Topic Decided

For this week we had to decide on a topic for our honours project. Before this term had begun however I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. In fact I had even done some simple browsing previously... though nothing really to be considered research.

The topic I plan to cover for my honours project is real-time hair simulation. As yet however I have not decided on a specific area or direction in which to head. I need to look into more before I can really decide what area my research question is going to be directed at.

I know at current there are various issues and problem areas when it comes to real-time hair simulation in games.

First is the appearance factor. The rendering of real-time hair is one area where graphics in games still does not reach the same level of realism as the rest of the game. There are various methods used in both games and 3D films that could be worth looking into. Some techniques are better for short hair or fur and quite often these techniques are currently implemented in games, long hair however throws up various problems even still. Aspects as simple as lighting of hair can become complex when transparency and reflectivity are considered.

Another big area in real-time hair simulation is an area often overlooked or perhaps avoided, that of behaviour. Behaviour however is a very wide area to cover, ranging across all aspects of how the hair interacts with the surrounding environment; gravity, movement, wind, collisions and likely more. Even problems as simple as "What do you treat a simulated 3D hair as?" has impact on it's overall behaviour.

And lastly though probably most importantly is the fact that while various methods for both the rendering and behavioural aspects of real-time hair simulation exist there are often performance issues when they are implemented. Is it possible to have good looking hair that reacts to the environment and doesn't impact performance?

My topic area is a little broad just now, I need to research a bit still.