Building a City in the Matrix Awakens Experience

Speaker: Robert Osborne - Epic Games



An abridged overview of the procedural approaches and systems used to build the city in the 'Matrix Awakens Experience'. Covering topics such as city and road network look and feel, defining zoning and architecture types in the city, through to the smaller prop placement on buildings and sidewalk street furniture.

> Unreal Engine

How proceduralism helps create Forza Horizon 5’s version of Mexico

Speaker: Andrea Riccardi & Ole Greonbaek - Playground Games



Andrea Riccardi and Ole Greonbaek from Playground Games, will outline how Houdini and procedural world building was used when building the beautiful and diverse world of Mexico for Forza Horizon 5. Andrea will be discussing the data sets, processes and development choices, while Ole will walk you through the artists workflow and output.

> Playground Games

Generating Procedural Inventory

Speaker: Mark R. Johnson



While increasingly popular for creating in-game spaces and populating those spaces with enemies, items or characters, procedural content generation is rarely used to create in-game items. Some games do focus do this, but generally only within a narrow generally only within a narrow category of items (e.g. "guns"). In this talk, Mark will outline techniques for generating *all* items within a game - from books to weapons, from gemstones to spices, or from armour to coinage. Through the case study of experimental roguelike game "Ultime Ratio Regum" he will explore some of his techniques for doing this; how to create a shared "look" for generated items from similar cultures; why some categories of items might be more or less PCG-able than others, and the player experience of a world of solely generated items.

Automated Physically-Based Animation Through Reinforcement Learning

Speaker: Riley Miladi - Embark Studios



In this talk, Riley Miladi, Machine Learning Research Engineer at Embark Studios, will explore what happens if we allow characters to learn to walk and interact with the environment by themselves, using Machine Learning in a physics simulation. This talk will first outline what physically-based animation is and how it can lead to emergent gameplay. Secondly, we look into how Embark Studios is tackling this problem by treating characters as robots and training them using Reinforcement Learning and how this has allowed us to animate arbitrary characters automatically. Lastly, Riley will share the outcomes from different animation efforts at Embark Studios and some technical details of this animation system.

> Embark Studios

Create and Fracture - Remedy's CONTROL: Foundation DLC

Speaker: Johannes Richter - Remedy Games



This talk sheds light in how we developed visuals and functionality of Create and Fracture - the two new abilities central to exploring the caves under the Oldest House in the CONTROL: The Foundation DLC. The entire process from exploration to implementation was rooted in procedural workflows, making Houdini a central part of being able to design this key Gameplay and Level Design element in a very short amount of production time, leading to a rather memorable experience exploring the new weird world of the Oldest House a little more.

> Remedy Games

Procedural Techniques in Solar Ash

Speaker: Len White - Heart Machine



Solar Ash, the next game from the makers of Hyperlight Drifter, extensively employed Houdini and the Houdini Engine inside Unreal to allow the world to stay in flux up until the last possible moment, giving designers and artists the flexibility to experiment. This presentation will reveal the ways Houdini and other procedural techniques were used and the challenges the small studio had to overcome attempting a large open-world game with fast movement and precise platforming.

> Heart Machine

Worldbuilding Pipeline at Twirlbound

Speaker: Ilia Tonev - Twirlbound



The main focus of the talk revolves around the techniques used for the creation of a worldbuilding pipeline for our studio Twirlbound. It features multiple biomes support and employs a hybrid approach for data editing (manual and procedural) in Unity Engine while accommodating multiple people working together simultaneously. As tangents to the main topic we will also explore: Techniques for working on large open-world terrain in a responsive manner, Our choice and reasoning of how we are managing large amounts of user input data, Secondary Pipelines - Watermesh Generation, Foliage Scattering, Gameplay Ingredient Scattering, and Houdini as a driver for Level and Game Design Decisions.

> Twirlbound

Procedural Music Generation in Robo Maestro!

Speaker: Joost van Dongen



Joost van Dongen will talk about the creation of Robo Maestro, a fully procedural music toy. Joost will dive into how the generator itself works and the creative philosophy behind the project. Topics include making a procedural generator based on the creator's musical style and the challenges encountered when turning procedural music into a toy.

Living Procedurally

Speaker: Nikola Damjanov - Nordeus



Bouncing back and forth between his day job as a game artist and his night shift as a procedural tinkerer, Nikola will share how proceduralism has slowly creeped into all of his workflows and ways of artistic life. This talk will showcase his way of cross-pollinating between his day job and personal work, not chasing perfection but having fun while experimenting.

Powerful Procedural Workflows for Games

Speaker: Simon Verstraete - SideFX



Preceding the Everything Procedural Conference, Breda University of Applied Sciences will host a one-day SideFX Houdini Masterclass by Simon Verstraete on Thursday April 21st 2022. During this Masterclass you will learn how to build and use procedural tools for game development – using the assets from SideFX’s Project Titan. This full-day workshop starts by showing how to use the tools in-game engine, then takes you into Houdini to teach you how to make your own procedural tools.

Take Away

You will have a better understanding on how to make and use procedural game tools for use in Unreal Engine.

Audience

This workshop is for anyone interested in using more Houdini in their game workflows. This will focus on the basics of that.

Prerequisites

Knowing the basics of Houdini, like navigation and being familiar with node-based workflows. You need to bring your own hardware (laptop is sufficient) to be able to actively participate. Make sure Houdini, SideFX Labs, Unreal Engine 5 and Houdini Engine are installed.

> SideFX

MusicXML workflow for Houdini

Speaker: Marn Schokker - Breda University of Applied Sciences



This talk discusses why and how Houdini can be used for Music visualisation, analysis and editing. Marn will explain how he approached creating a custom importer and exporter for the sheet music format MusicXML using Python.

> Marn Schokker on ArtStation

Houdini Slime Simulation in Unreal Engine

Speaker: Jack Glavimans - Breda University of Applied Sciences



Jack Glavimans will talk about how he generated geometry through Houdini simulations and VEX. It's all wrapped up in a performance friendly HDA with everything needed for Unreal Engine.

> Jack Glavimans on ArtStation

Improving Procedural Workflows in Unreal Engine

Speaker: Michael van den Berg - Breda University of Applied Sciences



Michael will go over the development of a custom line plugin for Unreal Engine. This allows for more interesting and user friendly procedural content generation with the help of Houdini.

> Michael van den Berg on ArtStation

What:
EVERYTHING PROCEDURAL CONFERENCE (EPC2022)
Conference on Procedural Content Generation for Games

Admittance:
The conference is open to industry, professionals, and students in the field of Video Games, Game Development, Computer Graphics, and Procedural Content Generation.

Talent scouts and job hunters:
The conference is a great place to meet employers and experts in the field of procedural content generation for games looking for a new challenge or a change in their career. During the day there will be many network opportunities, we try to create an informal safe environment to get in touch with your future employee or future employer.

Passes & Prices:
On campus tickets conference (this includes lunch and drinks)
> Industry: 119,50 Euro
> Students from Breda University of Applied Sciences: 9,50 Euro
> Alumni: 49,50 Euro
> Students from other institutes: 49,50 Euro

Online tickets conference
> Industry: 49,50 Euro
> Students from Breda University of Applied Sciences: Free
> Alumni: 9,50 Euro
> Students from other institutes: 9,50 Euro

On campus combi ticket Masterclass & Conference (this includes lunch and drinks)
> Industry: 219,50 Euro
> Students from Breda University of Applied Sciences: 19,50 Euro
> Alumni: 119,50 Euro
> Students from other institutes: 119,50 Euro

Tickets:
> Registration closed.

When:
Masterclass: Thursday 21st April 2022 (9:00-17:00 CET)
Conference: Friday 22nd April 2022 (9:00-17:00 CET)

Where:
The conference will be on our campus in Breda as well as online.

Who:
The conference is organised by the Games Programmes (Bachelor Creative Media and Game Technologies and Master Game Technology) of Breda University of Applied Sciences.

Breda University of Applied Sciences
Mgr. Hopmansstraat 1
4817 JS Breda
the Netherlands
> BUas Website
> Bachelor Creative Media and Game Technologies
> Master Game Technology

Breda Tourist Office:
> VVV Website

Contact:
> Contact form

Keep me up to date!
> Newsletter form

Become a sponsor or affiliate!
> Sponsor form

Social:
> Facebook
> Twitter
> YouTube

Archive:
> EPC2021 - Everything Procedural Conference 2021
> EPC2020 - Everything Procedural Conference 2020
> EPC2019 - Everything Procedural Conference 2019
> EPC2018 - Everything Procedural Conference 2018
> EPC2016 - Everything Procedural Conference 2016

Program Board:
Anastasia Opara
Ivan Notaroš
Bojan Endrovski
Ronny Franken
Luca Quartesan

Sponsors and Affiliates: