Guest Appearance by Matt Thurman

Today we have a guest blogger, Matt Thurman. Writer of the blog "The Evolution of Animation."



Hair has always been a troubling problem when it came to 3D animation. Over the years there have been several different methods for dealing with the issue of hair. Some of the most common solutions are what is know as helmet hair, rigged hair, and simulated hair.

Helmet Hair

Helmet hair is by far the easiest solution to hair in 3D animation, and just like the name implies it treats the hair as a static element that is attached to the characters head like a football helmet. This method was common during the early years of 3D animation because it was so simple to sue and required very little time or computing power. The downside of this method is that it doesn't seem very realistic, especially with characters that have longer hair. To mitigate this characters were almost always given short hair or in the case of female characters had it tied up in a bun. Although it is the easiest solution to hair, it's severe limitations led studios to switch to using what is known as rigged hair.

Rigged Hair

Rigged hair is similar to helmet hair in that it is also geometry stuck the the characters scalp. The difference is that rigged hair is movable and as such is more realistic. The hair is split into sections with can be moved around which allows characters to have longer hair that reacts to their movements. It's still limited and has trouble with things like long flowing hair, hair blowing in the wind, and hair colliding with the environment, but it's still noticeably more realistic than the helmet hair method.

Simulated Hair

When 3D animation first came to mainstream attention in 1995 with 'Toy Story' the thought of having dynamically simulated hair was a fantasy.Out of the three methods, simulated hair requires by far the most time and computing power. With this method thousands of strands of hair are created and attached to the character. A computer then simulates, using both real and imaginary physics to make it work correctly, how the hair would move as it follows the character and interacts with things in the film. This method gives the most realistic results and is generally used by the larger studios today who have the time and resources to commit to such a complex method for hair. Sometimes this method works out wonderfully and other times it gives some interesting results that take months to correct. Ultimately though this method achieves the best results and is quickly becoming the industry standard.

Go check out Matt's blog at The Evolution of Animation