Bo-Ning Li · 厉博宁

← Studies · completed

§ 3.01

Coral Wisp — procedural growth at scale

A growth solver in Houdini that builds coral-like structures with per-zone control over form and density. PDG orchestrated the variation pipeline — over 200 unique pieces, each ~5M polygons, fed through layout and shading. A study in how morphological diversity emerges from a single ruleset.

Methods
Houdini · PDG · Procedural growth
Coral Wisp — procedural growth at scale cover
// 01 · notes

A custom growth solver was used to develop coral-like structures with different forms and levels of detail across zones — branch density, tip curvature, and surface roughness all tuned per region of the underlying volume.

PDG orchestrated the variation pipeline: over 200 unique pieces, each ~5 million polygons, were generated, laid out, and shaded in a single dependency graph. The shading and rendering pass closed the loop between procedural geometry and final image.

// 02 · process · 5 images
Single piece — branch family B
Single piece — branch family B
Single piece — denser tip curl
Single piece — denser tip curl
PDG-driven layout — 200+ variations packed across the field
PDG-driven layout — 200+ variations packed across the field
Houdini network — growth solver
Houdini network — growth solver
Houdini network — PDG graph
Houdini network — PDG graph