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Dynamics with fur

In most cases, you will want to use dynamics to allow your fur to move naturally on a character. Rarely will individual strands of hair move rigidly with a character. Applying dynamics allows them to move naturally based on the surrounding forces.

This tutorial is a continuation of Using guide hairs; however, instead of using a grid object we are using a torus because it better illustrates how fur works with dynamics.

  1. Select the copy node in the network editor and turn on the display flag.

  2. Click obj in the path at the top of the network editor to return to the object level, and select the guides in the viewport

  3. Once you have the guides selected, click the Wire Object button on the Wires shelf.

    This will create an AutoDopNetwork at the object level, as well as all of the attributes and groups needed for dynamics to work properly with fur at the geometry level.

  4. Double-click the Fur node to go into its geometry network, and rewire the newly created nodes into your GUIDE_OUT null node.

    Tip

    To improve how the fur moves, increase the Points on the line node.

  5. Click obj in the path at the top of the network editor to return to the object level, and double-click the AutoDopNetwork node to go into the dynamics network.

  6. Select the guides in the viewport, and click Wire Glue Constraint button on the Wires tab.

  7. In the parameter editor, turn on the Constrain To Animation checkbox. Turning this checkbox on makes the fur to move with the object.

    Tip

    On the Guide Options tab, you can decrease the Radius to make the constraints smaller. In this example we used 0.05.

  8. In the parameter editor of the wire object, click the Force Model tab and decrease the Angular Spring Constant and Angular Dampening Constant. By default these values are very rigid for fur.

    Try 0.025 for Angular Spring Constant and 0 for Angular Dampening Constant.

  9. You can now apply forces to the fur such as a Fan or Wind.

    Note

    Gravity is added by default when the AutoDopNetwork is created.

    For example:

    1. Select the guides in the viewport, and click the Fan Force button on the Drive Simulation shelf.

    2. Drag the fan in the viewport using the handles and position it to blow the fur.

    3. Click the Play button to see the force applied to the fur.