Hair planes

Timidy

Hi guys I have a hair model I'm doing and it just looks better if I turn off the ability to recieve or cast shadows. When it can cast shadows it looks wierd since it casts shadows on itself




It needs to be able to cast and recieve shadows so I'm lost. If I could somehow make it not recieve its own shadows then that would work. I don't know if a translucency map would fix it.

Ace-Angel

Well, first off, what is the package you're using and material?

Timidy

I'm on 3ds Max 2014 and using standard Blinn mats.

PolyHertz

You can turn on/off the ability to cast and/or receive shadow in the objects properties via right click. Just turn off recieve shadows for the hair mesh but leave cast shadows on, if I'm understanding your question correctly.

Timidy

I want it to be able to cast and receive shadows, but not from itself.

PolyHertz

Ah, you want to turn off self-shadowing while retaining the ability to cast on to other objects and receive from other objects. I don't think that's possible in Maxs viewport by default, but there might be some custom shaders out there that support it.

Eric Chadwick

Are you rendering, or using a live viewport preview?

If you're rendering, you could set up a separate material for the hair, and tweak the Self-Illumination a bit so the shadows aren't so dark.

You could also make the hair a separate object, then tweak the Object Properties so it isn't self-shadowing.

Timidy

@PolyHertz exactly. I wish there were a simple setting to turn off self-shadowing.

@Eric I'm rendering but want to keep game engines in mind. I'll try turning on the Self-Illumination, I think that will help. The hair is a separate mesh with separate mat id. A translucency map may help too if I can make one.

Do Self-Illumination properties export to game engines?

Eric Chadwick

Depends on the exporter.

If you want game-like materials, set your viewport to DirectX and use a shader:
http://wiki.polycount.net/CategoryShaders

Ace-Angel

First off, use Anisotropic, not Blinn since you hair is no Fur solution, although I'm not sure how much they updated it in Max 2014. If you need 2 highlights for hair, use the Multi-Material (I know that they're broken in Max 2010 and lower).

Secondly, play around with Ambient, that is your best solution so far, since Transparency in standard materials in Max don't have scatter properties for light transmission, etc in a way that would make hair feasible.

You could try looking into Mental Ray, that is you best bet if you want to have access to some fancy shaders inside Max.

Self Illumination could also work, but if you character as much as enters a dark place, you will notice the hair glowing, since it won't be tied to your Diffuse color like the ambient.

As far as I know, most engines don't keep your material properties and you need to apply the specific ones in your engine or create them (UDK, Unity, etc). At the same time, some engines offer plugins (like CE3, GameEmbryo, etc) that allow you apply their specific materials in Max, which is exported as code, but again, you'll be limited to what the engine allows or what it requires out of you, not any material from Max.