Church Ruins – Houdini Procedural Modeling Course by cgside

This is 9 hours of real-time, step-by-step building in Houdini. No timelapses, no skipping. You model a full old church from scratch using procedural modeling, so every wall, arch, and broken edge stays editable to the end.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Model an old church fully procedurally in Houdini SOPs
• Use VEX snippets to speed up common modeling tasks
• Build with procedural bridge, group syntax, and selections
• Create reusable stone patterns, trims, and decay details
• Work with for-each loops and expressions for variation and control

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with Houdini interface and SOP context
• Tools: Houdini (Apprentice, Indie or FX)
• Hardware: Quad-core CPU, 16GB+ RAM, dedicated GPU recommended

📝 Description

This isn’t theory. You watch over the shoulder as João builds the whole church in the SOP context, piece by piece, with real-time narration. You see why each node goes where it does, and how to fix things when procedural setups break.

A big chunk of the course is about the small stuff that actually saves time: VEX snippets for quick edits, group syntax for smart selections, and procedural bridge work for clean connections. Then you layer in pattern creation for stonework so it doesn’t look flat or repeated.

You also get a solid workout with for-each loops and expressions. That’s what turns a static model into a system – change a seed, change a count, break a wall more, and the whole church updates. Super useful for ruins, churches, and any environment art where you need variation fast.

Project files are included, so you can open the hip files, pull apart the networks, and reuse the setups in your own work. It’s all non-destructive workflow from start to finish.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Houdini users who know the basics and want real procedural practice
• Environment and hard-surface artists into ruins, architecture, and churches

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

João, aka cgside, is a Houdini artist focused on procedural modeling shared through Patreon. He teaches by building full projects in real time, with a focus on SOPs, VEX, and practical setups you can actually reuse. Got a question about the course? He answers directly at [email protected].

🏁 Final Result

• A complete procedural old church ruin built in Houdini, with an editable SOP network ready for portfolio renders and reuse