This project recreates the secret garden and cottage from Howl's Moving Castle (2004) using Houdini's Solaris and Karma.
The environment design procedurally explores how Karma's physically based pipeline can be directed toward a stylized aesthetic through careful coordination of hand painted textures, scatter distribution, and LODs.
Final Render
Figure 1 - Movie reference on Left, Houdini render on right
TECHNICAL GUIDE
Grass Creation:
Individual blades are constructed using remapping to simulate natural droop and lateral lean, then a jitter is added to form a grass clump.Clumps are fed into a foreach loop with per-blade variation in scale, length, and density (Figure 2). Scatter nodes distribute clumps across the terrain, adding natural irregularity. To keep the 2D look, grass rotation is capped at twenty-five degrees and shadows mimic different green variations.
Masking & LODs:
Mask by object cuts out sections from other assets in the scene such as the cottage, water, and pathways (Figure 3). Mask by object separates the grass LODs, reducing geometric complexity by distance. The flowers used a similar technique, but with more variation through different global seeds and colors.
LOD 0
LOD 1
LOD 2
Figure 2 - Grass LOD 0, Grass LOD 1, Grass LOD 2
Figure 3 - Grass and Flower Masking Example
UV Layout:
Cottage geometry was UVed to showcase the sides facing the camera. Each section, the main building, roof, and patio, were unwrapped separately for independent control.
Hand-Painting:
UVs were pulled into Photoshop to hand-texture each section (Figure 4). Painting separately allowed independent control over wear, color variation, and surface detail. Textures reference the hand-painted quality of Ghibli's background art (Figure 5).
Figure 4 - Cottage, Patio, and Roof Texture Map
Figure 5 - Hand-painted Cottage
Houdini Viewport