ShagFur - Shadow Flickering

[Dave Black]

Ask Iain McFadzen. Before the server lost our old posts, he had an answer...though this would be about the 10th time he would have to answer the question...He gets very evil when he has to type alot, so be careful...he bites too.

:D

-3DZ

[Rice]

Hehe, yeah. I just read in the discreet forum that it's a bug. I have other options though so I guess I'll pursue those.

Shag has produced some great things for us here at Blur though. Once the NDA's pass I'll have to show some samples. :)

[Dave Black]

Oh, don't worry, shag rocks my world...Soooo many uses...And, it's been a little work horse for me over the years.

Hope they get the problem worked out soon, as I just got Max5 and have'nt had to use shag yet...

If you are from Blur, than I can't wait to see what you guys are cooking up with the old furry beast...

Hey, you must know Neil Blevins?...

mmmmmm....Blur......

:D

[Iain McFadzen]

lol, am I that bad? :)

:takes a deep breath:

OK, I think we already went through most of the likely causes last time, but I did post a couple of possibles just before the server was rolled back. These are:

1) There is a stupid little checkbox in the ShagFur rollout called "Shape" in the "Fix Hair:" section (beneath Clumping). If it's not checked, check it. Instead of the hair's shape being calculated on each frame in relation to the object's pivot it will be calculated on the reference frame and then frozen like that. It's the small movement of the hair which makes the shadows look flickery [?]. Apologies if that's an insultingly obvious suggestion, I am only mentioning it because I missed it for weeks when trying to fix a flicker (it's not mentioned in the docs).

2) If your emitter has a meshsmooth on it make sure "Keep Faces Convex" is UNchecked. If you leave it checked meshsmooth will sometimes re-order the mesh which causes the hair to "pop". This is mentioned in the docs but easily forgotten and I don't think it was mentioned in your last thread so I thought I'd better point it out.

If it's neither of those then I am shit out of ideas.

[Dave Black]

See? Iain does know all... :D

Told ya!

Ok, I'm going to save his answers to a .txt file so we don't lose it again.

Hope you got that worked out!

-3DZ

[Rice]

Hey Iain,

I tried those solutions out when I ran into the problem but it didn't change my results. I also tried removing the meshsmooth completely from the object and it didn't flicker as bad but that was due to the number of fur hairs decreasing. To test I also kept meshsmooth on and decreased the fur density in half and I achieved the same results.

I have another option I'm going to try out in the morning when the render farm is empty. If I come up with any solutions or anything new I'll let you know.

[Max4U]

I recently had a problem using Shag Hair with MAX 5, although it's different from yours. After saving an image, the next time I re-opened it, the UV mapping of my textures changes. Changed several settings within Shag hair but the same problem pops up. I also noticed that the unwrap UVW modifier within my stack can't be accessed. Maybe this is a bug! My only solution is to collapse my modifier stack to an editable poly.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.