Viking shield procedural model

Viking Shield Generator

I created this project after watching shows like Vikings and Game of Thrones recently. I was inspired at the idea of being able to iterate through ideas quickly in the context of game engine assets. That led to the creation of this tool I built in Houdini and works as an HDA inside of Unreal or Unity. The model images shown are poly grouped by vertex color for viewing purposes.

The tool is able to generate high and low resolution models automatically setup with UVs, vertex groups, and material IDs. Bringing them into Substance is a breeze. The example render is from inside Substance using a distressed or damaged style of a shield generated on the fly with this tool.

I built various features with the goal of being creatively flexible for the end user. All features are independently able to be toggled on or off, can be distressed on a feature basis as shown in the central dome example. In addition the overall curvature and bend of the shield are controllable by the user. A nice little bonus is the shaping of the central bands on the shield that can be controlled by a curve ramp. Resulting shape features are automatically “stuck” to their respective surfaces of the shield and welded.

All in all this was a fun and rewarding personal project for me to tackle. I enjoyed the process and the satisfaction of being able to iterate through many variations quickly.