Yeah.....poor Yeti. BTW, from my understanding, patent is related to 'stepping' creation of local coordinates along strand. Functionally, something similar to 'deform by curve', or 'extrusion along curve' operators in 3d apps. Ironically, imho just this feature didn't helped that much, nicely to say.

Just for the record, *if* I'm right, no one of ICE hair systems uses this. At least, no one of public available. Exactly for kristinka Hair, this method requires 'repeat' node, which I learn to avoid in order to keep the performance. So actual method for creating local cords in kH is a 'stupid', but very reliable transfer from NURBS geo - which then introduces additional complexity.... And ICE has more than enough force to drive this.

Imho, great styling, still artist friendly, belongs to Hair Farm for Max, which is using the 'Hair Mesh', or, interpolation along mesh extrusion. Who knows, maybe this one is patented, too.

I hear that Cinema 4D has the best hair system. Not sure if that is true or not.

Yes, definitively *much* more options than XSI hair, reliable simulation.... Only one small 'I don't like' from my side, it's a 'post process' way of shading in default renderer, but I think this is intentional, to get it faster.

Well I upgraded to the Softimage Suite last year and just installed 2013 last weekend so I will be trying out Maya's N hair and see how I like it.

Well the good thing is we can now transfer Maya Hair to Softimage via Alembic

hairfarm's stuff is also patented. Maybe thats the reason these tools never got updated?http://www.ephere.com/geometry/hair/

Yes Ace I forgot about Alembic. I will see if I can use that to import to XSI. I was actually thinking of just rendering a hair pass from Maya. However if I can keep the rendering in XSI that might be best.

this is great for some people, but I don't see Softimage getting another hair solution from Autodesk (as much as it may be needed) for this very reason. If they spread the strengths among all 3 packages, it encourages suite purchases, and I really hate the idea of having to learn another package in order to do something that should be included in the base package (of Softimage, that is).

Hear, hear!



I knew from the day those suites came out, this can not end well for the end user. And this idea that softimage is benefiting because its being included in both suites is also a bit of a nonsense. ICE might benefit from it, but softimage as a whole... not at all. Quite the opposite.

Well Autodesk needn't give us a new hair system, per se. They just should hire Joe Alter to bring his apparent black box (luceric's words, not mine) somewhat and somehow up to date, if Joe can find the time between court cases, that is...