Smaller Tools at Smilegate

A set of smaller, focused tools built at Smilegate for the Emergent City environment — spline scattering, moss rendering, and object distribution — each one removing a repetitive manual task.

Houdini → Unreal

Mesh Instancer

Fences and objects scattered along a spline, with support for "packs" and always choosing the least number of instances possible. Authored as a Houdini module and brought across to Unreal Engine.

Fence module authored in Houdini

Mesh Instancer fence module running in Unreal Engine

Same module driven in-engine

Examples of engine modules produced by the Mesh Instancer

Engine module examples

Unreal Engine 5.1.1

Moss Shader & Workflow

Goal: provide a solution and workflow for authoring and rendering moss on various surfaces.

This started as a prototype by Oscar Sanz, one of my mentors at Smilegate. He handed it over for me to study, improve, and bring to the finish line. Built before PCG, on Blueprints and material layers.

Software — Unreal Engine 5.1.1 · Blueprints · Materials and Material Layers

Reads and caches the surface of 3D meshes and populates them with geometry cards to render moss.

Easy to use: Right-Click → Add moss to actor (Editor Utility BP).

Editor Utility Actor BP:

Manages instanced static mesh components added to the parent actor.

Interacts with the underlying moss material layer.

Self-contained, exists only in editor.