Maya Experimentation

During our animation we need to have a water texture transform into steel, hence a Blend Colour Node is being explored, below are the results.

As the wish flower (thistledown) is the main focus for a fair part of our animation I thought I'd do a few quick render tests using Fur to see if this is a viable option. The first two images are far too thick and 'fluffy' looking, but I feel the next two images appear more successful - still not 100% there, but close to production quality.

As I was experimenting with the fur texture I decided to render the offset - below is a clip of the results. I quite like the effect and the idea of using it in the final animation, as each piece of fur is dispersed it represents Charles' imagination fading and reality setting in.