Piero is looking now like a cactus πwith the hair system waiting for instancing the body feathers:
Yes, the beak and the claws don't need feathers π.
Combing the hairs for a correct orientation of the instanced body feathers:
And with feathers visible again:
This texture was painted for controling the size of the feathers (= length of the instancing hairs):
Doesn't he look cute π?
A test rendering with Piero's body feathers:
1) Cycles
Render Time: 4 Minutes 48.11 Seconds
2) EEVEE
Render Time: 2.43 Seconds
There's a feather hanging below the peak of Piero's beak:
Only a value of -0.997 and higher for the influence on the hair/feather density of the texture which primarily controls the hair length (= body feather size) makes it disappear.
When looking at that texture in the "Image Editor" (set to "Paint Mode"), everything looked fine with the all black beak especially at the red circle in the image below pointing at the peak of the upper inner beak (with the upper throat at the right):
The same position in the "UV Editor" shows a more pointed "UV Map" which reaches into a white area:
Can anybody here explain this?
PS: Even painting the whole texture black didn't make this feather disappear, painting the whole texture white, made this feather bigger.
I've seen that white gap at the peak of Piero's inner beak also in the "Mesh Island" of @theluthier 's Piero:
But there's no problem with feather hanging from Piero's beak peak. Maybe I can cut this hair in "Particle Edit Mode"?
I could get rid of that feather hanging at the beak's peak by cutting some hairs at the beak in "Particle Edit Mode":
Result in "Object Mode":
Combing the hairs can result in disconnected hairs which, if they instance feathers, make these feathers protrude from the rest of the feathering:
A Cycles rendering of Piero after the combing:
Render Time: 6 Minutes 35.92 Seconds.
Some feathers at Piero's shoulders still seem to be too large. The appropriate texture obviously needs some final tweaking.
Cycles Rendering of Piero with 30.000 "Simulated Hairs" for instancing the body feathers:
Render Time: 7 Minutes Β 34.59 Seconds.
