Quickstart
From a fresh Houdini scene to a scattered forest floor in five minutes. Six steps. No prior knowledge of the HDA required.
Install the HDA
Drop SP_Scatter.hda into $HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR/otls/, or load it from File → Import → Houdini Digital Asset. Restart Houdini.
Open the Ivy Scatter panel
From the Pane menu, choose New Pane Tab Type → Ivy Scatter. The panel opens on the "Dark Blue" theme by default.
Set a surface
Select a piece of geometry in your scene — a ground plane, a terrain, a wall — then click Set Surface. The label flips from amber to slate-blue when set.
Add scatter assets
Click Add Asset(s) and pick one or more meshes (grass, rocks, ivy, debris — anything). Each becomes a card in the asset tray. Adjust per-asset weight in the Wt: field to bias the scatter.
Paint the mask
Click ▶ PAINT. In the viewport, drag across the surface — the painted area lights up. Tune Radius, Opacity, Falloff Soft in the Brush Shape section to taste.
Create the network
Click Create Network. The HDA cooks; assets scatter; the bottom-right counter updates to N asset(s) loaded. If you don't like the result, tweak Density / Min Spacing / Min Distance and hit Recache Strokes.