Ben's Hair-Texture-Generator for Haircards

goekbenjamin

 What a great threadname to begin with...

I am an aspiring character artist,

and as an character artist we all have to get some hair textures for our characters of course...

Actually to get some good and naturally looking hairstrands you either have to use:

1. Maya + Xgen + Arnold, then correct lighting etc etc, and than bake that on a plane

OR

2. paint yourself some hair


Because it takes so much time i decided to create an hair-texture-generator inside an BROWSER in which you can define:
- Hairwidth
- Strand count
-  density
- color
- weaviness etc etc..

That is my current stage (ignore the wonderful ui here):



That is some textures it generates:



please let me know what you think about it

goekbenjamin

UPDATE: 
- UI
- responsive design
- changed code base for better maintenance (angular)

Obscura

Can we have a link so we could try it out?

goekbenjamin

hey Obscura, 
unfortunately no, because it is still in super-alpha stage and i have no hoster atm.,
however i will announce it when it is online

goekbenjamin

just another test:

Mink

Could you possibly make it export all the required textures for UE4 hair cards? 

Alex_J

Great initiative. 

Would love to try it out whenever you feel it's ready. 

One thing I'd love to see is pretty strong clumping parameters. For any character with wet/oily/dirty hair, or basically any animals, having realistic clumping is important. 

goekbenjamin

input parameters will be added/refined (just like clumping)

exporting other maps like normals etc is also on the todo list, even if i am not sure how i will get the desired results

goekbenjamin

You also may suggest which maps are essential/desired for you all to work with

Obscura

ID map and occlusion would be great. They are used in the hair shader in Paragon. Also, I see a lot of aliasing on the thin lines, so maybe an anti aliasing multiplier would be good too.

goekbenjamin

Obscura said:

ID map and occlusion would be great. They are used in the hair shader in Paragon. Also, I see a lot of aliasing on the thin lines, so maybe an anti aliasing multiplier would be good too.

Thanks for the input!
Yeah that "aliasing" is something i have to fix too.

goekbenjamin

I guess maps for PBR are essentiall too?

Obscura

I guess. Here is a link to what the Unreal hair shader would require. Well. Not all of the maps are must needed, but some of them are essential. Scroll down to the hair section:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Resources/Showcases/PhotorealisticCharacter

Hair implementation varies between engines. Unreal does it like in the link, but I know, in Toolbag, you can use normal map too, while the Unreal one doesn't even allow you to use one.

I think you should add dilation too. So The edges of the non opacity textures can be expanded.

goekbenjamin

Just wanted to let you guys know i am still working on that project,
i was short with time because of other stuff i had to do, i am also evaluate if i use another language than javascript because when i would "bake", i had to "fake-bake" it, because of the lack of real 3D and lighting.

For now, here have a Santa Claus Beard texture

goekbenjamin

Hey, i had to push that project alittle bit to the back because of other stuff.
From now i can work on that project again, and will keep updating this thread.

I updated the internal code which generates the hair strands to increase performance, but its still in super-alpha mode, so still no early access here.

musashidan

Just saw this now. I currently do hair atlases in Xgen and the main 3 modifiers that seem to get the best results are 3 different clumping layers at low-high frequency, a Cut modifier that randomises the length, and a noise mod on top.

another factor is tapering the width at the root as well as the tip. It helps blend the root with the scalp geo, along with a slight variation in root position(vertically) and a slight fade out in opacity.

Great work.

goekbenjamin

Alright, update status:

1. Rebuild that whole thing from ground up to provide real 3D, so the output will be real usable 3d maps

2. Tapering (finaly)
Albedo without tapering


Albedo with tapering

Notice: no recalculation of strands done here, so the form of strands will stay the same, only the taper will change,
you have full controll on how  strong the taperis and on what positions it will happen

Normal (with tapering)



Define the shape of the haircard it self via controls (like guids in xgen)
Notice: the controlling will be improved, so just "overlook" that

Straight Shape


Curved Shape

The Controls basically represents the shape of the left-halv side of the hair card itself

To fully understand the "shape-thing" have a look at this "Shape3":



- cards can be manually placed by hand, so no restrictions here
- cards can overlap each other
- and of course the "usual" basic stuff is also adjustable (Strand-thickness, albedo-color, strand count)



Let me know what you think.
Of course i will add more maps, add a cutmodifier as suggested and much more.

Cheers!

Spaceboss

Any more progress on this so far? Cool stuff you're making fam

goekbenjamin

Spaceboss said:

Any more progress on this so far? Cool stuff you're making fam

Hey, thanks a lot!
Currently, I am working on something different, but for now, I paused that project!
I will post here as soon as I will begin to work again on it

3DModelGirl84

I am very interested in this. if you need any testers I would love to help  

goekbenjamin

3DModelGirl84 said:

I am very interested in this. if you need any testers I would love to help  

Hey, thanks alot for your interest! I will have to do some big rework on the base of the software! ATM i am working on smtn different  bit as soon i will be working on it again i will post it here!