I was tasked with developing a procedural tool in Houdini (HDA or Houdini Digital Asset) to streamline the process for Designers to create the "Premonition Crack" effect on each totem.
The workflow was designed to be intuitive: once the totem model was loaded, a curve could be drawn over the desired area. The HDA would then cut and shape the mesh based on the curve to form the crack, position a hemispherical mesh behind it (to create the glowing effect), and generate the opening animation using a morph target. Additionally, the crack's position was saved to a file that could be read in Unreal, further optimising other tasks in the pipeline.
I’d like to extend my gratitude to Harry Williams (Game Designer) and Jamie Massey (Gameplay Software Engineer) for their brilliant work on the totem interactions, as well as the entire Ballistic Moon team for their collaboration and support.
A compilation of some of the Totem Interactions in "Until Dawn Remake"