2024

River Scars explores hypothetical river basins and erosion scars across randomly generated terrains and biomes.

This project showcases a custom algorithm designed to simulate river meanders and their impact on the terrain over which they flow. Using erosion simulations, it visually demonstrates how rivers shape and alter landscapes over time, leaving behind characteristic scarring. The simulation provides an insightful look into the historical layers of terrain, revealing the dynamic nature of river systems.

These images were created in Houdini and were rendered with Redshift.

Inspiration

My fascination with river systems started a few years back when I first started working on custom algorithms for simulating meandering rivers. Though I was really pleased with that project, and it continues to be my most popular print release, there was one thing about it which frustrated me: The system only worked for a single unbranching river with relatively consistent width throughout the simulation. After a few failed starts, I was finally able to work out a decent solution which allowed for branching and tributaries. 

Erosion

The bulk of the process is explained in the Meander project, so I won't rehash it here. The thing that differentiates this project from the previous execution is the focus on integrating erosion in a way that allows me to art direct it without needing to be too prescriptive.

The erosion was mostly done with the built-in Houdini heightfield tools, but I found compelling ways to feedback-loop the erosion using the meandering river as a constant source of cutting. The effect is undeniably trippy, and I spent many days exploring different ways to tweak the feedback loop to accomplish different effects.

I say "mostly done with" Houdini heightfield SOPs, but for some of these videos, I used the newly released Gaea erosion HDAs for Houdini which are spectacular. As of the posting of this project, they are still in beta but will hopefully be 1.0 release soon.