How would you make ostrich feather cards for games?

lkameen3

Im working on a character and he has a cavalier hat so I need to make a ostrich feather to go with it.  How would you guys tackle the thick and flowing feather? I was thinking of having cards come off of a tube of geo that acts as the shaft with my transparency maps on that. photo for reference

edit: Im doing this in maya and rendering in marmoset

throttlekitty

I'd suggest just a small tweak: use curved cards (like layered fern fronds) for the main forms, and small cards flying off from that as you mention. I think you'll have an easier time that way.

http://cdn0.rubylane.com/shops/lilacvintage/113031.1L.jpg
http://g02.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1nGM5KpXXXXXpXXXXq6xXFXXXJ/Wholesale-font-b-Ostrich-b-font-font-b-Feathers-b-font-BLACK-Large-font-b-Ostrich.jpg

lkameen3

Okay I started trying to figure it out.  The individual hairs coming off have really small spikes from the root to the tip so its like a bunch of small feathers bunched on one big feather.  So today I did individual cards for each hair.  the results are decent right now, the render certainly helps bail me out.  I think im going to do @throttlekitty what you suggested next.  I just really suck at trying to get them all bunched together on a single card. 

throttlekitty

That's looking pretty nice! Looking again, there's a few other ways that may be easier. This one is a duplicate along curve with a bit of random rotation, pretty straightforward. PaintFX has a lot of power to do this sort of thing, but I've always felt that the amount of options also makes it hard to use without regular use.