Thread by @tomdns_

Little techart breakdown of our #GGJ21 game Abyssal Plains 👇

you can play it here unnamedcollective.itch.io/abyssal-plains

#gamedev #techart #shaders #GameJamWithHoudini

The terrain was made in Houdini with heightfields. Cluster node to split each biome, then use each cluster as a mask to set different noise settings per biome. Polyexpand2d on each cluster to create the breaches mask.

#gamedev #Houdini #GameJamWithHoudini

I also used Houdini to scatter the props on the terrain, only exporting points as .csv ( using Labs CSV Exporter ) then wrote a tiny script to import them in Unity and spawn the prefabs instances on them.

#gamedev #Houdini #GameJamWithHoudini

The sonar effect is based on a really nice blog post madebyevan.com/shaders/grid/ , using fwidth to create antialiased lines.

#gamedev #shaders #GameJamWithHoudini

The terrain, props and creatures all share the same uber shader that I've been working on for a while now. Custom GUI to toggle shader keywords, buttons to set properties directly...Tabs states get saved in SessionState. Super useful to quickly prototype how the game will look!

The light is a mix of a cone mesh stretched to go through the terrain with a depth fade shader that creates a smooth transition with the environment, and a cone sdf ( iquilezles.org/www/articles/d… ) in the env. shader to add more glow to the lit areas and to darken the surroundings.