Destruction with Houdini
A personal research project connecting Houdini Engine to Unreal's Chaos physics so any mesh can become art-directable, destructible gameplay.
- Role
- Combat designer
- Team
- Solo
- Built with
- Unreal Engine 5, Houdini Engine, VEX
- Type
- Personal project
Overview
This project came out of exploring how Houdini Engine can hook into Unreal's Chaos system to drive dynamic destruction during gameplay.
My role
I built a Houdini tool that takes any mesh, cuts it into pieces using planes, and returns those pieces as separate meshes. I then used VEX to connect those pieces to Chaos, so any mesh in Unreal can be made destructible and its destruction can be art directed.
What I learned
Houdini Engine is extremely useful for building tools that enrich environments, and those same tools can create exciting gameplay moments. For testing, I placed a breakable glass window next to a breakable concrete wall, and those two assets alone showed how powerful that level of interactivity could be.
Challenges
The biggest challenge was learning VEX and understanding how Chaos is structured. I leaned heavily on the official documentation for both, which answered nearly every question I ran into.
From development
