Comb/groom custom mesh in maya or zbrush

goekbenjamin

Is there a way to Comb a custom mesh in maya or zbrush?
Like combing fibers in zbrush or like xgen-hair?

I know i can create a InsertBrush in zbrush, but what do i do than to make this groomable?

musashidan

You can add a custom mesh to xgen. Xgen is just using instanced geo primitives so you can input your custom mesh.

goekbenjamin

musashidan said:

You can add a custom mesh to xgen. Xgen is just using instanced geo primitives so you can input your custom mesh.

Do you mean taht archive-stuff? If yes than i may have to say i tried that, but i cant "comb/groom" it with that as far as i know right?

musashidan

Grooming I'm not sure as I haven't tried, but I found this and thought it was possible:

'XGen Arbitrary Primitive Generator is the system used for hair in both Disneys Zootopia and Pixars Toy Story 3'

poopipe

You can convert back and forth between groomed hair and the other stuff in xgen.  It's in the documentation but you'll have to dig a bit to find the best method

musashidan

I don't think you can groom custom archived geo though, or at least if you can there is no information on it that I can find(the quote above being all I found)
The archived geo seems more of a scatter system for rocks/tress/etc

goekbenjamin

musashidan said:

I don't think you can groom custom archived geo though, or at least if you can there is no information on it that I can find(the quote above being all I found)
The archived geo seems more of a scatter system for rocks/tress/etc

that is something that would change placing haircards in the industry i guess,  weird that noone evee thought about that?!

Load haircards as archive with randomness and then simply groom as desired, i would script it myself but idk how to make splines/curved brushable/groomable

musashidan

Well you can already do this in Ornatrix or Xgen by outputting cards instead of splines.

poopipe

With xgen you can generate guides from groomed hair that you can then use to place custom geometry. 

xgen groomed splines are essentially just bent cards with auto UVs anyway.  The main problem with using them is a lack of precise control over orientation.