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Shirley Peng
Art Creation
Procedural Tang Dynasty Building With Dynamic Seasons
My thesis artifact is a short film of historical architecture in the Tang dynasty , which contains season changes that involve the plant ’ s lifecycle , day-to-night cycle , and weather transitions . The buildings in the scene were all autogenerated by plug-in tools made by Houdini .
I chose this project because I believe procedural generation is the future of game development . As the size of a map increases , placing everything in the game by hand becomes more difficult . Therefore , it is essential to utilize a tool to help . My project showcases how procedural generation in this manner can be a great asset in the industry .
Like buildings in the Tang dynasty , Eastern wood structure buildings are challenging to be modularized because they have curvy roofs . But to build up an ancient eastern city in the game , we need many similar types of buildings of different sizes . Thus , I thought it would be meaningful to develop a procedural Tang Dynasty building tool .
My thesis took me over nine months . I spent the first third of the time researching the eastern wood building structure , learning the methodology of procedural modeling , and studying FX . For the rest of the time , I worked on the development and built up the scene based on what I learned .
24 ART CREATION