Hypertexture

I also made a tribble, as shown on the left, as well as other experiments in furrier synthesis. Here I shaped the density cloud into long fibers, by defining a high frequency spot function (via noise) onto an inner surface, and then, from any point P in the volume, projecting down onto this surface, and using the density on the surface to define the density at P. This tends to make long fibrous shapes, since it results in equal densities all along the line above any given point on the inner surface.

I made the hairs curl by adding low frequency noise into the domain of the density function. This was the first example in computer graphics of long and curly fur. Around the same time Jim Kajiya made some really cool fur models, although his techniques produced only short and straight fur. Jim had the good sense to use earthly plushy toys for his shape models, instead of alien ones. The earthly ones are more easily recognized by the academy...