Iterative Hair Production for Game Characters

smessier

I put together a quick overview of my current hair production techniques. It's not a blow by blow hour long video so you won't be learning the intricacies of any of the programs I show, so I recommend this tutorial for developers with a basic to intermediate knowledge of Zbrush, Maya, and Photoshop. However, the great thing about this workflow is that it doesn't require any one program (maybe Xnormal because it's awesome).

I've struggled to find an up to date overview of hair production on youtube, and I wanted to fill that void for intermediate artists still trying to figure out some higher level production needs, like hair. These concepts and techniques have been pulled from various sources around the web during my travels to learn how to make game hair, so if you've seen some tutorials, or have supplementary info please share it here. And of course, if you have specific questions about anything I've done in the video I can definitely answer them.

Hope you find this useful.  -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oMe9xvr6fI

monster

Wow, thanks for sharing. So many steps, but the results are nice.

smessier

Thanks man.  Yeah, without working with a plugin or two I have to disperse the workflow across a lot of different programs.  But the over all approach doesn't require a single program.  The main things I wanted to highlight are that when producing hair you can be fluid on UVs, and with the texture map baked early you can see results immediately and iterate with additional clump textures and layering. 

I used to work blind without hair textures and would struggle to build out good hair layering and flow.  That was mainly because I didn't respect the amount of time needed to create good hair, so with this approach it's about front loading some of the work to make getting to the final result less painful.  I find beginner/intermediate 3d artists get into a rigid task flow, where first you model, then you retopologize, unwrap, bake, texture... With hair that just doesn't work well.

Thanks for watching man, I really appreciate it.

musashidan

Very solid workflow. You're right, a lot of beginners/intermediates get overwhelmed with the asset workflow in general. There are so many steps, so many tools, so many applications that they often find something that works somewhat and become static. But with the constant rate of workflow developement as devs like Allegorithmic and Pixologic keep pushing it, we are at a stage now where iteration and a non-linear workflow allows us to fluidly move up and down the pipeline as we create. Rather than the multi-application workflow bogging us down it has, in fact, freed us comletely. Great video. Cheers.

smessier

Thanks for watching Musashidan, I appreciate your feedback.  Dig your work too, and it looks like there could be some things I could learn on your youtube channel, so I'll check it out.  Thanks again man.

musashidan

Thanks mate. I don't know what you might learn on my channel, though, as a lot of it is aimed at beginners and intermediates.....but you never know.