Fin and shell fur rendering
by Richard Ranft · in Torque 3D Professional · 02/13/2011 (10:46 am) · 4 replies
I'm thinking that it might be possible to use a shader to create fin and shell fur rendering on models, and perhaps control the fur rendering through a layer in the material applied to the model. Just a feasibility study - seems like this method should be doable. This article has shader source for generation of fin and shell texture generation and I recall a DirectX demo from DX7 or 8 (the werewolf demo) that used sliders to increase and decrease the shells used.
Anyway, just wondering if anyone was interested in this idea and if anyone thought it looked promising.
Anyway, just wondering if anyone was interested in this idea and if anyone thought it looked promising.
About the author
I was a soldier, then a computer technician, an electrician, a technical writer, game programmer, and now software test/tools developer. I've been a hobbyist programmer since the age of 13.
#2
02/13/2011 (12:59 pm)
thats a nice technique...would be super, not just as fur...
#3
The messiah package looks great for rendering, but can you export models to T3D from it (Collada, even)? That would be handy, and perhaps an adaptation of the wind effects via vertex painting used in models for the Forest Kit could make this totally awesome for longer fur or even regular hair.
The reason I bring up fin and shell methods is that they are computationally less expensive than modeling each hair and therefore better suited to real-time rendering. Not as realistic in many ways, but to me it really depends on how closely you're going to examine that animal. Fin and shell is not suitable for longer hair, so another method would be needed there, too.
For me it's all about the bang/buck ratio. That and options. Maybe a rendered spline particle system could be used to create cheap hair, too.
02/14/2011 (8:48 am)
This is the werewolf demo I mentioned before.The messiah package looks great for rendering, but can you export models to T3D from it (Collada, even)? That would be handy, and perhaps an adaptation of the wind effects via vertex painting used in models for the Forest Kit could make this totally awesome for longer fur or even regular hair.
The reason I bring up fin and shell methods is that they are computationally less expensive than modeling each hair and therefore better suited to real-time rendering. Not as realistic in many ways, but to me it really depends on how closely you're going to examine that animal. Fin and shell is not suitable for longer hair, so another method would be needed there, too.
For me it's all about the bang/buck ratio. That and options. Maybe a rendered spline particle system could be used to create cheap hair, too.
#4
02/21/2011 (6:26 am)
It would be a wonderful feature for T3D, I will start to contribute to this effort if you are game. There is interest in the AI community as well (http://iva2011.ru.is/#) 
Torque Owner Jules
Something2Play
projectmessiah.com/x6/shop.html Take a look at their videos section on the Fur (version 3 and above).
edit: for some reason my message was cut short.
If you can create something like this as a drop in feature for Torque. That would be pretty good. Maybe the same would apply to hair on a player.