Procedural Cabin (Houdini)

Adjustable Parameters

Building Shape

The basic shape of the cabin can be set in 3 parts: the body of the cabin (X, Y, and Z), the Foundation height, and the roof height.

Materials

The stuff cabin is made of, planks and logs, can be adjusted here.

Foundation

The density of the stones can be adjusted.

Windows

The windows' size,  vertical offset, as well as the percent chance of a window to appear in any window slot can be adjusted.

The foundation starts with a box sized from the input parameters, then follows these steps:

• Taper the box so the bottom is slightly wider than the top

• Double the height

• Scatter points

• Voronoi fracture the box using the scattered points

• Return the box to its original size to get slightly flat rocks

• Set the primitive normals to face away from the center to prep for extrusion

• Extrude

• Subdivide and remesh

• Jitter points

• Bevel the sharp edges

The roof starts with a peaked box from our inputs.  that base is used to create the 3 parts of the roof:

Eves:

• The position of the tent shape is adjusted into position, then extruded twice to give it shape then thickness

Ridge Cap

• The same tent shape is scaled and positioned before being extruded for thickness.

Roof

• Generate a grid based on plank size

• Copy and align the grid to the tent shape

• Copy planks to grid points

• Rotate planks slightly during copy to ensure they overlap properly

In preparation for the cabin body, we need to determine the location of all doors and windows.

• Generate a pair of boxes, independently based on X and Z cabin dimensions

• Divide them based on window size

• Gather the points in the center of each wall

• Randomly assign one point on the front wall to be the door

• Combine the other front wall points with the side wall points

• Use the window chance parameter to randomly delete some of the points

• Copy the window and door bounds boxes to the point locations to prepare for boolean with logs

Next we can build up the cabin shape with logs and cut the roof, door, and windows out.

• Create and position the roof box

• Collapse its top edges to shape it

• Create and position the cabin body box

• Create a new box from these bounds with 2 divisions per side giving each side a centered vertical edge

• Convert these edges to curves

• Resample the curve based on the input log radius

• Size the source log to the length and width of the cabin, plus an extra log diameter on each end for that nice corner overlap

• Move one curve up one log radius, again for the corner overlap

• Copy logs to curve points

• Take the starting shape and expand it slightly to completely envelope the logs

• Boolean the shape, along with the windows and doors, with the logs

Finally, we make the windows and door and put them in place.

• Make a simple window and door using some inputs and some static numbers

• Box

• Blast

• Extrude

And finally, copy the doors and windows to their respective points and bring everything together.