Which Type of Hair is Better, Sculpted or Planes?
polycounter lvl 2
This question might have an obvious answer but. I am currently working on the character for the monthly challenge and have a question about hair. Specifically which type if better, sculpted or planes? I have been looking around and have seen AAA games use both types. For example, Mass Effect 3 uses both sculpted hair and poly plane hair.
The same goes for the Last of Us.
So my question to everyone is this. Is there a specific reason, other than personal preference, to use one type of hair over the other?
The same goes for the Last of Us.
So my question to everyone is this. Is there a specific reason, other than personal preference, to use one type of hair over the other?
Replies
TressFX Trumps all.
^__^
Disagree.
We'll have some cool stuff to show at GDC:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Deus-Ex-Universe-Includes-AMD-TressFX-3-0-Hair-Solution-Will-Detail-It-at-GDC-2015-in-March-472661.shtml
/shameless plug
How 'Good' it can look, is largely dependant on the rendering tech, and the artist using it. But the tech itself is waaay superior to planes in pretty much every conceivable way.
And when you make hair cards, you usually use an underlying 'helmet' for volume.
Does everyone tend to use some sort of plugin or package, or are there some standard techniques?
- Start from the back of the head and work your way up towards the crown. Then sides to the part line, then front/top to the crown.
- Use White/Blonde hair textures, for working (dark will hide too many mistakes).
- Do not let the hair cards intersect.
- Rather than paint curvature in your texture, paint the hair relatively straight, and model in the curvature.
- Snap the hair card to a vert, or an edge. This will ensure you don't have 'floating' hair.
- Make sure you have enough curvature on the cards, so you don't see a lot of empty space when looking at the card perpendicularly.
- Make sure the opaque part of the hair card covers the roots of the hair cards.
zzz tons more to think of..
Popol - It can be tough to know if what you're doing is stupid, or just difficult. I'll gladly take difficult, though.
Jacque - Thanks a ton. I went down the list and started checking things off. I definitely didn't know you shouldn't let them intersect, and the first tip is especially useful. I think a lot of my problems were from just having a bad starting texture, one that was too transparent.
Dustin - I recently moved over to Maya, (from Cinema4D) and juuust about got to the point where I can actually do work, i.e., the majority of my time isn't spent Googling for help. That makes tips like this very much appreciated, because I know where to look in this massive program. Thanks!