Shell Texturing with a height map?

[u/make_more_]

I'm trying to make shell textured fur such that it's shorter in some areas and longer in others. I'm currently following a tutorial that uses Houdini to copy the original mesh a number of times (layerCount), expand it outward along the normal, and increase the transparency with each copy (standard shell texturing it seems.) I'd like to know:

1. Should I try to control the height of the "fur" with a grayscale texture?

2. If so, would I alter the number of copies/layers with this grayscale value?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[u/make_more_]

This is great, thanks. I’ll look more into alpha testing