Remaining Goals (and Timeline)

Edit (2/5/10): I removed goals that no longer apply to the project --> Remember Option 2 from the post that precedes this one? I'm going to take it, except I'm also going to assume that such a method of point cloud translation/rotation extrapolation already exists. In other words, my project pipeline takes as input the position/orientation of a single point located at the center of the cloud that represents the cloud's net movement. If I have time towards the end of the semester (which...I hate to say it, is doubtful), I will re-add developing the extrapolation method as a goal.

Goal	Time Required for Completion	Priority (on a scale of 1 to 10)
Grow key hairs out of the scalp mesh according to a procedurally generated vector field (user will input the local axes of the scalp mesh)	2 days	8
Adjust key hair soft body values until they behave more like real hairs	1 day	10
Develop (or find) and test an algorithm that will allow me to extract a single "net" transform from a cloud of moving vertices	14 days	9
Integrate a mesh decimation library (perhaps OpenMesh) into my code base to eliminate the need for external decimation in Maya	7 days	6
Bring the Bullet code over to my OpenGL framework (i.e. render Bullet's physics bodies myself instead of letting Bullet's Demo Application class do everything)	7 days	10
Tessellate the key hairs using B-splines	14 days	5
Use interpolation ("multi strand interpolation") between key hairs to grow and simulate filler hairs	14 days	8
Develop (or find) and test an algorithm for linking the vertices of the decimated head/scalp mesh to those of the original (non-decimated) head/scalp mesh	14 days	10
Using these links, move the vertices of the decimated head/scalp mesh to match the movements of the original head/scalp mesh's vertices	3 days	10
Build strips (and clusters) around each control and filler hair	5 days	9
Implement the Marschner reflectance model to render/color a polygonal strip of varying width	21 days	8
Implement the Kajiya shading model to render/color a polygonal strip of varying width (based on results, choose the "better" method, or somehow combine the two)	21 days	7
If the chosen model doesn't color wider strips realistically, modify the renderer so that it interprets 1 wide strip as X skinny strips (perhaps using an opacity/alpha map)	14 days	6
Implement the (modified) chosen model to render/color a 3d polygonal cluster	10 days	8
...	...	...

I'll continue to fill in and modify this list over the next week...I'm not really sure how things will be going for me by the time I get to the rendering part of the project, so it's difficult to plan that far ahead. :-/ I found a (semi) new resource for rendering, though - NVIDIA Real Time Hair SIGGRAPH Presentation. Unfortunately, this presentation is a bit discouraging in the sense that most of it showcases the latest GPU technology, which I can't tap into at the moment (nor do I think I ever could, since they mention Direct3D11! I only have 9...).