Star Citizen - Acidic Caves
Hello!
The Acidic Caves were introduced as part of the 3.24.2 content update and were the first full cave archetype I had the opportunity to help build from start to finish. My work included RnD, tool development in Houdini (for both flowstone and water streams) and assets creations, cave shell generation using our internal tools (including entrances and connectors), set dressing, cave system layout, and world placement.
It’s been amazing to see players enjoy spelunking through the caves. I’m quite proud of this one :)
This was a great collaborative effort across the talented teams at CIG. Huge thanks to Sebastian Schroeder for his support on the cave shell generator and procedural pools and the CIG Organic team for their feedback and guidance in shaping the look and feel of this archetype. This was a big team effort!
https://www.artstation.com/sebastiansch
https://www.artstation.com/maxikeilich
https://www.artstation.com/danielperes
https://www.artstation.com/niklasrueffler
https://www.artstation.com/miroxs
https://www.artstation.com/hyunjungchoi
https://www.artstation.com/taurian
https://www.artstation.com/g-sev
https://www.artstation.com/adam_williamson
https://www.artstation.com/charlinewegria
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One of the main challenges was creating a constant wetness throughout the cave. Besides using roughness tweaks and reflective surfaces, we added flowing water streams that cling mostly to walls.
To make this work, I developed a Houdini-based tool connected via our Mighty Bridge system. It takes a spline input and automatically brings in nearby cave shells and set dressing assets as collision surfaces.
The tool allows users to tweak parameters like stream thickness, merging behavior, and variation in start/end points. Using the surface data, it calculates flow speed (example: streams move faster on steeper slopes) by manipulating UV length, and then auto-generates the assets and places the water stream assets in-editor. Users see the results after a few seconds.
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This is part two of the Acidic Caves! check out my first post as well.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ezm4Y8
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Art Direction: Ian Leyland
Environment Art Lead: Sebastian Schroeder
Environment Art: Hasbi Adenan, Maximilian Keilich, Niklas Rüffler, Hyun Jung Choi, Daniel Peres, Lukáš Chovanec
Lighting Art: Chris Campbell, Adam Williamson, Ashok Kumar, Charline Wegria
Vfx: Ricardo cruz
Sfx: Jack hicks, Alexis smith
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© 2025 Cloud Imperium Rights LLC and Cloud Imperium Rights Ltd.
entrances of the acidic caves
The water stream tools take the spline as the main input and create water lines. What you see on the right are the finished assets with checkered texture that I used for testing and making sure it looks fine on the UV (such as speed and directions)
Video of water streams in action.
Video of the water streams in action. I feel like this is what people call the last 10% of the effort. It was challenging getting the water stream tool to look good, but it completes the look and visual.