Zoe - Wind test and claws (Patreon)

The next Encounter is going to take place in a somewhat more windy location, which is something I'm hoping to show through Zoe's new dynamic fur swaying with the wind! There were still a few quirks I had to fix with her dynamics, such as all physics mirroring the left side of her model, as Maya apparently binds hair physics to the UV map, but that's finally been fixed!

Her fur is influenced by both a direction push, as well as a turbulence field, which have animated parameters to simulate gusts of wind blowing over her fur. It took a bit of tweaking, as the effect looked everything but subtle at first, but after a few tests I'd say it's starting to look believable!

The physics affect not just her longer clumps, but also her short hair as well, albeit with a far smaller sample count. For a final render I might increase increase the sample density for her fur physics a little further to have the clumps move more individually. I got to say I'm quite excited animating her with this new controller, as it adds yet another layer of animation on top of her movements. In combination with all the trees swaying in the environment, this is probably going to be my most dynamic looking animation yet!

Next to the wind controllers, I've finally managed to implement claws on each of her fingers. The implementation I found is a janky in terms of performance, but it works perfectly without any visual glitches!