u/SherzodKadirov

A few years ago, I came across the amazing Mimic effect by Cartesian Caramel and kept trying to recreate and improve the technique over time. His original version was made in Blender; this is my take on the idea, built entirely in Houdini.

I added a few new behaviors:

The Mimic avoids placing its legs in areas it can't see.

Each leg can move at a different speed, creating more varied and unpredictable motion.

At the end of the video, you can see a comparison of my progress and how the effect has evolved over the years.

I made a free Blender tool that procedurally converts hair grooms into feathers using Geometry Nodes.

It works with animated characters and provides a flexible foundation for creating feathered creatures while keeping everything procedural.

Current features:

Convert hair groom curves into feathers

Groom feathers directly on the character

Support for custom feather shapes

Random or painted feather shape distribution

Control feather length, scale, and surface alignment

Procedural shading with base color, root/tip masks, and per-feather color variation

This is the first public release, and I’m planning to add more controls and features in future updates.

I’m sharing the tool for free so other Blender artists can experiment with it and use it in their own projects.

Bird model & animation: Wen Yeh

Thank you for creating the bird model and animation used to showcase the tool.

Free download: https://sherzodartistry7.gumroad.com/l/hair_groom_to_feathers

Feedback is always welcome!

Thanks to Wild mesh for providing beautiful model and animation.
Software: Houdini.
Render: Karma. https://sketchfab.com/WildMesh_3D

All assets and animation were created by the Lola Animation team for their new project. I was responsible for the VFX, rendering, and compositing, with the entire process completed in Houdini.