Hi all,
It's there. Almost all mentioned features are present, including a few of new generators/modifiers: the one that interpolates strands between two NURBS surfaces, also special 'Bend' modifier. "Bend" is my personal favorite, I hardly prevented myself from adding this one in every sample
. What isn't there, it's interpolation of hair point cloud over 'Generate strand trails' factory compound - that will need a bit more work to make it stable.
So how it works:
First step is, always, polygon mesh with texture projection. There is no need for tangent map. Second is compound that generates point cloud, strands and basic attributes, here it's called 'Strand Sample Set' or 'Strand Grid'.
Then, there are three kind of compounds for generating strand's profile: Bezier curves between NURBS surfaces, that's called 'Cross Sections'. Strand positions derived from NURBS surfaces or curves, that's called 'Follow'. And, procedurally generated strand profiles, that is 'Fur'. All three can be used in the same point cloud, if that makes sense.
On top of that, deformation compounds: curls, bend, turbulence, randomize, grouping...
At the end of the day, second, optional point cloud that fills the strands over the first one, but it also can carry deformations.
Under the hood, it's endless variation of famous 'Fill interpolated array' - or - 'Build linearly interpolated array' compound, creativity with geometry queries, something from Phil Pack, something from MT Strands....
... so, for more specific ICE tutorials, I would go to already written stuff, like MT Strand samples, Thiago's tutorials, so on.
Also, just common tutorials for every 3d software, about NURBS modeling, very simple math such as add, subtract, modulo, lerp, divide, multiply.... , basic rigging stuff, up vectors, direction constraints...
All stuff is created with XSI 7.01, using factory nodes, so it should work nicely with all versions above 7.01.
Download compounds and samples,
here.
Cheers
!
