Fur : Testing...1...2...3.. Testing =^.^=

[nyahkitty]

Hello,

 

I decided to play with hair in preperation for a project that calls for using the hair system. I'm really liking the results I get, but I'm hitting just one snag right now.

 

The character in the image is Dodger the Squirrel. His fur seems kind of poofy, but squirrel fur in general is mostly flat for the main body and head. I think I may have flattened the hair guides as much as they are going to go. So what else can I do to flatten the hairs more? Right now, he seems to have cute kitten fur.

[jamagica]

Wow! That looks pretty good. I tried using hair for my bee and I really didn't get anywhere good

 

Only thing I saw was the little hairs in front of his right eye.

 

To answer your question I would experment w/ length of the hair

[rusty]

Looks good but I see what you mean. The guide splines will go flatter if you add more CPs to them. You migtht try this. Or you might try shorter hair. Finally, if you use decals to control the direction you can get the hair to lay almost completely flat against the patch. I think increasing the number of CPs on the guide spline might be your best bet.

 

Cheers,

Rusty

[nyahkitty]

I think the guide splines are at 3 CP's right now. I'll experiment, but are you thinking 4, 5 or 6 CP's?

 

Also, I notice that the light part of the fur seems artificially bright. I wonder if that may be becauseof rendering in the MDL window.

[NancyGormezano]

Also, I notice that the light part of the fur seems artificially bright. I wonder if that may be becauseof rendering in the MDL window.

I have found that setting the ambiance (not diffuse) color of the underlying patches to black gets rid of the "artificially bright" look to hair.

[Dhar]

That looks pretty good. My I suggest that you don't flatten all of the hair on head and body, maybe have some long hair up on top to add character.

[nyahkitty]

I've changed the model's overall ambience to black, but left ambience at zero and stuck him in a CHOR. I think that did the trick. I might lighten the greyscale value a bit.

 

The next step will be to adjust the hairs.

[rusty]

Looks very good! You might vary the color a little in the face to break it up a little -- just a thought.

 

Rusty

[nyahkitty]

Now here's a render with the fur groomed a bit and some proper lighting. For some reason, the shadow doesn't seem to be in synch with the model.

 

PC

1.5 ghz Intel CPU

1.5 gb SDRAM

1 hr 15 min

4 lights

25 pass

 

I wonder if I can get similar results from realtime render compositing technique.

[Dhar]

That is one helluva'n expressive face. That nose looks almost human. Nice job.

[Mr. Jaqe]

Nice fur! Very nice fur! However, there're two things that iffs me a bit and that's his hands, they look rather fake and his/hers/its eyes makes he look kinda tired...

 

But I'll give you two major thumbs up, tired or not!

[Paul Forwood]

Very nice looking fur, John! I agree with Rusty's suggestion. You could try driving the colour with a painted map.

[AniMattor]

Nice Critter. Is the squirrel right on the groud plane? if its up a little it would do that with your shadow.

 

 

cheers,

 

matt

[Bruce Del Porte]

Nice fur, is this for an image or animation? Fur that fine doesn't animate well, you will see all sort of noise, particularly when compressed. If it's for an image, it looks great.

[modernhorse]

The hair looks swell. For a squirrel though his ears look a tad too big. More cat-like and I think that may be adding to the cat-like appearance you were mentioning. Unless this is not sposed to be a grey squirrel, that's the kind I have all over my yard. Either way a fine looking model.

 

Doug

[nyahkitty]

Thank you everyone for your kind comments.

 

Rest assured that a redesign will happen. Dodger has been a bit of testbed for any technique I've learned. I think I'm close to having everything I need to perform a proper do-over.

 

Anyone have a set of good reference images of grey squirrel hands, ears and fur colors?