Mark Nelson wrote:
> 
> Prez Midnite wrote:
[snip]
> > I need a way to create (or fake) semi-realistic, long, flowing hair...
> > furry animals... facial hair, etc... (essential elements of wizard
> > stories!)
> >
> > Does anyone have advice on how this can be done, particularly with the
> > possibility
> > of later animation in mind? I'm not necessarily going for
> > photorealism...
[snip]
 
> heh, notice how no one touched on this one.. ;) Fur/Hair/etc is pretty
> tough to do, and making it animate is even harder.. One idea that had
> come to mind was to use the object bender and write a program to say how
> much each strand of hair/fur should bend at a given moment.  It would be
> pretty complex, but not as bad as if you were trying to use balastic
> motion equations or anything.   Animals will be even tougher, I was
> thinking of attempting a kitten for my next irtc entry, but I really
> don't know if I'll have time to work on it.  Good luck, it won't be
> easy, but if you put enough study into it you might be able to get
> satisfactory results.  Just remember that the guys at pixar that got
> paid the most were the ones who figured out how to do the fur movement
> on the dog in Toy Story, so if you can't get it, don't feel too bad. :)
>                                                 Nite_Hawk

One thing that my (limited) experience with ray-tracing has done for me
is that I can really appreciate cool CGI work on TV and the Movies.
Freeze-frame on the ads for "Mighty Joe Young" for some excellent fur
textures.
On the other hand, you can also spot shortcomings in some work - "Hey,
those characters aren't casting shadows... that's not a real reflection,
it's just a reflection map... That characters hips look like they're
duct-taped to a SteadiCam, they don't roll at all when they walk..."
etc.

-jr- 

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