Fur-Shells - Performance Costs and Recommendations?

Ace-Angel

Hey to all,

I was wondering if anyone had any tips about Fur planes/shells and generally speaking, in terms of 'graphical' setup in an engine (or real-time viewport) what is recommended about it in a nutshell?

For example, I want to make low-poly fur, HOWEVER, the object happens to be huge (SOTC level of huge, with camera getting up close and personal) so I made a bunch of shells with fins sticking out.

I have about 6-8 shells, fins sticking from the edges, where needed, standard stuff.

My shader is additive (with no sorting), double sided. Standard Alpha masking, but with added fresnel for the edges. 8 bit, not 1 bit.

So in that regard as an example, is it OK? Are there certain performance issues I should take into consideration? How much overhead can I see for each shell added? Are there standard values I should be aiming for? Should I be bending and avoid my fins from ever covering the shell, etc?

So yeah, more of a technical information about performance issues I might come with over a large mammoth like character would be dandy.

Cheers!

Ace-Angel

Of course Dustin, I know that and you're right that it's a basis to basis thing.

I was hoping for peeps who already worked on such projects and had to take limitations into account could chime in for some 'tips' incase of published games, etc.