Others [DevThread] Static Cave Scene in Houdini

[TheAnointedOne]

What is this?
This is a devlog for a very small-scale project. Rather than work in private I want to work in public to benefit from other people's feedback. As I've been struggling in making scenes that I'm content with.
As I'm working alone the hope is that the small scope of the project will likely end in a successful completion. Many projects often get abandoned. I'd like to finish something for once in my life.

What are you making?
I'll be making a single static scene of a girl exploring a dark cave. I got the inspiration from:

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Why are you doing this?
I've been struggling with lighting and was impressed by his simple lighting setup which resulted in an amazing render. I hope to mimick this.
The protagonist will be a daz model. Props (sword, torch stick) and environment will be modeled in blender. FX (pyro) will be houdini. I'm not much of a modeler and know very little about FX. So this will be a challenge.
Eventually I'm going to make a VN in the future which will be rendered in Houdini. This software is amazing and I'm only but scratching the surface of what it's capable of.
I also suck at 3D scene. A bit discontent with my last effort: https://f95zone.to/threads/daz3d-art-show-us-your-dazskill.4764/post-18945990
So I will definitely try to make something better this time around with the same model.

References/Inspiration

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No, I'm not making dick girl but I will try to recreate the dress here

 

[TheAnointedOne]

Update: December 26, 2025

The Character
I will be re-using the character from my last render:

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Skin Shader
There isn't a one-click solution for bringing daz assets over to houdini like the diffeomorphic plugin for blender. So I have to make the skin shaders from scratch. Though, given time, I can write a python script which automates this process.

Here is what I have so far:

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In the past I didn't bother with subsurface scattering as it adds to render times but I've changed my mind here. There are noticeable light-blue seams in the character and I'm not particularly sure how to resolve them.
Used this guide as a reference:

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SSS blue seam problem:

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The Dress
In an effort to challenge myself I had the idea to make the dress in Houdini using following this guide:

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But it was too complicated. I then turn my attention to Marvelous Designer, but given the small scale of the project I didn't want to commit an exorbitant amount of time learning a new software.
I decided to go the coward's route and just pursue a daz asset similar to the dress I want:

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Made some small changes to the material in houdini (basically just made the main part transparent):

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[mibc9394]

I see you are also a Houdini bro. Hi buddy.

 

[mibc9394]

I've never had UV seam problem when rendering Daz stuff in Karma. Do you know why there is a UV seam on her shoulder?

 

[mibc9394]

BTW personally I think if you really want to practice lighting, it's better to try replicating a real photo

 

[mibc9394]

if you cannot identify what causing the seam, you can also use cop to extrapolate the texture to have some paddings I guess

 

[TheAnointedOne]

I see you are also a Houdini bro. Hi buddy.

Yeah man. Hard to not switch after seeing something like this:

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BTW personally I think if you really want to practice lighting, it's better to try replicating a real photo

You're definitely right. Since we're all trying to emulate real life anyway.

 

[TheAnointedOne]

Update: December 30, 2025

Subsurface Blue Seam Issue
I've discovered that the the blue seams are caused by a scaling issue. It didn't matter if I brought in the model with the file sop or the fbxcharacterimport sop. The fbx exporter in daz doesn't have a scale option (but the obj exporter does). So it has nothing to do with the file format, or daz. The subsurface radius and scale depend on how the character is scaled.
Character scale at 1 (which is normal) causes the seams. Character scale at 100 (makes the seams disappear). Problem is if I used the larger scale everything else in the scene would have to be scaled too. I've decided to just move forward with the normal scaling and try my best to hide the seams:




Skin Imperfections
In the daz3d tutorial video in the original post you'll notice that the female model has dirt on her face. I replicated this with the attribute paint sop to create a mask on her face. Then used attribute noise to make it less uniform. Obviously some refinement is necessary:





Character Pose
I was going to work on the character pose but at the last minute I decided to model the props (sword, torch) beforehand. Which is the next thing on the agenda.

 

[TheAnointedOne]

Update: January 2, 2026

Character Pose
Worked on the pose in Maya. The humanik system in there is really intuitive.




Skin Dirt Layer
I refined the face mask that I previously made. Added some noise to the mask. It's close, not perfect, but passable. I'm satisfied with the results.






A Little Detour
Decided to do a quick christmas-themed render with the character: https://f95zone.to/threads/daz3d-art-show-us-your-dazskill.4764/post-19078755