island with valleys, forests and dirt paths inspired by the Scottish landscape. Learn about the Heightfield Erode tool, taking an in-depth look at each parameter and its purpose. Then, learn how the landscape for Project Pegasus was created and imported into Unreal as a Digital Asset.

02 | Landscape Workflow

Nov 28, 2023 | Project Pegasus features a detailed open-world environment, with open grassland, woods, and crisscrossed with dearth paths. In these lessons, you’ll learn how to add realistic detail to a landscape using materials from the Megascans library how to place procedural paths and scatter woodland trees. You’ll also learn the principles behind the Unreal landscape material.

03 | Landscape Material

Dec 5, 2023 | Houdini and Unreal offer powerful tools for creating detailed landscapes. In these lessons, you will take a closer look at the landscape material used in Project Pegasus and dive into its technical aspects.

04 | Landscape Technical Deep Dive

Nov 28, 2023 | During the Landscape Workflow lessons for Project Pegasus, you will discover custom digital assets that were used to help build the landscape. In these lessons, you will take a closer look at these digital assets and discover how they were built. The Pegasus team hopes to add additional lessons in the future.

05 | Environment | Cliff Generation

Dec 5, 2023 | Learn how to create Digital Assets to convert a heightfield to geometry and split off the cliff sections. You’ll then subdivide and displace the geometry using height maps, and split larger cliffs into tiles. Then, learn how to assemble the Digital Assets into a TOPs network to automate generating cliffs for the entire island.

06 | Props | Pile Tool

Dec 12, 2023 | Digital Assets allow you to create useful artist friendly tools. These tools can be used in Houdini, or in host applications such as Unreal using the Houdini Engine plug-in. Learn how to create a Pile Tool to create stacks of objects or piles of debris. A level designer will be able to input multiple objects and the tool runs a rigid body simulation to create stack objects or piles of debris. The tool can be used in Houdini or Unreal.

07 | Nanite Props | PDG

Dec 12, 2023 | Learn how to build a PDG network that converts a basic input mesh into a detailed high poly model using a procedural workflow. Learn how to set up the network to run multiple input meshes through the network to automate the generation of multiple variations.

08 | Architecture

Dec 19, 2023 | Navigating the architecture of your environment poses numerous challenges. Throughout this series, we'll delve into techniques for handling rough shapes as input to retain artistic control. Our exploration will include methods to prepare input data, ensuring that flexibility is maintained when starting the process of generating details.

09 | Object Generation

Dec 19, 2023 | Learn how to create a digital asset to build a procedural stone wall. In this series, the focus is on generating multiple objects, tips to save them in Unreal and methods on how to add them automatically to your HDA’s using datatables.

10 | Clouds

Jan 10, 2024 | Learn how Clouds were generated for the Pegasus Project environment. Learn the basics of the Cloud tools introduced with Houdini 20. Create a variety of skybox cloudscapes and explore how to get these volumes into Unreal using VDB.

11 | Flora

Jan 16, 2024 | Flora is a set of prototype tools designed to model foliage in a natural and realistic way. The tools are still prototypes and represent the basic concept of what could come with future Houdini foliage tools. Learn more about the Flora tools and the concepts behind them. Please be aware that these tools are in very early development and, as such are subject to bugs and instability. 

Phase 2

1 | Create a Landscape Color Map

Aug 9, 2024 | Learn how to create a procedural landscape color map based on the information generated while building up the terrain. Heightfield masks can be generated based on the features of the terrain then used later to create the color map. Along the way you will build digital asset tools to automate the process. In the end the map will be exported out for use in Unreal.

2 | Roads, Tracks and Rivers

Aug 9, 2024 | In this multi-part series, you will dive deep in the Houdini Engine Public API in Unreal, and learn how to build efficient and artist-focused tools that can turn Landscapes into Linescapes. In the first part of this series, the powerful find-shortest-path node in Houdini will be explored and exploited to its maximum potential.In the second part, you will jump over to Unreal, diving deep into the Houdini Engine Public API and blueprints, and in doing so, learn how you can build power-armour around our Houdini Digital Assets and supercharge environment artists workflows with splines, gizmos and viewport interaction.

3 | Architecture

Aug 9, 2024 | In this video series, you will learn the fundamentals of placing things. Working on a building generator, you will discover how to deal with inputting geometry and what steps to take to handle different types of detail.

4 | Utility Widgets

Aug 9, 2024 | Learn how to expand your skills of using Houdini Digital Assets in Unreal with Editor Utility Widgets. First explore the differences between Scriptable Tools and Editor Utility Widgets, then go on to find out how to utilize the Houdini Engine Public API to create custom interfaces for your HDAs.