SideFX is back with Project Skylark (After Muscles and Bridges), an internal demo that answers the question: what happens if six Houdini artists are locked in a procedural content cellar for four months? The answer is a suite of stylized, low-poly assets and a set of tutorials that will have even the most hardened VFX artist feeling like Bob Ross—with a node tree.

What is Project Skylark?

Project Skylark is not the latest wellness retreat, but SideFX’s answer to “how painterly can procedural get before someone calls it indie?” Following in the suspiciously talented footsteps of Titan and Grot, Skylark trades photoreal explosions for fantasy villages. Built by a six-person team using Houdini 20.5 and Unreal Engine 5, the project delivers a rolling medieval hamlet: houses, props, wooden bridges, rocks, clouds, and enough foliage to keep your GPU’s fans spinning well into autumn. All textures are Copernicus-powered, so if you spot a realistic plank, that’s a bug.

Marine-Snow-Simulation in Houdini

(If you want realism, check our Marine Snow Tutorial)

Toolset and Tutorials: For When You’re Tired of the Real World

The Skylark drop isn’t just eye candy. SideFX released the full Unreal Engine 5 project (standard license, commercial use approved) and a lineup of eight tutorials—three hours of screen time, zero lifestyle tips. Here’s the curriculum:

Bridges Tutorial (June 26, 2025): Because what fantasy village doesn’t need a structurally dubious bridge? This HDA builds walkways with spline controls, adaptable stilts, nail spam, and ropes that would make a pirate jealous. HDA packaging included.

Building Generator Tutorial (June 24): The main event—medieval house generation from block-out geometry. Auto beams, random windows, and UVs appear like magic. VEX scripting, trigonometry, and half-edge shenanigans are also inside, for those who think “extrude” is too basic.

Plant Pots Tutorial (June 19): Ever dreamt of a world where plant pots practically grow themselves? This one’s all about curves, procedural handles, scattered leaves, automatic UVs, and Copernicus textures so cheerful they’d fit in a toy commercial.

Trim Sheet Tutorial (June 18): Want to make your own tileable textures? This session covers procedural trimsheet assembly, Copernicus paintwork, auto-UVs, and how to slap them onto your models without remorse.

Bottle Tutorial (June 18): Bottles, in every shape your node network allows. Includes UV/vertex color logic and PDG-powered batch production, because there’s never just one bottle in a tavern.

Rock Tutorial (June 18): Sometimes you just need a rock. Or several. The workflow deforms spheres into painterly boulders with procedural noise—quick and dirty. If you need geology with a PhD, use the Grot tool.

Birdhouse Tutorial (June 17): Tiny house movement, but for birds. Subtractive geometry, adjustable roof styles, and more whimsy than most AAA games.

Cloud Tutorial (June 17): If you want fluffy clouds that don’t look like photogrammetry gone wrong, this draw-to-SOP setup is for you. Turn doodles into volumetric clouds, export as textures, and watch your skyboxes sigh with relief.

Unreal Engine 5 Integration

Each tutorial comes Unreal-ready. HDAs require a commercial Houdini license and the Houdini Engine plug-in. Apprentice users need not apply—SideFX doesn’t want you deploying half-baked clouds into production.

Requirements and Licensing

You’ll need Houdini 20.5 and a commercial license for the full Skylark banquet. All assets and the UE5 environment are cleared for commercial use, but test before unleashing them on your next shipping title—procedural magic is still best paired with human oversight.

Want to see the rest? Go here: SideFX Project Skylark

The post Procedural Village People: SideFX Lets Houdini Users Play Skylark Architect first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.