How Do I Make Hair?

[allan5]

Hi I'm working on a project that requires realistic hair. I don't have Unlimited (fur) now but would consider getting it. I've heard horror stories about fur though (render gliches in particular). Can anybody assure me that this isn't the case anymore? What about paint effects? Does anybody know how good a job that would do?

Any other ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Allan.

[paul]

if you have paint effects...do that... it renders pretty fast and is nice.... but i've actually got maya fur to do a really nice job too...but it renders sooo much slower than paint effects....

the down side to both of these is you can't raytrace the shadows... you have to "crank" the shading samples on ray cast lights so much to get the right effect...but you CAN do it at least...!

if you get the chance and use paint effects...get the paint effects video...don't really bother with the manual....

paul g. thuriot
3d modeler-entertainment
paraform
408.855.4326
paul@paraform.com

[zuan]

If you have Maya 2.5:
1. select the surface that you want add hair.
2. Load module Paint Effects (check in preferences)
3. pick render_paint effects_make paintable
4. pick render_paint effects_paint effects tool
5. Go to visor panel and choose any hair brush(i.e. HairBlondLongCurl.mel)
6. paint your surface on any modeling window (it's more interactive on paint effects panel)
6. To edit your hairbrush pick the node strokeshapehair1 and change tube shading values (i.e. hue rand, sat rand)
7. To assign espectacular shadows enable fake shadow_3D cast on the same node and change values (i.e. shadow diffusion and shadow transp.)
tip: You don't need shadows enabled in your lights to make this step !!!
8. You can assign complex behaviors using forces and turbulence
9. Enjoy animating your creation.

[jtk77]

Main problem with PaintFx hair in animation -- Hair goes through you charater if he's moving rather than boucing off the head . Can you assign the head as a collision object ?
I had heard that that was not yet possible with paint FX .
Or is there a way to fix this ?
I don't think paint FX is the"fix all" that some people have been posting . Its very cool and has potential .
Until then just use the old fation way unless the charater is static . Lofts with alpha channels .

"...If I don't always like what I've made ,well,thats life for you .."
--Kit SummersIsle

[ops]

"I don't think paint FX is the"fix all" that some people have been posting . Its very cool and has potential .
Until then just use the old fation way unless the charater is static."

What are you talking about! Aren't you the one who said you couldn't use Paint FX because you only had 128 megs ram.

[jtk77]

I can use Paint FX . I had ram problems on the o2 , but thats solved now . Do you think I'd sit around and not buy more ram if I needed it ? Its been a few weeks now , they can "over night it" you know . Anyway , the fact still remains that paint FX is cool , but it doesn't fix every thing. For longer hair its not as controlable as lofts with alpha and control splines . Plus , you can't define a colition object wich means that anything paint FX will pass thru solid objects . My hairs kind of long and I do beleive it bounces against my forehead somtimes , you could probably key animate Paint FX hair to do that but thats tedious . Again , if I'm wronge on this and you can set up Paint FX to bounce off objects or not pass thru a certain range on a force then great , post that .
PS
"what am I talking about? " I think I made it clear enough unless you have trouble reading .

"...If I don't always like what I've made ,well,thats life for you .."
--Kit SummersIsle

[ops]

I stand corrected and would like to apologize for my comment. It was not called for.

[swede]

I'm currently working on a school project that requires long, realistic hair that is colliding with surfaces. First off; USE Paint FX if you can!!!, it rocks. Here's how i set it all up:

1. Create the strokes for the hair [To optimize performance use same brush for as many strokes as you can]

2. Create a cv curve starting @ the base of the head.

3. Make the curve a control curve for a stroke (note that you can have as many control curves as you want for each stroke)

4. Go into attr. editor for the stroke and set follow curve to close to one, also play with fall off and attract curve.

5. For each CV of the curve create a cluster.

6. Create a small sphere @ each cv point of the curve.

7. Parent each cluster to it's positional Sphere counterpart.

8. Make the spheres active rigids and make sure you select a sphere standinshape in the channel box for the active rigid for the setup to compute easier. Create gravity and connect it to the active rigids.

9. Nail constraint the base sphere to it's own center and parent the constraint to the head.

10. Nail constraint the bottom sphere to the next one up, the next one up to the nxt one up... etc.

11. For a collision surface I made the collision pieces I needed from my NURBS character into polys and joined them together so I had one invisible colision surface that is parented to the head joint.

12. Animate the character and press play. The hair should now follow the character and collide with the surfaces. Note that if the hair is penetrating the surface you can simply scale the active rigids up to tweak the collisions.

For most purposes you can simply create brush springs, but for this setup the shot is close to the face and the hair swings down so I needed a way to get really accurate hair collisions and this setup works really well.

Good luck and have fun!!

[jtk77]

sounds like a work-around . Post a quicktime or mpg somewhere of it , I'd love to see that animated .
I'll have to try that methoud out , wish there was a less taxing way to get paintfx not to pass thru geometry .

"...If I don't always like what I've made ,well,thats life for you .."
--Kit SummersIsle

[swede]

Actually you could use contol curves that repell(use a negative value in the attr editor for the curve attract) the hair so that it can't move through the geometry. I would definately use that if the shot is not extremely close where you need a lot of control.
Yea, the above technique is pretty taxing but the resulting animation is just beutiful.

Swede

[everyman]

how to use some curves control one stroke's tubes?
i use two curves to one stroke.but when
i set "curve attract"=1 then all tubes seem "attract" by
"one curves" which between two curves(i created).why?
they should "attract" by two curves different!
same when set "curves follow"=1,all tubes follow same direction,but i want the tubes follow the curves
in its near.

[duncan]

Use the curveMaxDist to control the falloff of effect with distance to the control
curve( at zero there is no falloff with distance so the effect of all curves is
simply averaged ).

[sid69g]

-What exactly do you mean by :
(8. Nail constraint the base sphere to it's own center and parent the constraint to the head.
9. Nail constraint the bottom sphere to the next one up, the next one up to the nxt one up... etc)

-I did the Nail constraints to the base sphere and parented the constraint to the head surface
then I did nail contraints from the bottom up on the spheres- I tried parenting the constrains to the next sphere up but I don't think I was getting the results that I'm supposed
"WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?"
-also wondering how many cv's your using on your control curves???

    Any Help would be greatly appreciated ASAP
                                                -sid69