Splat Garden

Collaborative project

January - May, 2026

About this project

Splat Garden is a living, collaborative portfolio showcase where the medium is the work. It's a browser-based Gaussian Splat viewer spanning four pillars: AI Tools, Simulation, 3DGS, and Interaction. The environment was built in Unreal Engine, authored with custom AI-stylized textures and dressed with Houdini-driven Pyro and particle simulations, then captured and deployed as a 3D Gaussian Splat, this technique lets real-world-quality scenes run smoothly on the web. The garden's hero flowers, daffodils and grape hyacinths, are created procedurally in Houdini with custom plant growth tools so they can be interacted with in real-time in Unreal Engine. In the browser, real-time hand-tracking via webcam lets you navigate the scene and trigger effects with your hand.

Key Features

• Displays technical breakdown of every asset in the scene
• Hand-tracking via webcam to navigate navigate the scene and trigger effects with your hand(s) gesture
• Customizes the scene with painterly style, voxelized or point cloud mode

Role & Responsibilities

• Research about Gaussian Splat with FX simulation in Houdini
• Final look of Gaussian Splat FX of the gazebo and statue
• Developing a custom AI-Stylization tool for stylized textures

Team Members

• Danci Shen - Interactive, Unreal Engine TD and Virtual Production
• Yiyi Long - Scene Layout and Asset Creation (Daffodil)
• Yiqi Zheng - VAT/USD and Grape Hyacinth Textures
• Yichen Shi - Asset Creation (Grape Hyacinth) and Houdini Effects Simulation
• Ben Jones - Virtual Production and Environment Assets
• Xinyi Liang - Environment Assets
• Itim Kongsakulvatanasook - AI Stylization Tool and Gaussian Splat with Simulation in Houdini

Supervising Faculty

• Dr. Deborah R. Fowler - Visual Effects Professor, SCAD

Unreal Engine | Houdini | Gaussian Splat | USD | AI Tools | HP AI Studio | Postshot | LichtFeld Studio