Baking hair & fur from max using Projection
polycounter lvl 9
Hi guys,I have a little problem,I'm driving the hair & fur modifier using some splines but I cannot bake it down using the projection modifier since in the "Reference Geometry" tab it asks for a mesh. Problem is,if I turn the hair & fur into mesh I get a different look from the hair & fur render,so that's not an option...
I just would like that the projection modifier sees the hair & fur render so to bake it into a VrayCompleteMap I could later use for my hair diffuse texture.
There is a way to have this happening?!
For now the closest thing I can do is to take a screenshot of my render and paste it into photoshop,but since the projection mesh is rounded,of course I'm not getting the right distortion and bake from different angles out of my flat screenshot,so this would involve a lot of fixing inside photoshop...
I just would like that the projection modifier sees the hair & fur render so to bake it into a VrayCompleteMap I could later use for my hair diffuse texture.
There is a way to have this happening?!
For now the closest thing I can do is to take a screenshot of my render and paste it into photoshop,but since the projection mesh is rounded,of course I'm not getting the right distortion and bake from different angles out of my flat screenshot,so this would involve a lot of fixing inside photoshop...
Replies
That's why I just need the projection baking the Hair & Fur
Then after the "downgraded" hair strands are solid objects just duplicate them, as in the spline example you show that iteration is not far from the original, however that shimmer/shine is lost.
Perhaps adding a few lights into the rendered version when you bake it out in projection, I would save the black/white/grey version the window spits out in the render preview.
Such as when you rendering/project a normal map you see the "greyscale" version and not the normal map that is exported, the preview image is lost but before closing that window you can save it out as whatever you want.
Hope that helped, if not possibly showed someone a new thing they might be able to use.
Otherwise if you have a friend or own maya that GMH2 Maya Hair Script for sale looks great for this stuff.
I think my original question kind of got lost and my example is generating more confusion about the nature or my problem,so I ask it more clearly here: someone knows of a way to force 3ds max's Projection modifier into see & bake the Hair & Fur modifier? :poly122:
hope it helps!
Now I'm struggling with baking all the hair cards in one big uv map after I've placed them on my model.
Hey man, what I would suggest is creating 4 or 5 cards. Lay them out to create UVs. Then duplicate.
I guess that is future reference unless you want to recreate your hair. With all your hair cards in place, you can attempt stacking the UVs on top of eachother.
Here's a breakdown which I found very helpful. https://cdn0.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/335/696/large/dmitrij-leppee-tutorial-02low.jpg?1460444998
i've started to use a vector graphics app (affinity in my case) to handle exactly this task and keep the strands in a non-destructive format as opposed to drawing them in a bitmap texture. pretty quick to just bang out a couple of strands, duplicate, tweak, adjust thickness and strand shape, layer them as needed, apply layer styles so you get some depth into the normal map bake.
the result can then be put into a layered bitmap document structure to extract and adjust further passes as needed. i normally only use normal, opacity and something akin to a cavity map though. color is provided by vertex colors in my method as mentioned over here: http://polycount.com/discussion/171496/vertex-colors-vs-bitmap-texture-cost-performance-considerations
that's affinity designer and an old polycount tool for generating normalmaps from greyscale, njob.
i still use parts of this method but instead of working strictly in 2D i now convert vectorgraphics into splines and give them depth like so -
gives the normal maps a lot more volume and makes for interesting edge highlights. also you can build up a library of hairclumps over time to reuse.
It works for me pretty well, time will tell if the character guys actually like the pipeline.
@radiancef0rge this sounds like an awesome tool man
what doing them first in 2D in a separate step helps with immensely is to just lay a hair clump down in a natural drawing fashion though as if you were painting it in photoshop. i never quite get into the flow like that with spline/curve drawing tools inside a 3D app.
I'd love to learn in-depth as to how you approach your hair- like vectorgraphics(?) into s plines (idk how you do that) and such.
"the result can then be put into a layered bitmap document structure to extract and adjust further passes as needed. "i normally only use normal, opacity and something akin to a cavity map though"
Can you share with use how exactly you go on about doing this? Thank you!
Because , i have done a render to texture in 3DS MAX. here is the result :