Set Dressing Tools

A set of set dressing HDAs for in-engine detailing of pipes, HVAC and cabling.

Overview

These set dressing tools were made alongside a level geometry toolset for a student game project I worked on, Night Heist.

Pipe Tool

Pipes are a great intro to procedural assets, it’s basically sweeping a circle along a curve and adding a little geometry. There’s a lot of tutorials on making pipe tools for Houdini Engine, such as the ones on SideFX’s website.

Exposed parameters:

Pipe radius
Fitting width
Fitting radius
Corner radius
Corner divisions
Pipe mesh divisions

HVAC Tool

The HVAC tool is not much more than a squared off or larger version of the pipe tool. However, you do need to restrict the orientation of the line, as the vent will want to rotate depending on the path curves. For the project these set dressing tools were used for, the vents were traversable, so it was important to set collision correctly as well.

Exposed parameters:

Pipe radius
Fitting width
Fitting radius
Corner radius
Corner divisions
Pipe mesh divisions

Wires Tool

The wires are a little more complicated. In particular, this tool allows for adding wires that follow the same path, which requires more specific orientation and alignment along the curve. It also has a toggleable control box on the end which expands to fit the wire count.

Exposed parameters:

Pipe radius
Wire mesh subdivisions
Wire count
Wire offset
Control box toggle