How Monolith Soft Builds Next-Gen Xenoblade Worlds with Houdini | Interview Summary

Summary

Monolith Soft is revolutionizing its game development with the adoption of Houdini and OpenUSD technologies. These tools allow for procedural generation, automating the creation of vast, detailed worlds seen in their games like Xenoblade Chronicles. By integrating procedural techniques, Monolith Soft has streamlined asset management, terrain design, and crowd animation, improving efficiency and creativity. Their approach fosters collaboration between designers, technical artists, and programmers, accelerating iteration. With plans to expand their team and refine their procedural workflows, the studio is set to push boundaries, offering players even more immersive and intricate experiences in the future.

Takeaways

• 😀 Monolith Soft is adopting Houdini and procedural workflows to handle the increasing complexity of their game environments and asset management.
• 😀 The studio's asset count has grown from thousands to around 100,000, necessitating the shift to procedural generation for efficiency.
• 😀 Houdini is used to automate tasks like terrain detailing, mesh generation, and asset placement, allowing artists to focus more on creative aspects.
• 😀 Procedural techniques in Houdini help with creating unique, complex terrains, such as floating islands and organic structures, that are difficult to produce manually.
• 😀 In *Xenoblade Chronicles 3*, Houdini was used for procedurally generating crowd movements, improving performance without sacrificing animation quality.
• 😀 Houdini's flexibility also helps with creating precise collision geometry, saving time while maintaining high-quality gameplay design.
• 😀 Procedural workflows have allowed Monolith Soft's designers and technical artists to collaborate more freely, without needing constant input from programmers for new tools.
• 😀 USD (Universal Scene Description) is now part of Monolith Soft's pipeline, enabling smoother workflows and faster iteration by allowing non-destructive layering of procedural edits.
• 😀 The studio is leveraging Houdini Digital Assets (HDAs) to create reusable and modular tools, improving efficiency across projects.
• 😀 Monolith Soft fosters a collaborative, bottom-up culture where team members from different departments actively contribute to the development process, enabling innovation.
• 😀 The studio is looking to expand its team of Houdini experts and aims to further refine procedural technology for even more expansive and detailed game worlds in the future.

Q & A

Why is Monolith Soft moving towards Houdini and procedural generation for their future titles?

Monolith Soft is adopting Houdini and procedural generation to manage the increasingly large number of assets required for their expansive game worlds. This shift allows them to automate repetitive tasks like asset placement, which enables designers and artists to focus on the more creative aspects of game development.

What is the advantage of using Houdini in Monolith Soft’s game development process?

Houdini's node-based procedural system excels at handling complex and unique terrain designs that Monolith Soft games often feature, such as floating islands and colossal organic structures. This tool helps automate time-consuming tasks, improving efficiency and allowing for more creative exploration.

How does Houdini assist in improving the efficiency of crowd scenes in games like Xenoblade 3?

Houdini helps by procedurally calculating crowd movements and converting them into Vertex Animation Textures (VAT), which significantly reduces the performance cost associated with using skeletal animations for large crowds.

What is the 70-30 split approach used by Monolith Soft with Houdini?

Monolith Soft uses Houdini to auto-generate about 70% of the work, such as placing small rocks, debris, and foliage. Designers then refine the final 30%, which ensures that repetitive tasks are automated, and the more detailed, artistic work is handled manually.

What role does Open USD play in Monolith Soft’s development pipeline?

Open USD is used by Monolith Soft to efficiently exchange and compose 3D scene data between different software tools, such as Houdini and Maya. It allows artists to make procedural edits non-destructively, improving workflow efficiency and reducing the need for complex re-importing of data.

How does Monolith Soft’s use of procedural techniques impact team dynamics?

By using procedural workflows with Houdini, designers and technical artists can collaborate more directly, enabling faster iteration and creative experimentation. Programmers are freed up to focus on other areas of development, and the overall process becomes more streamlined and flexible.

What is the new tool Monolith Soft is developing for automatic cityscape generation?

Monolith Soft is creating a tool that allows designers to place simple gray boxes to define building footprints. Houdini then generates detailed buildings based on these inputs, using modular architectural pieces, which helps speed up the creation of urban environments.

What is the benefit of using procedural terrain deformation tools in game design?

The terrain deformation tool automatically adjusts terrain to create more natural-looking landscapes, such as lifting cliff edges and adding subtle noise, without affecting manually placed important assets. This helps create more organic environments while respecting the designer's original vision.

What is the significance of Monolith Soft’s use of USD in relation to Maya and Houdini?

USD allows Monolith Soft to work seamlessly between Maya (used for artistic design) and Houdini (used for procedural generation), without disrupting the original data in Maya. This results in a smoother, non-destructive workflow that speeds up map iteration and overall production time.

What is Monolith Soft’s approach to hiring in relation to Houdini and procedural workflows?

Monolith Soft is looking to expand its team by hiring experienced Houdini artists and technical artists who are skilled in Maya, Python, and particularly USD. They are also seeking leadership roles to help manage the implementation of procedural techniques as they move from R&D into full production.