New Hair Particle system & mesh Q's

Support Basics & Interface
#1

I have a couple questions I’ve been trying to find answers for…

  1. Does using the new particle system to make hair using guide curves
    add significant time to the render time of the mesh?

  2. Would I have to model the top of the head if the person has long hair?
    Since that’s usually covered by hair anyway.

  3. Would I be able to use this new system for eyelashes, and 'brows?

I plan to use this character in an animation I’m planning. Yet, I’m trying to keep the rendering time down while keeping the quality at a certain level.
I’d hate to have 1 sec of animation take 1 day to render. I know that’s too exaggerated a figure, but it’s to emphasize my point.

  1. How do I decrease verts & polys in a mesh without making a blocky,
    royal mess out of the higher vert/poly mesh? If there isn’t a way, how
    do I connect the two since one has more verts than the other?

Reason I ask is I modeled a realtive low-poly right half of a head, and eyeball. (I think it’s low poly) The head, and eyeball are in 1 file, and an ear in another. I appended the ear into the head file, and it was as large as the head. :o So, I shrunk the ear down to a proportional size to head, but I noticed it looked like it had 2 to 4 times as many verts/polys as the head half.

  1. Does what kind of Processor, and your Motherboard’s Front Speed Bus
    have any effect on rendering time?

I’m thinking about trying to save up for an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (2 Ghz) with a motherboard that has a FSB of either 800 to 1Ghz. I’m currently using an Athlon XP 1800+ (1.5 Ghz) with a FSB of 266Mhz.

  1. Would that combo make things go much faster?
    Given the higher FSB, and the jump to a 64-bit processor, and .5 Mhz. :smiley:
#2
  1. Does using the new particle system to make hair using guide curves add significant time to the render time of the mesh?

Hair will always add to render time. It shouldn’t be enough to prevent you from using it though.

  1. Would I have to model the top of the head if the person has long hair? Since that’s usually covered by hair anyway.

You still want to model the top of the head because 1) Hair does not completely mask out the top of the head 2) the top of the head will be used as your particle emitter anyway.

  1. Would I be able to use this new system for eyelashes, and 'brows?

yes

  1. How do I decrease verts & polys in a mesh without making a blocky, royal mess out of the higher vert/poly mesh? If there isn’t a way, how do I connect the two since one has more verts than the other?

One having more verticies than the other doesn’t prevent you from connecting them.

ut I noticed it looked like it had 2 to 4 times as many verts/polys as the head half.

Ears will naturally have more verticies (density of verticies) than most of the rest of the head because the ear requires more detail than the rest of the head.

  1. Does what kind of Processor, and your Motherboard’s Front Speed Bus have any effect on rendering time?

yes (That would be “Front-Side Bus”)

#3

I thought I’d ask now, so I don’t get everything to my liking, and bring my PC to its’ knees when I try to render, or animate the model. As evidenced by my last couple questions, I don’t have an up-to-date system. Used to be, but had a financial crunch which didn’t let me upgrade when I wanted to, and left me further behind the demands of current games, and programs. Including the upcoming new version of Windows. :frowning:

You still want to model the top of the head because 1) Hair does not completely mask out the top of the head 2) the top of the head will be used as your particle emitter anyway.

Ah, I see… Must’ve misunderstood the article I read about 'em. Not hard to do with 3D modeling, and it’s techniques. :slight_smile:

Using the particle system on eyelashes, and 'brows wouldn’t be too much of a drain?

One having more verticies than the other doesn’t prevent you from connecting them. Ears will naturally have more verticies (density of verticies) than most of the rest of the head because the ear requires more detail than the rest of the head.
Just makes it harder to keep from using a few tri’s when adding extra verts to “sew” the ear to the head.

yes (That would be “Front-Side Bus”)

Well, I was close, and knew what it was for. Kinda like people guessing what DVD stands for.
Digital Video Disc / Digital Versatile Disc.
I think it’s the latter since you can store more than just videos on a DVD.