Patent ID: 8810582

Claim:
A computer system for generating hair comprising: a processor; a memory including a hair pipeline comprising: a lighting module to produce lighting effects in a lighting phase for a shot, wherein the lighting module utilizes a set of hair parameters that is stored inside a cache hair state file, and wherein the set of hair parameters of the cache hair state file is utilized by the lightning module only if the cache hair state file is deemed to be a valid cache hair state file; an optimization module to: determine if the cache hair state file exists, wherein, if the cache hair state file does not exist, automatically deem the non-existent cache hair state file to be an invalid cache hair state file, automatically create a new cache hair state file, and automatically deem the new cache hair state file as a valid cache hair state file, the new cache hair state file including a new set of hair parameters that match a set of hair primitives to be rendered and to be used in the shot, and wherein, if the cache hair state file does exist, automatically determine if the set of hair parameters match the set of hair primitives to be rendered and to be used in the shot, and if so, automatically deem the cache hair state file to be a valid cache hair state file, wherein, if the set of hair parameters does not match the set of hair primitives to be rendered and to be used in the shot, automatically deem the cache hair state file to be an invalid cache hair state file, automatically delete the set of hair parameters that does not match the set of hair primitives from the invalid cache hair state file, automatically store a new set of hair parameters that matches the set of hair primitives inside the invalid cache hair state file, and automatically deem the invalid cache hair state file that is storing the new set of hair parameters to be a valid cache hair state file; and a display device module to display hair with the lighting effects for the lighting phase of the shot on a display device.