Game Character hairplane solution?

ArcaneLeo

hi, i was creating a hair for the character, 
the character was modeled like realistic human, so the hair must be as realistic as possible

but its really a time consuming task to put the hair on character one by one, and its not just for one
character, its many character
and as the hair stack, it get more difficult to put the hair, your view are get block with hundred of other hair

and i work with long hair a lot, so its really a time consuming job

are there a solution for put a hairplane on character quickly, like some kind of trick, or plugin, or whatever that
can make the process much less repetitive

thomasp

i think it's fair to say there is no quick solution to make anything to a high standard.

for hair generation you could look into getting a head start with fibermesh or perhaps ornatrix and xgen though. it will not save you from managing lots of hairplanes and hand tweaking them though.

ArcaneLeo

one by one placement really take a lot of time

so generate for the base of hair with ornatrix,xgen and tweak it 
my biggest problem are the hair sometimes blocking view, even with xray, its hard to see

i try those solution, maybe it will save some time

[Deleted User]

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slosh

Oh man, this is a always a fun topic to discuss.  I would reiterate the sentiment that there is no easy way for hand placement.  Maya's X-gen and Zbrush Fibermesh can definitely help save some time but to make any hair look good, the card placement is important.  Especially if you are doing a realistically groomed hairstyle.  You COULD try to start with a shell that blocks out a certain amount of volume first to save some time of placing everything as cards.  I do this quite often.  I then hand place cards on top of the shell to create depth and flyaway strands, etc.  It's still a pain in the ass but does help a little.  

ArcaneLeo

thanks slosh for the info, so you use shell for blocking the shape of the hair?
yeah i didnt think of that technique before
great to know some technique especialy for faster workflow
the shell, are you use dynamesh for creating the basic shape?

ArcaneLeo

teriyakistyle
im using max
max didnt give a good transparency on viewport, when i handplace the hair, its hard to see the hair, sometimes i even dont know if the hair are overlapping or not

maybe its time to migrate to maya, thanks for the setting info, i test it on maya right away

ArcaneLeo

i get this ugly and blocky for the side view of the hair
i give it a good amount of polygon
i place the hair but its hard to close the gap of the hair, if i force to close the gap, the hair gonna overlapping

in the future i want to use physx for the hair

im using 2 sided material, so its not about the material

musashidan

Ornatrix is pricey but can really speed up the process. You could download a demo and get as many characters done in the trial period as possible. 

But, there is still no way around the fact that good results in 3d always require some effort on your part. Auto solutions only get you so far.

EliasWick

From my personal experience Maya is better when it comes to wokring on hair. I don't know why... It looks and feels much easier. Don't forget that your textures and the overall material will make a huge difference.

ArcaneLeo

yeah, im not complaining for manual work if i can cut the work time by half, at least at the blocking stage
hmm, i watch ornatrix trailer, and it look promising

eliaswick, so its really different for hair in maya
yeah the transparency on max are a bit cheap and low resolution
for hair i consider to migrate to maya for my own sake haha..

EliasWick

ArcaneLeo, I wouldn't judge you... The only reason I stay with 3Ds Max is because I feel comfortable with it by now... And you have to give them credit for the ease of creating architectual design like stuff

ArcaneLeo

yeah same with you, i love modelling in 3dmax, its fast and straightfoward
, and use it for everyday work
yeah no deny it, 3dmax was a great and solid tool for architectual design

maya keep getting new feature and plugin,
sometimes huge amount of feature and plugin can create a confusion