SideFX Releases Stylized Project Skylark Tools for 3D Artists
SideFX has once again surprised the 3D artists and game developers community by releasing a series of custom tools developed for their internal project Project Skylark. This time, the focus shifts away from photorealistic realism to embrace a more stylized look, with painterly textures and low-poly geometry, perfect for indie games or visualization projects with a cartoon aesthetic.
A Look at Project Skylark and Its Procedural Workflow
Unlike previous projects like Project Titan or Project Grot, where realism reigned supreme, Skylark aims for a more artistic and art-director-controllable style. Imagine a small village atop a hill, surrounded by trees and fields with hand-painted textures. All of this was built in just four months by a team of six artists working part-time.
The pipeline was entirely procedural thanks to Houdini 20.5 and its new image processing system called Copernicus, which was key to creating the painterly-looking textures. Additionally, the entire environment was assembled in Unreal Engine 5, including elements like houses, clouds, wooden bridges, bottles, and even CG birds.
Downloadable and Ready-to-Use Tools
SideFX has released several of the tools they used internally to build Skylark. These tools come in the form of .hip and .hda files, allowing you to both study the process and integrate them directly into your own workflow, whether inside Houdini or in Unreal Engine thanks to the Houdini Engine Plugin.
- Procedural stylized building generator: Ideal for creating entire villages in minutes.
- System for building wooden bridges: From splines, with pillars, ropes, and planks that adjust automatically.
- Tool for creating volumetric clouds: From simple 2D sketches, controlling shape and density.
Several extra setups for generating minor elements like flower pots, bottles, and birdhouses. The best part is that all these tools come with video tutorials where the SideFX team explains step by step how they were created and how you can adapt them to your own project.
License Considerations and Requirements
That said, before diving into these procedural gems, remember that some of the tools (especially the .hda ones) require a commercial license of Houdini. They do not work with the free Houdini Apprentice version. Additionally, if you want to use the tools inside Unreal Engine 5, you'll need the Houdini Engine for Unreal, which is now included in the Houdini installer.
The complete Unreal project file, with the entire game scene, is also available under the standard SideFX license, which even allows use in commercial projects.
Because, of course... who needs to model by hand for days when you can let Houdini do the work in seconds and you just dedicate yourself to... watching the viewport in Unreal load for half an hour?
You can download the complete project from here.