I hope you find this breakdown of the environments I have done using Houdini and procedutal techniques helpful.
I have taken some stills from the shots that have been released, but since a few of them have a decent amount of motion it was impossible to get a clear picture of the environment. So I have linked a clip with the sequence too for you to review.
There is also a brief description of the work I have done and the techniques I used. Any other question you may have about them, please feel free to ask!
1. Grubhunt Grove Environment
Procedural set dressing done using Houdini. I was responsible of the whole environment dressing on this one.
Most of the grass, flowers and vegetation, trees as well as the moss and hanging plants of the trees were procedurally distributed. Only the big log, and a few other trees, rocks and big bushes were placed by hand per directors/leads request to have them in a specific location to match the art reference or for framing purposes or because they needed a shot-based cheated position to avoid some cameras intersections.
For the scatter distribution I used masks to have lower grass where the characters walk, plus a combination of masks based on the normal, height, ramps, inclination and procedural noises to set the rules for the vegetation to grow in their correct orientation and places.
2. Chase Environment
Procedural set dressing done using Houdini. I was responsible of the whole environment dressing too.
This sequence had a bit more of manual work as there was a lot of intersection with the cameras and the vegetation. So the closest ferns and plants are placed manually in Maya. In Houdini, the closest area of the ground was culled to avoid having plants distributed too close to camera. The rest: leaves, debris, moss, trees, ferns, small plants and any other elements, were procedurally scattered in Houdini.
3. Nala Falls Environment
Procedural set dressing done in Houdini.
In the first image, the moss in the rocks and the red flowers were done by another artist. The rock placement was made by hand. The rest of the dressing was done procedurally by me, all trees, grasses and bushes.
The moss and plants of the cliff were also scattered in Houdini, taking advantage of the normal to create masks to distribute the elements only in the most horizontal surfaces, multiplied with procedural noises. This same technique was used to distribute clumps of bushes and plants all over the environment. A combination of an occlusion mask, and the distance from an object was also used in the border of the cliff to have less amount of vegetation there, and in the river area. This river area is only visible in the clip, as the motion blur of the sequence made it impossible to take a decent sharp still from it.
4. Return home Environments
I worked in two different environments in this sequence.
The first one, the one showing the top of the mountain, the whole dressing is made in Houdini. Only the 3 trees at the top were placed by hand to match the art ref on its exact position. Everything else is procedural.
For the dessert shot (3rd and 4th pictures), the palm trees and big log at the end are placed by hand. The vegetation in the far mountain/cliff, the rockfall of its skirts, as well as all the pebbles, sticks and dirt debris is scattered in Houdini using procedural mask noises, and a concave/convex mask.
5. Jungle Cruise film Environments
There are two environments here. I apologize for the pictures quality as these ones come straight from the trailer since the film hasn’t been released yet. I hope it is enough for you to review.
In the first one (pictures 1-3) all the vegetation is procedural. We were two people working on this one. I was in charge of the shoreline and of the final polish pass of the inside jungle. This was also done procedurally in a different proprietary tool developed in the company that was node based, somehow similar to Houdini. The rocks were hand placed by another artist.
In the second environment (picture 4) I was responsible of the cliff wall vegetation dressing, and the two rocks in the middle of the water. It was also procedural with the tool I mentioned before, applying the usual tricks with the normal map, shadows, orientation and so. The top part was made by another artist.