In part 6 I will be continuing the asset scattering process. After starting our initial scattering in the previous tutorial to get some rocks into position, we need to move on to a more advanced form of scattering to break up the assets used, and how they are positioned. I will further modify the masking for our terrain, and limit the scattering to specific slopes and regions of our environment. While randomly instancing assets can work, in many cases larger objects like trees or boulders tend to be surrounded by smaller growths or scattered rocks and bushes. To get this nested scattering we need to use the Houdini scatter point constraints system.
Using the point constraints we can layer our asset scatters to create a more "natural" randomization and placement. I also use the AttributeFromPieces SOP to add some weight to specific assets to increase or decrease the probability of them being instanced relative to each other. This process of scattering around our initial objects plays an important role in getting our scene to look better and feel more natural and is an integral part of our tutorial.
Next month we will be focusing on some clouds using the new Standard Volume shader in Redshift and finalizing the composition further by positioning manually some of our Acacia tree assets and shadow casters into the shot. Finally wrapping up the render with some optimizations and outputting a short animation for final color correction in Davinci Resolve. Thanks again guys for all the support and have a wonderful day!