Animating cg strand hair frame by frame?

melviso

Is there any software that allows u to animate cg strand hair like Maya hair, 3dsmax hair, fibermesh, blender hair  frame by frame. Pose with a comb brush and  keyframe it frame by frame. I think this is an area that is overlooked in cg animation. Everything seems to be all about simulation as this approach will enable things like characters interacting with hair, holding it, pulling, blowing in the wind, letting hair down like how its done in 2d animation and avoid hair collision problems and bad simulations that take forever. U could also use this for grass like a character walking over grass, moving through tall grass without collision problems
Another cool stuff would be being able to rig clothes, ropes, chain, geometry with hair strands instead of bones and use the comb brush to move the hair strands that deform the mesh and keyframe the hair stands position frame by frame as well.
Blender sort of had this but it was removed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnbPWqx5yPk
Disney seems to be making some efforts towards this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oh5sXWvpfM

I don't know if u can animate fibermesh in zbrush.

I wish more development was made in this direction rather than simulation from the beginning. I think we would have been able to achieve so much more and things would have looked more organic. Maybe even rig faces with hair strands as well. There are endless possibilities with this and what would even be cooler is the option to simulate over the keyframes if u want to or not.

poopipe

All those things have been possible for a long time, i expect someone with more recent vfx knowledge will be able to explain the specifics better than me  but both max and maya (and i imagine, houdini, blender etc.) are capable of deforming objects with splines that can be generated from hair systems and there's nothing stopping you animating a hair system frame by frame if you put the time in to setting up the process. 

 

melviso

There is an advantage to key framing the hair while still as a hair system. U see, when u use the comb brush, u can move many strands at once. Also the hair doesn't go beyond the length set in the system, I could pull a strand or a group of strands and stretch it but it stays within its specified length. Hence, why I feel it's is good for clothes and ropes.
If converted to splines u lose the features of the hair system like hair children, maintains or retains its length, stiffness e.g curly hair parameter when u use the comb brush to pose it at one frame and edit the hairstyle for another frame.
As just a spline, editing the splines which would be quite many would be difficult and it wont retain its length. The comb brush is useful here for posing frame by frame but I think this brush would have a lot of features added to make styling the hair very easy and faster as u adjust for each frame.

poopipe

Yes, and I'm saying this is a thing that already happens. 
As are the other things you mentioned. 

I don't disagree, I was just pointing out that the lack of development you lament isn't has in fact been developed. 

melviso

Really? I would appreciate it if any vfx artist here can shed more light on this because the only technique I know of is this:
https://www.fxguide.com/featured/behind-the-scenes-of-digics-witcher-3-cinematic/
They simulated between two hairstyles that was created using blendshape of the same curves.
Rather than blendshapes, animating directly would be dope but I don't really know much about the tech. Blender does not have this at all. That I am sure of.