The Motion of Hair

There are a number of different models in use for the efficient simulation of a mass of hair, from masses of single strands to volumetric masses which only become ”hair” during illumination. Our goal was to simulate convincing hair motion, not convincing illumination, so we chose a simple mass-spring model and empirically discovered appropriate forces and spring constants which gave our model a nice bounce. During our research we also came across an alternative to Euler’s method for the computation of differential equations. Our model is limited to modeling long straight or wavy hair under certain conditions, but we believe our basic approach can be applied to realistic movement of hair, cloth, and other objects.