Rookies Entry 2023 - Houdini Environments

The Arch

 Houdini | V-Ray | Substance Painter | Zbrush | 3DS Max | Gaea | Nuke | Rizom | Speedtree | Megascans 

This project is my latest big project - It was primarily inspired by the landscapes of Wales,  and some of the old architecture, which can still be found there, centuries later.

My main focus for this, was to really push the quality of realism of the scene, by combining a lot of Houdini's procedural methods, with some more destructive methods - A good exampel of this, is the Cliff to the right of the Arch, which was made, using Zbrush for a realistic base, and then enchanced by Volumetric modelling in Houdini, to create a lot of details.

The scattered Grass, and base of the Pine trees, are from Megascans - The rest, is all createds by me.

My main focus for this, was to really push the quality of realism of the scene, by combining a lot of Houdini's procedural methods, with some more destructive methods - A good exampel of this, is the Cliff to the right of the Arch, which was made, using Zbrush for a realistic base, and then enchanced by Volumetric modelling in Houdini, to create a lot of details.

Since realism was such a big focus for me, alot of work went into research my selected biome, in order to stay authentic, in regards to existing plant life/Foliage, as well as Mountain formations.

Since the Hero Asset was the Arch, which is very tied to the biome/location of the scene, it was also very important to gather reference - Both in regards to Modelling something thats appropriate for the setting, and for realistic texturing of the asset.

This process also included planning/drawing up some architectual elements of the arch, before I began modelling.

One of the  big benefits for assembling/making this project primarily in Houdini was, among previously mentioned factors, that it allowed me to easily integrate FX into the scene, using Houdini's excellent FX tools, for Pyro, Particle simulation, and Vellum for the cloths - And because of Houdini's procedural nature, it also meant that I could have them affect eachother, and easily adapt to updates made to the scene, as I went along

Cave Project

Houdini | Arnold | Megascans | Fusion | Speedtree

This project was inspired by watching the movie "The Green Knight". Was assembled in Houdini, and rendered in Arnold, with compositing done in Fusion.

The terrain and scatters, were created inside of Houdini.

Bushes, and plant life was created inside Speedtree.

The Grass and cliffs are from megascans.

Alpine Landscape

Houdini | Redshift | Zbrush | Speedtree | Megascans | Fusion

This was my first time using Redshift for a project.

The composition is partially based on the painting "Gebirgslandschaft mit Alpensee" (Wilhelm Theodor Nocken,1866) - I Used it as a foundation to build upon, while I added some of my own touches/elements to the concept.

The trees we're made in Speedtree - The rest of the foliage, and rocks, are from Megascans.

The small statues, are sculpted in Zbrush

For this project, I tried my hand, at creating a scattering tool in Houdini - Learned that having that knowledge of your own tools are build, can spark a lot of ideas, during scattering, and preserving the attributes afterwards, can lead to some very cool shaders.

Dense Forest

Houdini | V-Ray | Zbrush | Substance Painter | Speedtree | Nuke | Megascans

For this project, I wanted to create a dense natural scene environment, and to particularly challenge my Lighting and Scene Assembly Skills - This project took about 1 week to create.

The trees and bushes, were created inside of Speedtree, and the rest of the foliage is from Megascans.

Since the main focus of the project, was to practice Lighting skills, I experimented a bit with different Gradings of the scene, in Nuke

Sacked

Houdini | Arnold | Speedtree | Fusion | Megascans

This project was the first Environment Project I created in Houdini. My main goal for the project, was to experiment with creating versatile tools and shaders, which could be build upon for later projects - Like tools for optimizing geometry, Scattering, Color Variations per elements, as well as procedurally modelling.

Every scattered foliage, and debris, are from Megascans.

The trees were created inside of Speedtree.

This was all I had for my entry - I hope you enjoyed it :)

I'd like to thank the other Students at 3D College Denmark, for giving amazing feedback and always supplying great vibes while working.

I'd also like to thank my two teachers: Jesper Rahlff and Stefan Rosborg Hansmar, for pushing me to participate this year :) 

If you want to see more works from me, you can find me on Artstation and Instagram.

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/skou

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sebastian_skou/