Hair Simulation and Animation

InfernusIntraMe

Do I have to simulate the animation timeline before rendering my animation for the dforce hair to simulate in the final render?

Thank you.

InfernusIntraMe

Also, If I have a timeline from frame 35-515, How do I start my render with the dforce hair already simulated down? I want to make a loop video so I don't need the hair to reset to the drop position everytime I want to simuate the animation timeline. Thank you.

Richard Haseltine

A dForce simulation is not guaranteed to loop - in fact it is unlikely to do so. But aside from that, you can set the play range to render in Render Setings - it can start anywhere you need. It might work to export the first and last (desired) frames as OBJ and create a morph that is the differnce between them, then apply that in the first or last frame (positive or negative) to make the shapes match and use the aniamtion to fade the effect into the regular simulated movements - depending on the state at the beginning and end that might look OK.

InfernusIntraMe

Richard Haseltine said:

A dForce simulation is not guaranteed to loop - in fact it is unlikely to do so. But aside from that, you can set the play range to render in Render Setings - it can start anywhere you need. It might work to export the first and last (desired) frames as OBJ and create a morph that is the differnce between them, then apply that in the first or last frame (positive or negative) to make the shapes match and use the aniamtion to fade the effect into the regular simulated movements - depending on the state at the beginning and end that might look OK.

Okay, I see. Besides making the loop, I'm trying to get the hair to simulate during my render. Do I have to simulate the animation range before I render the play range? As you can see from the images I provided (frame 35 and frame 135)  I simulated the dforce hair on the first frame (frame 35) initially. When I go to render the entire animation range (35-515), the dforce hair resets to the pre drop position and messes up my render. I would like for the hair to start on its frame 35 position (which is my first frame of animation) and continute to simulate through the duration of the render. The hair doesnt appear to simulate in my render though. Could the angel wings be getting in the way?

Thank you for any advice.

Richard Haseltine

Yes, you would need to run the full playrange through dForce.

Pickle Renderer

I would save just the figure and the hair in a new scene file and do the simulation in that, then save out a series of .obj files for the hair (probably doesn't have to be all the frames, just a series of keyframes) to use as morphs in the actual final render file.  Simulating the final render itself doesn't sound like a good idea to me for performance reasons alone.