Jim Holsenback <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
> On 07/20/2011 06:21 AM, Invisible wrote:
> > Given that it's impossible to draw fur in CGI, how come so many people
> > are drawing fur in CGI?

> must be then that your initial assumption is a bit off the mark ;-)

  Although, to be fair, most (if not all) the rendering software that are
capable of rendering realistic-looking fur are using tricks to make it
look realistic instead of simulating what happens in real life, which is
quite complicated and would require a humongous amount of time to calculate
properly, with all the microscopic semitransparent layers of organic
material scattering and diffusing the light from all possible directions,
and so on. (For example, I think there's a phenomenon that happens when
light passes between two objects which are very close to each other, so that
the objects affect the light even though it's not technically speaking
"touching" them, and has something to do with the amplitude of the light
wave or something. Simulating this accurately with thousands of indivisual
hairs would be prohitively heavy. This not to talk about the scattering
that happens when light goes through a semi-transparent hair.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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