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Character

Houdini Components used: USD, MaterialX, KineFX, APEX; Vellum Solver

Character: Night Echo

Outfit & Silhouette

Her outfit has both purpose and personality. The black motorcycle pants, gloves, helmet, and backpack show she is a skilled rider ready for action.

The bright crop top highlights her free spirit and love of big risks.

Claw-style rings work as weapons but still let her hold the handlebars firmly.

Her helmet has small cat ears, which make her easy to recognize and give her a feline, untamed feel.

Base Mesh and Modeling

The base mesh comes from Character Creator.
The pants, top, gloves, and backpack were sculpted in ZBrush and moved into Houdini using Z for Houdini.
Retopology was done with Exorside Quad Remesher.
The gear such as boots, helmet, and claw rings was finished in Houdini using Modeler for Houdini.

Texturing and Rigging

Textures were made in Substance Painter using UDIMs to give high detail.
The base rig was imported from Character Creator and improved with APEX controls for automatic humanoid rigging.
Clothing skin weights were moved with KineFX in Houdini and then cleaned by hand.

Cloth and Gear Simulation

Cloth parts, the backpack, and laces were simulated as triangulated thin and soft body meshes using the Vellum Solver.
The results were applied to the final high-quality geometry with point deformers. This keeps movement and folds looking real while using quad topology that deforms and shades correctly.

Motorcycle: Ferrow

Modeling and Texturing

Ferrow was built in Houdini using real prototype references with Modeler for Houdini, SoftBoolean, and Exorside Quad Remesher plugins.
The model was converted to USD inside from the object context and exported for texturing in Substance Painter.

Rigging and Animation

The bike rig was made entirely in Houdini with KineFX and APEX. Special logic was added for shock absorber squash and stretch, moving chain links, and tire deformation.

The steering uses APEX  Selection sets so the handlebars naturally follow the character’s hands.
A motion path shows the bike’s planned movement.

A simplified proxy model made with Poly Reduce swaps in automatically for viewport playback.
The final export includes a static base model, a static skeleton, and an animated skeleton to save disk space while keeping the animation flexible.

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