Making Fur

[dale22x]

that looks like polygonal hair....it's just a bunch of alpha maps.... from what it loosk like....do you know how that works?

EDit,...here i made a quick example of an alpha mape..just make layers and layers of these,..also you might want to make the polygons a pit longer so you dont' have to use up so pmay polygons
http://www.mustangmods.com/data/6909/fur.jpg

OTher that this,..i guess you could use sum of those fur plugins,..i donno what program you use tho,..but it won't work in game,...or can it?....i don't really know..but you best bet is useing alpha maps (opacity maps)

[AdamAtomic]

Actually I think Conker uses a system similar to the one in StarFox Adventures, where the fur is actually a particle simulation. You can tell because some of the fur is actually separates into a trail of particles there on the tail.

[MFTituS]

yes, it isnt the alpha technique normally used for making hair. but i dont would say, it is made out of particles.
i have read about it and i´ll try to explain it with my pour english:
it is made of something like many shells over the character with a dotted alpha map, where the dots becoming smaller to the outer shell. so they dont define the length but the cross section of the fur.
thats why the strains are scattered and not continous. from close it looks bad, but from a distance you achieve nice volumetric looking fur with this method.

hope anybody understands it.....

[voodoofactory]

MFTituS is right. However, you don't have to build the fur shells around the character your self. This method for the creation of fur is usually a realtime shader function(well more of a fixed function effect, but anyway...). Examples of this can be found at the Nvidia and Ati sites or in rendermonkey.

[SHEPEIRO]

yep the shaderts automatticaly makes the shells, but cheat by modelling them if you want to show how it would look.

maxes shell mod is perfect for this task.

the alphas are like three or more different layers, a complete, large dots, smaller dots.
i think, but not sure, that you can even apply this after rigging the character which should mean the new layers move wth the ones underneath.

have you seen the grass on Ico2s monolithic creature things its done in with the same technique but to better effect i think.

[BoBo-the-seal]

it's a shader but it can be replicated doing shells with alpha maps:
http://www.bobotheseal.com/temp/WIP/bunny_head.jpg

- BoBo

[Fox Mc Cloud]

Had the same question some ages ago and got some
usefull links:
Take a look here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=75900)
This effect can be generated with shaders or like
Bobo said with alpha maps this techique was used
in Star Fox Adventures for example. Ohh yes dont
try this effect in actual PC game engines none can
handle overlayed alpha maps correct and 1bit alpha
looks simply awefull.

[neocron]

thank you guys, i'll have to read up on it all and see what i can find. i did come across the shag fur plugin but it's a bit expensive.

[dpizzle]

bobo could you explain more, please?
thanks

[AdamAtomic]

The shell thing is interesting - how does that work for animating? I remember in Starfox Adventures both the fur and the grass were done using this method but do you have to subdivide the shell to get the grass to wave properly, or...? Am just curious, having some trouble wrapping my brain around it. I assumed they were basically billboarded particles done by a surface shader, I didn't even think about shells!

[SHEPEIRO]

atomic adam, you could animate the offset of the texture cords for the grass to make each layer waver a little increasing the values for higher layers.

[Stefander]

Funny to see this question pop up, actually. The Xbox Development Kits have had a Fur-sample with this technique ages (maybe even years?) ago, I'm a little bit disappointed it didn't show up in many games before Conker, it's a really neat technique...

[SHEPEIRO]

yeah ive got some racing squirrels, Ronald and Phillip who've been cryin out for some fur for ages just havnt got round to it.

[Fox Mc Cloud]

In Starfox Adventures i think its done with an programmed
Vertex Shader but im not sure since im not really fluent
into coding.

[KINGOMONKEY]

I would just like to say i found this very interesting, and i was just wondering if there was anyway of simulating this type of effect in the unreal engine? There are several shader types that allow you to create all soerts fo thing in there, so maybe there is. Maybe ill have a look at it sometime, but maybe some one else already has?


If not unreal, are there any other FREEly availalbe engines with which i could experiment on this technique in a real time environment.

Bobo - what application did you use for your cute lil bunny, could i create something similar in max?

Also i presume that in relation to the size of the polygons, the texture maps must be relativly large to allow fro the fuzziness ie high density. or am i barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks

Kingomonkey

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