Poser6 Test Animation: Strand Hair
4.6 MB Quicktime

Frame size 720x480
Frame Rate: 30fps,
Frames: 120

Render settings:
Raytrace off
Min Shading rate 1
pixel samples 3
Max texture size 1024
Bucket 64

Lights (see diagram)

Rendertime: 292 seconds per frame, 4min, 52 seconds
Hair Simulation, all frames, all groups, total: 31 seconds (collision off)

Model: EJ with default texture

Hair model: Kate hair, provided with Poser
Hair stats:
4 Groups: 4226, 2880, 2113, 3456 strands
Total: 12,675 strands
Settings: these are the default Kate Hair
settings, with the exception of "Position Force"
which I changed from the default 0.00 to 0.02
see notes below.

My goal here was just to put Kate Hair in motion, so please forgive the jerky, unpolished animation.

Funny, but the default settings for Kate Hair cause the hair to fall straight down when draping, and to fly around wispy during movement. This is "sexy", but without collision, the hair goes thru the head/face, and the strands end up all a-jumble and tangle and covering the face most of the time. So, for this test, all I did was jack up the setting "Position Force" to .02 which I have discovered by experiment lets the hair move, vibrate and sway a little, but general returns it to the original shape.

I did a test simulation with collision on for all four hair groups colliding with the head. It took 41 minutes. But I didn't render it; there is a problem with hair and collision, probably caused because I have not put enough time into the settings. You get "atomic vibration." This means, the anti-collision is so strong, that even if the head makes the slightest movement, or maybe NO movement for a few frames, the hair still bounces around, trying to "avoid." See and example of that here: Quicktime, 4MB. Can anyone help with this problem? I'd except the long sim time associated with collision prevention if the results would be great, but so far they are not, for me.

My lighting approach was to see what could be done by letting the hair cast shadows. And contrary to my former belief that hair shouldn't cast shadows because it will ruin the rendertime, I am getting spoiled, and hair not casting shadows, in a closeup, looks too unreal to me. There is a price to be paid, for sure, but for this test I wanted to see the results.

As a tradeoff, I kept the render settings, lighting settings at what I'd call medium rather than the other extremes of "Intense" or "Quick&Dirty". Also, the fill light has shadows turned off.

I didn't spend a lot of time trying to make the lighting great, but the idea is that this test has sufficient settings to perhaps deliver realism in skin, shadows and strand resolution, but still retain a modestly realistic render time. Another render I did with settings pushed higher, and a frame rendertime of about 7.5 minutes each, is here: 5.6 MB Quicktime. Longer version: 24.4 MB, Quicktime.

Even this animation could be pushed higher in realism, but the framerate would start to skyrocket.

[Note: I am actually working on a series of extreme renders, with frames over 1000 seconds per frame, on closeup with very powerful shadows and tight resolution of strands. Will report those results here, as well.]

::::: Opera :::::
Message edited on: 02/06/2006 20:07

Message edited on: 02/06/2006 20:08