Highguard - Tools and Pipeline Improvements

One of my primary goals on this project was to improve environment art production efficiency by developing tools that reduced time spent on repetitive and time-intensive parts of the pipeline. To support this, I created a range of solutions across Houdini (HDAs), Unreal Engine Blueprints, and master materials within the material system.

Each tool was designed with practical production use in mind and evolved through multiple iterations based on direct feedback from the environment art team. This collaborative approach ensured the tools remained intuitive, reliable, and well-integrated into daily workflows. As a result, they became a consistent part of the team’s pipeline, helping streamline iteration, increase scalability, and allow artists to focus more on creative problem-solving rather than manual setup.

Here are just a few of the tools i created for this project.

I built a procedural tree generation tool in Houdini from the ground up due to the project’s constraint of not using solutions like SpeedTree. The tool supports a wide range of parameters for creating diverse tree variations

This tree destruction tool was designed to be highly efficient and production-ready, allowing artists to apply destruction to any tree asset in just a few clicks. Its plug-and-play approach made it easy to integrate into the pipeline

Tree destruction bp in game - BP logic made by Mohammad Alavi

Foliage tool - Just like the tree tool, this one is also implemented well into the pipeline. I bake all pivots, vertex colors, etc. that work with the master shaders.

All foliage and trees are hooked up to a global wind system i also created.

This tools allows for quick cloth rips, while maintaining UVs and allowing for simulations.

Custom fracture tool i made for assets that required specific breaks.

Custom chip and fracture tool.

This tool will take any model and fit it as many times around the radius of a circle. User has controls for many things including overlapping (useful for models that are not exactly aligned)

Same as the model around radius tool except this one allows for any custom shape that comes from geometry.

This tools allows the artist to wrap models like bricks around any surface.

We often use vertex colors to blend between layers in our master materials. This tool gives the ability to bake common things like AO, curvature, etc. per channel. Also has the ability to blend between any texture imported to give variation.

Custom chain tool that allows simulation

Landscape decal BP i created that will allow the user to project onto the RVT. The user can also paint between layers using vert colors. This is how we created the bases as they spawn in.

This is a decal i made that reads the RVT so we can have emissive areas.

Fence tool that will randomize models attached to it. It will also always stay on the surface of the landscape.

Road tool that creates a fully customizable pathway. It also allows for a custom shape to be inserted using a volume.

Landscape in Unreal is a challenge to make an actual master material for. This was achieved for this project, Trevor Naselow and i worked very closely to get this material that would give us the ability to have biomes and overrides without having to dupe.

Master materials are something i wanted as modular as possible. They all share the same material functions which make it very easy to optimize them all at once.

Example of the layered master material with re-used material functions.

Landscape Master Material with custom work done by our wizard engineer Jeremy Ong.

Master Texture material function - used on all master materials.