Fast&Fur

Table of Contents

Object Properties
Fur Color
Styling
Clumping
Combing
Vertex Map
Wind Effect
Optimization
Animation
Presets

Object Properties

In the Object tab, you can define the basis parameters of the fur. Here you assign Fast & Fur to an object, set hair count, length, radius and subdivision.

Skip Camera Refreshing - By default, the fur is recalculated whenever the camera is moved. To speed up display while navigating through the scene, check this option. Remember to re-enable it before starting the rendering process.

Fur Generator- Drag’n’Drop a polygon object or a HyperNURBS object here, to apply Fast & Fur to it. Other object types are not supported.

FaceTo Geometry- By default, hairs created by Fast & Fur always face the editor camera. You can make them face any other object you want by linking it here.

Total Fur- define the total maximum number of hairs that will be created. The default value of “1000” will be too small in most cases. The more hairs you create, the better the result will look, the slower your image will be rendered.

Texture Tag- You can control the density of the fur by using a UV texture. Decreasing the density of the fur means decreasing the number of hairs that are created in a certain area. To use this function simply Drag’n’Drop a texture tag here. A bright color in the texture will create rich, dense fur and darker colors will thin out the fur.

Editor Fur Density- Since editor display slow down heavily after some ten thousands of hairs, you can use this parameter to decrease the number of hairs that are being displayed in the editor. In the Picture Viewer, the full number of hairs will be rendered.

Fur Length- This parameter simply defines the length of the hairs. Lower values can be used to make fluff, pelt and fur while higher values will create longer fur, pelt, and long hair.

Texture Tag- Control the Fur Length by using a UV texture. Usage is exactly like the Texture Tag function for fur density. Brighter colors in the texture create longer hairs and darker colors will shorten the hair.

Fur Length Variation- Use this parameter to add a random factor to the fur length. Varying the length of the hairs will make the fur look more realistic. If you set higher values, the fur will start to look real fluffy.

Fur Radius- This value defined the radius of each hair. While higher values will create rather bristly fur, smaller values make the fur silkier. Remember: Remember: Remember: Remember: With thinner hair you will need a higher Total Fur value to make the fur look dense.

Fur Rnd Radius- You can bend the hairs along their normals to give them a half-round profile. This may give a more realistic result in close-up views, but most of the time you won’t need it.

Size Relative Length- When this option is enabled, the Fur Length Variation also affects the Fur Radius.

Fur Subdivision- The fur subdivision is essential for the look of the fur and also for display and rendering performance. If you want just to create some bristles or cactus spikes, you make set it down to “1” or “2”. With a value between “8” and “16” you will be able to make good short hair and normal for, but for kinky or curly hair you will need a much higher
subdivision. As a rule of thumb, you should set Fur Subdivision as high as necessary but as low as possible. High subdivision values will slow down editor display and rendering.

Variable Density- YYY

Fur Section- With this spline curve, you can define the shape of the hairs. It represents the radius of a hair, while the X axis represents the hair from root to tip and the Y axis represents the fur radius from “0” to maximum, as defined by the Fur Radius parameter.

Fur Color

Texture Tag- YYY

Styling

The Styling tab gives you control over all main style attributes of the fur. This is where you apply some randomness and gravity to the hairs, make them kinky, fuzzy or wavy.

Random Direction - By default, each hair points along the normal of the face it is growing on. By using the Random Direction parameter you can define an aberration for the hairs’ growing normals.

Random Rotation - All hairs created by Fast & Fur face the camera (or another object defined by the FaceTo Geometry parameter in the Object tab). To apply a random aberration to the hairs orientation, increase this value.

Fur Gravity - Use this parameter to apply a realistic gravity to the fur. You can also use negative values to create an inverse gravity.

Kink

With the Kink function, you can make the fur crimped, kinky and fluffy. This effect is achieved by bending the hairs at each of their subdivision segments. Kink can be a useful function for artificial fiber or fabric.

Enable Kink - Enable or disable the Kink function.

Kink Amount - This parameter simply defines the strength of the kink effect. You can also use negative values to invert the kink bending.

Kink Spline - The Kink Spline defines the strength of the kink effect for each part of a hair. The X axis represents the hair from root to tip, the Y axis represents the effect strength from -100% to 100% whereas 100% is defined by Kink Amount parameter.

Frizz Panel

Frizz will create beautiful whirls in the fur. This is done by changing the hair normal (direction in which a hair grows). Frizz can be a mighty tool to give the fur a certain variation without making it look diffuse and fuzzy.

Enable Frizz - Enable or disable the Frizz function.

Frizz Amount - This parameter defines the strength of the Frizz effect. You can use values greater than 100%; in fact you will often want to set higher. Of course you can also use negative values to bend the hair into the other direction.

Noise Size - Frizz applies a noise to the hair normals, thus creating the variation. Use this parameter to set the size of the variation.

Frizz Curve - This curve defines the strength of the Frizz effect for each part of a hair. X axis represents the hair from root to tip, Y axis represents the Frizz strength from -100% to 100%, while the maximum effect is defined by the Frizz Amount parameter.

Wave

The Wave function is another powerful feature enables you to create fur twirls and waves. It applies a sinus-like waveform to the hair. The Wave function can create effects that look a bit like Frizz, but are very different at a closer look. When using Wave, you will probably want to increase the Fur Subdivisions.

Wave Intensity - This parameter controls the amplitude of the hairs’ waves. To invert the waves, you can of course use negative values.

Noise Size - The Noise Size parameter affects the size of the twirls.

Wave Frequency - This parameter defines the number of waves that are applied to a hair. Zoom into to images below and you will see that on the left image the hairs has lots of waves (high value was used) while on the right image the hair only has one big wave (low value).

Fur offset and direction

This section has in fact three different functions: The Target Direction will bend the fur away from an object; the Offset functions will offset each single hair from its original position; and the Random Seed affects all other Fast & Fur settings.

Fur Target Direction - Link an object here. The fur will then point away from it.

Blending - Blend between normal and fur direction using this slider. It can be used to control the strength of the Fur Target Direction object’s influence.

Random Offset - This parameter lets you assign a random offset for each direction separately.

Surface Offset - Using this parameter, you can shift the hairs away from the object’s surface, or move them further inside.

Rnd SEED - This is the global seed for all random functions of Fast & Fur. If you have two similar objects with also the same fur settings, they usually will look the same. If they have a different random seed, they won’t.

Clumping

This function is one of the most beautiful features of Fast & Fur. Clumping splits up the fur into separate strands. This is very useful for creating shaggy or ragged fur, and for simulating the clumpy look of wet hairs sticking together.

Clump Enable - Enable or disable the Clumping effect.

Clump Spline - This curve defines the amount of clumping for each part of the hairs. As always, the X axis represents a hair from root to tip. The Y axis represents the Clumping strength from -100% to 100%. The maximum strength can be set using the Clump Factor parameter.

Clump Size - The Clump Size parameter defines the amount of strands that will be created. Greater values create more (and smaller) strands.

Clump Factor - Control the overall strength of the Clumping effect with this parameter.

Clump Value - Link a texture tag here to control the Clump Factor with a texture. Only UV Mapping is supported. Brighter color on the texture will cause stronger Clumping.

Combing

The Combing function is a powerful feature that enables you to style the fur individually. By default, all hairs grow into the direction of the underlying face, influenced by Random Direction, Frizz and other parameters. Using the Combing function, you can change this and make hair grow into any direction you want. To use Combing, simply draw a spline near the fur. The Drag’n’Drop the spline object onto the Fast & Fur object, making it a child of Fast & Fur. You will then be able to use a panel in the Combing tab of the plug-in. Up to 10 combing splines are supported.

Combing Enable - Enable or disable the Combing function.

Spline Precision - To evaluate a combing spline, Fast & Fur has to sample a number of points from it. If you have a complex spline, you will want to increase the value to get more samples from the spline and thus get a correct combing effect. For a simple curve or even a straight line a low value will be enough. Since a higher Spline Precision takes more time to calculate, you should stick to the thumb rule “Set it as high as necessary but as low as possible”.

Combing Mix - This parameter blends between the normal hair growth direction and the combed hair direction. You can simply regard it as a strength parameter for the Combing function.

Plane - Use the Plane parameter to restrict the combing to a certain plane, or let it be calculated from the 3D spline.

Falloff Spline (1...10) - This parameter is separately available for each of up to 10 combing splines. This parameter is responsible for controlling the spatial range of the comb’s influence on the hair. Think of it as the width of the comb that is pulled along the spline.

Spline (1...10) - The Spline parameter is also separately available for each combing spline. It controls the influence of the spline. Unlike the other curves in Fast & Fur, this one’s X axis refers to the combing spline from start to end. The Y axis represents the influence strength of the spline from 0% to 100%.

Vertex Map

Instead of using the Texture Tag functions to control the furs length and density, you can use vertex maps. This makes it easy to locally control those parameters even without having any UV coordinates. To use this feature, simply create a vertex map on the object that is linked as Fur Generator by using the Vertex Painting mode of Cinema 4D’s Live Selection tool. Then Drag’n’Drop it into one of the link fields in the Vertex Map tab of Fast & Fur.

Vertex Map Density - Link a vertex map here to locally control the fur density.

Vertex Map Length - Link a vertex map here to locally control the fur length.

Wind Effect

In reality, there are very few moments in which there is really no air movement at all. Most of the time, the air is in motion. To add realism to your fur when doing an animation, you should always a bit wind. Fast & Fur wind works on two levels: It blows the fur into a certain direction, and it applies waves to it, simulating simple turbulences. It is by far not a realistic simulation, but it’s very quickly calculated and can produce nice results.

Wave Generator - To be able to apply waves, Fast & Fur needs a starting position for the waves. You can define this position by linking an object here. The object’s global position will be used as starting position for the wind waves.

Strength - Control the intensity of the wind with this parameter.

Wave Frequency - Greater values produce smaller waves, lower values product larger waves.

Direction - The wind’s direction is definied by this parameter.

Direction Var. - By default, the wind blows straight into the specified direction. Using this parameter, you define an aberration to apply a bit more chaos to the wind.

Freq. Str. - This parameter controls the speed of the waves.

Strength Multiplier - This parameter controls the overall strength of the wind effect.

Optimization

In the meantime you will have noticed the performance decrease when creating dense fur. Even if you can decrease the amount of fur displayed in the editor, rendering preparation still takes a while to calculate, and much memory is used. The Optimization tab offers some possibilities for changing this an improving the performance.

Distance Density - Create fur only within a certain distance from the camera. This is useful e.g. to prevent grass from being created on a meadow that’s very far away.

Camera Cone - Only create fur within the camera view cone. This prevents fur from being created where the camera can’t see it. Of course the missing fur can be noticed e.g. in a mirror. You can narrow or extend the range using the Camera Cone Blending parameter.

BackFace - Only create fur on polygons whose normals face towards the camera. This prevents fur from being created on surfaces that face away from the camera. Using the Direction to Camera parameter, you can fine-tune this effect.

Animation

When moving or deforming a furry object, we want the fur not only to follow the object’s geometry, but also to show a dynamic behaviour. Fast & Fur also offers simply animation functions that can produce this behaviour.

Record Animation / Clear Animation - These two buttons let you record and animation or delete already recorded data. When you click the Record Animation button the complete animation will automatically be played.

Start Frame / End Frame - All motion between Start Frame and End Frame will be recorded.

Air Friction - This parameter is only available after recording the animation. It controls the inertia that is applied to the fur while follwing the object’s movement.

Delay / Enable Delay - You can delay the fur’s reaction to make to motion look even more dynamic. Greater values can create the impression of underwater hair.

Presets

You can save your Fast & Fur settings to preset files, making it possible to copy settings to other scenes or Fast & Fur objects, and to recall certain settings when needed.

Save Settings - Save the current settings of this Fast & Fur object as a file.

Load Settings - Load Fast & Fur settings from a file.

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Tags: fast&fur, fur, grass

VRAYforC4D Manual