
Meander: a procedural system for generating maps of rivers that never existed - henning
http://roberthodgin.com/project/meander
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DethNinja
Oh a post about Houdini, my favourite software!

Results looks amazing, though I wish algorithms were explained more in detail.

I think there are couple of more methods available for generating such rivers,
approach taken by Guerilla Games is pretty good as well:
[https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-
guerrilla...](https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-guerrilla-
games/)

~~~
dmos62
Why is it your favorite? I watched Houdini 17 and 18 sneak peeks and they are
impressive, but I wouldn't be the first to be fooled by demos.

~~~
DethNinja
I do indie game development, Houdini extremely speeds up game development
process by combining python programming, procedural generation, and
conventional 3D asset modelling into one single software package.

It must’ve increased my productivity at least 5x fold, and it costed around
250 USD, which is really cheap compared to other 3D software packages.

Basically I just use Houdini to do everything from terrain generation, static
mesh modelling, rigging/animation to VFX. It doesn’t have good sculpting
capabilities, so zbrush is needed for organic character modelling.

Most amazing thing about Houdini is that it let’s you basically code entire
asset generation and baking process via python.

I’m 100% sure Houdini will take over entire gaming industry, I doubt
conventional modelling software like Maya or 3D Max will be utilised in new
game studios, though older ones will still use them due to initial investments
they made.

~~~
Catsandkites
Hi! Thanks for your thoughts, they are really interesting. Do you have any
examples of your Houdini to game content or could you recommend any good
learning resources for using Houdini in this way?

I've been sharpening my blender skills for content creation and while I enjoy
it, it's quite slow.

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DethNinja
Game I’m making is still under wraps but for example: I got multiple building,
door, control terminal, and signature variants all developed in Houdini. Doors
have to open whenever a player within guest list comes near the door. Assume
there are 100s of combinations you can make with these variants. I can just
select the variants I want in Houdini, combine them within Houdini, click to a
button I programmed in python that says bake and it will output a nice TOML
file that automatically gets read by UE4 and I can just drop a blueprint that
already exists within UE4 to world space and I’ll have my combined building
show up on the planet literally immediately.

Honestly Houdini is so complicated it will probably take you three months to
get to basic proficiency and you will need to learn python if needed. I mostly
used YouTube tutorials and documentation itself.

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datalus
Robert Hodgin used to go by flight404 back in the days of Flash. I remember
seeing him speak at a Flash Forward conference at the Masonic Center in SF
awhile ago. I believe he also helped develop the Cinder library for creative
coding... cool to see this popup on HN :)

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xixixao
This whole website is an absolute gold mine. 1) It's like someone finally
worked on all the ideas I've had, 2) it's absolutely gorgeous in every
respect. Wow.

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airstrike
Forget the rivers, I love every single thing about this

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phreeza
Fun fact, Albert Einstein wrote a paper explaining why rivers form meanders
and tea leaves accumulate in the center of a stirred cup.

[http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/03/0105-0108](http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/03/0105-0108)

~~~
dhbradshaw
His son Hans is responsible for a whole body of work in river engineering.

[https://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/life-and-
pioneering-w...](https://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/life-and-pioneering-
work-hans-albert-einstein)

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dylan604
Is it the maps that never existed, or the rivers that never existed? What does
this title mean?

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ajford
Author is creating a simulation of natural river meandering over time, and
generating maps of that behavior in a style reminiscent of that used in a
report by the US Army Corp of Engineers in 1944.

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layoutIfNeeded
fyi, your “modified bitangent” is just the second derivative.

~~~
yorwba
The second derivative of a circular arc points inwards, whereas the figure
shows the "modified bitangent" pointing outwards. Maybe it's the negated
second derivative, but without the exact formula it's hard to say.

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0xcoffee
This is really beautiful. Are prints available?

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bufferoverflow
That's a lot of work, and a beautiful result. I'm just not sure what the
purpose is.

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foobarbecue
Actually I wonder if it might be a significant contribution to the field of
hydrology. For example, for use in floodplain modeling after landscaping, or
water resources work.

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yorwba
Not really, since he's just trying to create a visually pleasing result and
can ignore a lot of phenomena that would change the exact course of the river,
like the water speed, water level, erosion resistance of different materials,
slope of the terrain... (The example of a circular "river" meandering should
be a pretty big hint that it's not physically accurate.)

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hyko
Very cool.

