CACtus zoom

R&D PROJECT

Did you know that the Redshift camera's focal length starts bugging out past 10,000mm?

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CACTUS CONSTRUCTION /
SCATTERING

Procedural system to create a variety of cactus bases and arms at multiple LODs. Scattering system built in multiple steps: scatter cacti origins, select model based on randomized pscale, add additional arms based off height, update LOD based on proximity to hot spots. All objects are rendered as packed prims and high LOD cacti have their needles rebuilt using RS proxies.

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Flower
Construction

These flowers were built atop individual curves that had been run through a solver that added tropism and solved for collisions. The curves were then carved and rebuilt to include the key elements of a flower.

ENV CONSTRUCTION /
GROUND COVER SCATTERING

Initial heightfield of Arizona Desert downloaded from the US Geological Service website. Scattering and texturing maps derived from heightfield masks and used to create initial density maps that were fed into two scattering HDAs for use with Quixel Megascans assets. Additional larger assets placed by hand

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SCATTERING

I wanted a more unified approach to scattering my assets, so created an HDA with my most needed elements being earth sink (amount the assets go into the ground), scale distribution, rotation controls (y-axis + mix amount of straight up and surface N), duplication (more copies around some points), and any shading randomization (HSL).

MEGASCANS IMPORT

This works as both a copy to points and a megascans asset ingestion HDA. It allows you to control LODs based on proximity to focus points, and control variant usage across your incoming points. It allows export of mesh, packed prims, or a one button conversion to RS proxies that retains correct transforms and attributes

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FullCactus

SOFTWARE:
Houdini (VEX, TOPs), Redshift, Davinci Resolve, Adobe After Effects

ADDITIONAL ASSETS:
Quixel Megascans

STARTING REFERENCE:

cact