If you remember a couple of years back, Michael Buettner had created mbFeathers for Softimage. mbFeathers was a tool that allowed you to style and animate the simulation of feathers on any object.
Since then Softimage has been EOL’d, and Michael Buettner has revived a feather tool as a Houdini Digital Asset. Have a look at the performance comparison between the two versions.
mbPlumage allows for feather styling and simulation in SideFX Houdini as a Digital asset. The feathering tool looks to be a monster in terms of it’s capabilities, allowing you to crteate fast and easy feathers in Houdini with some great styling controls.
mbPlumage feathers also can be simulated with a fast and robust system that includes a variety of constraints.
The feather tool also incorporates point simulation which can calculate every point of th feathers with a unique shape matching algorithm. mbPlumage can easily handle complex feather meshes while adding deformations. All of this without the need for a specific topology or edge lengths.
Head on over to the mbPlumage page for more information on this amazing Houdini Digital Asset.
