VFX 721 / Spring 2026 / Fowler

Project 1 – Procedurally Modeling a Building

Date Assigned:	Class 2
Proposal Due:	Class 3
Date Due:	Class 7
Optional Render:	Class 8 – place all content in a folder with `_Final` appended to the name and place it at the top-level directory. This way a quick check of the folder indicates whether a resubmission was completed. Leave the original submission.

Checklist

Ensure your building changes properly in width / height / depth and has a door and a roof
(It should not just scale, but configuration should change).

Goals

This assignment will focus on the student becoming familiar with expressions and procedural modeling.

Requirements

The following are the minimum requirements for the project:

The dimensions of the building — both footprint and height — should be changeable through high-level parameters: width, depth, and height.
The building should have windows, the number of which is tied to the size of the building.
There should be at least one entrance.
There should be a roof structure that is distinct from the main body of the building.
The building should have multiple material assignments. File-based textures may be incorporated but are not required.
Rendering should be production quality.
The scene file should be well organized and documented with network boxes, sticky notes, informative node names, and comments.

Everything must be done in Houdini except compositing/creating textures

REFERENCE, REFERENCE, REFERENCE

Reference

You will work from reference for this project. Please find or photograph a building as reference. You may use found images of existing, proposed, or imagined buildings. If you would like to design your own building instead, you should submit concept artwork.

You are not required to replicate all the detail of your reference building; the basic forms should be recognizable and be proportional when the building is in its base configuration. Do not include details in the model which should be addressed via texturing, such as brickwork.

Relative proportions are important. Consider putting in test geometry early for comparison.

Submission Guidelines

The project will be submitted to your dropbox in a directory named:

S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title/

The directory must contain the following files:

S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.hipnc
S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.pdf – user guide and breakdown (see template)
S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.jpg (or .png — no TIFs): a "beauty shot" of your building. Exact aspect ratio is at your discretion. Note: render to EXR and use mplay to convert your beauty shot.
S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Compare.jpg – A side-by-side screenshot of your reference and final beauty shot (camera view should match as closely as possible).
S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Configure(1–5).jpg – Rendered images of potential configurations.
S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.mp4 – Flipbook showing animation of controls.
A rendered animation is optional. If you decide to render, use the following guidelines.
- Approximately 10 seconds of animation, high quality, H264 compression (use Handbrake), 1920 × 1080 (or 720 × 405 if rendering during high renderfarm usage).
- First ~5 seconds: a turntable of the base model. If there are no details on the back, no need to use the full 360°. Hint: use a null node for rotation parented to the camera, or rotate your building instead.
- Next ~5 seconds: demonstrate the range of variation possible when modifying the building's parameters. For this portion there should be little or no camera movement and little or no rotation of the building.
- Keep the building in view.
- The mp4 should contain a single screen capture of the custom parameter interface of your procedural building.
- Place your compare image (reference / result) at the front of your video. The URL of your reference should be included on the compare image.
- Consider adding still images of details on your building in a close-up view.

Expected Directory Structure:

S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title/
├── S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.hipnc
├── S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.pdf
├── S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title.mp4
├── S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title_Beauty.jpg
├── S26_V721_P1_LastnameFirstname_Title_Compare.jpg
├── reference/
│   └── source.pdf
└── tex/
    └── (your textures here)

Additional Required Files

reference/ – No more than 10 JPEGs of your reference, no larger than 1,000 × 1,000 pixels. There is no set naming convention for the reference images. Include a file source.pdf inside the reference folder indicating the location of the building and the source of all submitted reference images, including appropriate URLs. Think of this as the bibliography for your reference images.
tex/ – If your project includes file-based textures they should be included here. In your .hipnc file, ensure that paths are relative to the $HIP global variable (e.g., $HIP/tex/filename.jpg) and not absolute paths.

Grading

Criteria includes: footprint parameters / windows / entrance / roof / multiple materials / quality render / clean hipnc. Refer to the grading rubric posted on the class website or Blackboard.