Simple Bird With Dynamic Feathers
Creating feathers on a simple bird character
This example shows how to create a simple feather groom using OX Surface Comb for most of the grooming and MassFX dynamics.
When creating feathers of this nature it can be important for them to be uniform. Because of that we have used the Uniform Distribution method in both OX Guides from Surface and OX Hair from Guides. To create the shape of the feathers we are just using OX Render Settings to get a feather shape and OX Mesh from Strands with Flat Billboard as the mesh output. Its worth noting that using proxy geometry in OX Mesh from Strands is also a good alternative if you need precise control over your feathers mesh shape.
OX Dynamics is used with MassFX to simulate. When doing this its important to have a fairly low guide count and Num Points in OX Guides from Surface so MassFX can simulate properly. In this case we have 300 guides with 4 points each. Wind has been added to the scene to give the feathers some "flutter" while standing still. Wind needs to be added to the OX Dynamics modifier. Its worth noting that with MassFX dynamics, your scene scale and units play a large roll. Its important to have a scene that is to close to real world scale. The exception to this is if you have a real object that is very small like a microscopic bug or a small bee you may want to build them larger as MassFX will not perform well at very large or small extremes.