Playing with shaders again. Here you can see fur applied to the standard noaktree troll (green monkey) model. The first frame is of the naked monkey, next you can see the fur applied with a medium density and several layers, finally the same fur is applied with self shadowing enabled.

Using OGRE has been a recent distraction of mine. It would be nice if these techniques could be applied to dynamic OGRE models. Basic forces are desirable for added realism and will need to take into account the various rotation matrices of the animated skeleton so that when, for example, an arm is waved only relevant fur layers move. Fur is angled according to normals fed to the shader so conceivably a second "combed" set of normals could be crafted to generate a more groomed appeal. Normals could be shaped in Max with a combing script. Perhaps a stand-alone fur editor might be the better, more accessible, route for average users. The final shader could be written in Cg so that this effect is available to both GL and DX users.

The images you see below are rendered in a simple DirectX application using a static mesh. The fur is angled according to the model normals. Fur color is defined by the diffuse texture.



So anyway, that's one of my goals for 2007. Another unrelated goal is to achieve the full lotus position. Wish me luck. Happy new year to people of the Gregorian calendar.