Meditation Garden is a quick personal demo project created while learning Houdini. As the sole Technical Environment Artist, I simulated the pond water using Houdini and set up the surrounding forest environment using the PCG tools in Unreal Engine 5. The entire project was completed in about 20 hours.
Pond
For the pond’s water shader, I generated a flowmap texture based on the whitebox layout of the statue, rocks, and water lilies in the pond. I then built a material function to simulate the pond water using this flowmap texture.
Flowmap in Houdini
Water Shader Based on Flowmap: Material Function Setup in UE5
Environment
For the forest foliage, rocks, and benches around the pond, I quickly set them up using PCG tools and vertex painting in Unreal Engine. (All assets are free from Fab!)
PCG Forest
PCG Debug
PCG Forest
Generate Forest Based on Spline Range
Mossy Rocks Around the Pond: Vertex Painting
Rocks - Before
Rocks - After
