OVERGROWTH
HOUDINI · KARMA · NUKE
This final sequence of my graduation project shows the character being gradually engulfed by hope, visualized through ivy spreading across his body and the surrounding architecture. As the growth takes over more of the scene, it becomes a visual representation of hope finally overcoming him.
For the sequence, I developed a procedural ivy growth tool in Houdini that allowed the vegetation to spread across different surfaces while remaining easy to art-direct and adjust for each shot. The procedural setup made it possible to quickly iterate on the placement, density, and progression of the growth throughout the scene. The final shots were rendered with Karma and composited in Nuke.
For the ivy growth, I built a procedural HDA in Houdini that allows the overall growth pattern to be art-directed through a user-drawn guide curve. The tool also lets the user define the surface area on which the ivy is allowed to spread, making it possible to control how the growth moves across the character and surrounding architecture. Additional parameters provide control over the density, direction, branching, leaf distribution, and overall appearance of the growth, allowing the same setup to be adapted quickly for different shots.
The leaves are procedurally rigged so they can follow the growing branches while still allowing for natural variation in their orientation and movement. This helped keep the system flexible while avoiding the need to animate individual elements by hand
The environment itself was kept intentionally simple and brutalist, using large concrete forms and restrained materials to create a strong contrast with the organic ivy. As the sequence progresses, the vegetation gradually takes over both the character and the architecture, making the procedural growth the main visual focus of the scene.
