I baked fibermesh on a plane to get normal and diffuse ... it worked but it didnt look that good from a distance .. any way to improve it or any other way to do this ??
The only thing you can really do here is to process the mips to be sharper. A larger texture can help but you'll still run into the lower res mipmaps as you pull back, hence the smudgy look.
Alright one more question ...
how would you uv map the planes for hair? Would you create a "basic" shape that would have the uv's layed out and then just copy the one, tweaking the shape but leaving the uv's as they are.
You dont uv every single hair piece seperated right?
If i am using a zbrush hair planes IMM how am i supposed to uv them and then match the alpha and diffuse made using photoshop on it ??
Nurbs on maya keep the UV so you uv map one plane and then apply alpha then copy and shape it and it will have the same space on the uv map .. if what i said makes any sense.
but how am i supposed to do that using zbrush ? they used zbrush IMM hair strands in uncharted series so its possible
Okay, so... I've done many hairs recently, and they never really look like what you have at the moment. There are couple of rules that you have to keep in mind when you want to render them in real time. Here is the first one.... But this is a kind of general baking rule... you need to exaggerate every rounded detail, because this is mostly the thing that you will loose after distance (mipping). So basically the first and most important thing is that you need thinner fibers. So it will bake better... Also you need more separated hair parts, basically whati eric said. This will add more volume to your hair mesh. The perfectly working method is to bake a few hair parts for first, and then uv-ing those to the hair planes. This always worked for me, and it gave good results. Anyways, you don't need to put their starting point into the head, it is good if you have an alpha for them, and you simply float them really close to the head. The same goes for mustaches and such, so you won't get angular and sharp transition. This is an another topic, but I wanted to mention this to prevent further headaches. Epic's artists made some really good documentation about this, and they explain (at least with pics) things well. As always, good research will make you gold :P To give an idea, here is a kind of standard hair alpha that can be rendered perfectly in real time, without any mipping issue or such.
what you can see is basically what I said. Hair lines are separated, they are a lot more thicker and less dense than what you have. Again, try this kinda backwards method, and...Well, as I said, it always worked fine for me.
Replies
I guess i should do it in another way ?? any tips ?
Check out dylan bradly's zbrush to hair card tutorial.
or
Give GMH2 a try.
or
paint those cards from scratch.
how would you uv map the planes for hair? Would you create a "basic" shape that would have the uv's layed out and then just copy the one, tweaking the shape but leaving the uv's as they are.
You dont uv every single hair piece seperated right?
If i am using a zbrush hair planes IMM how am i supposed to uv them and then match the alpha and diffuse made using photoshop on it ??
but how am i supposed to do that using zbrush ? they used zbrush IMM hair strands in uncharted series so its possible
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/HairTechnique
A good workflow is to make a few hair pieces, UV and texture them, then duplicate them around to make the hair.
But there are many ways to make hair, experiment!
what you can see is basically what I said. Hair lines are separated, they are a lot more thicker and less dense than what you have. Again, try this kinda backwards method, and...Well, as I said, it always worked fine for me.