Week X – ARTISAN

1. Single Building Updates

Solved the problem that the stairs and the base of the single building cannot connect and match. Due to some bugs in the pivot points, the stair models was imported far away from the base of the building when it was in Unreal Engine.

The model of Chiwen has been made (prefabricated module).

Based on the progress of last week, the modules of the single building were further integrated, including dougong (bracket set), doors and windows, fences and so on, which were shown before. And all the merged node networks were sorted out.

Tried using one subnet for roof & foundation & stairs.

2. Basic Unit Blocks

After the introduction of Shape Grammar algorithm, the second half of the whole pipeline is basically clear.

The current logic of the pipeline can be summarized as follows: artificially prefabricating part of the building modules, procedurally modeling the remaining building modules in Houdini, and implementing the combination and landing of the single buildings in Houdini. The generated single buildings enter the engine along with other artificial prefabricated assets (such as some decorations) into the second half of the pipeline. In the second half of the pipeline, the basic unit blocks of “1×1” and “1×2” are first prefabricated manually. Shape Grammar uses these basic unit blocks to generate larger blocks, such as “2×2” and “2×3”, and then the entire city layout is generated by the placement algorithm.

The screenshots below illustrate some artificially prefabricated 1×2 blocks.

3. Terrain Tool

In order to add some interest to the edges and vistas of the entire cityscape, as well as the possibility of some changes and breaks in the middle of the city, we tried using Houdini combined with Unreal Engine 5 to make some procedural terrain.