Simulation of feathers for animation of birds in SFX

Abstract: A study at Fido Film in autumn 2008 evaluated different methods of simulating feather coats for visually appealing results. The report discusses various approaches with a focus on a more general solution. It will be shown that in order to create a good feather simulation, collision detection needs to be used as opposed to interference testing. The difference being that the first is time continuous and the other is time discrete i.e. a collision might have already occurred during the test phase. For a time continuous solution, aspects of handling simultaneous collisions in a efficient way are discussed. Alternative approaches are explored and finally recommendations for further study are given.