Hyper Light Breaker - Decking

On Hyper Light Breaker, I was responsible for managing our procedural decking system, which governs how assets are placed throughout the world. At it's core, the system draws from several Data Tables populated with rows that reference the classes to be decked into the world. Each of these rows defines a unique set of placement rules such as:
- Point type
- Zone type
- Footprint size
- Required Flatness (width & angle)
- Distance and alignment to paths
- Distance and alignment to shorelines
- Distance from biome border

These rules are evaluated against a large set of bulk points generated alongside the terrain in Houdini. Each bulk point carries detailed spatial data derived from multiple Houdini maps, describing attributes like slope, height, biome, and terrain features. Using this data, the system identifies and records all valid candidate points, which are then used to procedurally place assets throughout the world.

My primary responsibility was to tune and balance these procedural rules to achieve the desired visual composition, gameplay readability and performance targets. This required constant iteration and collaboration with Design and Environment Art to ensure the procedural placement not only looked natural and cohesive, but also supported traversal, sightlines and gameplay flow. Through careful adjustment of these parameters, I helped shape a world that felt handcrafted while remaining fully procedural.

The images here show both a fully decked final world and a visual representation of a selection of rule sets that were balanced against each other to achieve it.

You can learn more about the generation of the terrain itself here: https://randireynolds.artstation.com/projects/wrQGgw
Or you can learn more about the custom tools used to control these rules here: https://randireynolds.artstation.com/projects/QKPR33