Quote - Calculations liek that aren't much faster on higher end software then what you see in Poser.. they have more/different features, but when you add massive physics calculations, that just takes time to compute. Studios use render farms of a LOT o networed systems woring together, and each one is typically loaded for bear.

Hmmm.  I have to disagree here.  Poser cloth and hair sims are SLOOOOOW.  Cinema 4D cloth and hair sims are times faster - direct experience here.  Same computer being used.  And I would suspect that Maya cloth and hair sims are faster still.

You seem to be under the impression that there is only one way to skin a sim cat.  Look at IK - LOOK at IK.  There are two basic types of IK solver: numerical and analytical.  There are a bazillion variations of these: CCD, Pin&Drag, 2D, 3D, specialized, Jacobian, spline, and so on  and so on and so on.  There are thousands of books and papers on IK systems from robotics and 3D.  There are more ways to do IK solvers than I can enumerate here.

Do you think that there is only one form of cloth and hair dynamics simulation algorithm?  And that there aren't better algorithms that are faster?  Bresenham's line algorithm used to be considered the end-all algorithm for drawing lines as fast as possible ever!  Most people still think so, too.  Now, it is considered just one archaic approach that has been surpassed by much better algorithms and optimizations - see N-step, EFLA, Wu, optimized Bresenham.  The reason - while most people looked at it and said "Hmmm, that's about the best we can ever do", others attacked the problem from different angles and bettered it.

A Google search on "3D Hair simulation papers" or "Cloth simulation papers" should show that there is no stopping new ideas and progress in making better and faster simulators!

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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