Whiskered Summit - Work in Progress #1 (and more)

So to start off, let me explain why I've paused working on Building Bliss. I have been using a website called Kitbash3D since I started my Patreon. It's where I've sourced all of the building assets (and more) which allow me to create elaborate, detailed cities. I paid $99 a month for the subscription, but as of recently... that's no longer an option.

Currently the new price sits at ~$1k USD a year with no option for a monthly subscription. I cannot afford this at the moment, so I need to pause work on Building Bliss until I can as I can't source the assets I need anymore. I should be good to go within the next 2 months, but for now I need to pause work. I hope this all makes sense! I'll be back on it once I can afford the price.

That being said, let's talk about the new animation: Whiskered Summit!

Shot 1 Full Render Preview

I've been working on this shot for a couple of weeks now, and I'm fairly close to being finished with it. I've been working on some new techniques as well as integrating Houdini into my workflow even more. The full resolution preview is in the files attached as always!

Heightfields in Houdini

I've been learning a system called "heightfields" that Houdini has built in. It's a great way to generate EXTREMELY detailed and high poly landscapes quickly and efficiently. Like everything in Houdini, heightfields are node-based. Most of it is actually creating masks. You can see this below as all of the nodes on the right side of the network as for the masks when displacing.

These masks are also pretty important, as they help drive textures in Blender. After bringing the terrain mesh into Blender, I can use the masks (outputted to an EXR file) to drive the areas where each different material (i.e. grass, rocks, snow, etc.) should be. The final landscape shader looks like this.The network to do this LOOKS complicated, but really it's just separating the colors channels to bring out each float mask and using the black/white values to drive each material's mix control.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Other than using heightfields, my workflow is mostly unchanged. However, there are a couple details I would like to mention.

I'm using something called "tree cards" or "billboard trees" to do the forest below. These aren't actually 3D objects, but are flat planes that have a normal map so that they properly have shadows and look like they have depth. I'm also using a lighting gobo to cast shadows that look like they're from clouds.

And that's all for this week! I'll have an update when I can continue on Building Bliss again. Stay tuned for more!