Hair Simulation Starter Kit/Tutorial

Weiser_Cain

So I just saw The Incredibles and now I want to learn how to simulate hair.
I know nothing and next to nothing about anything other than modeling. What tools tips and tutorials should I look into? Max(or max compatible) would be best, but I'll move to another program entirely if it's clearly superior.

Daz

Well it somewhat depends on your main 3D app. of choice. Most of the big apps. have their own hair system built in. Maya's I dont like so I use the "Shave and a haircut' plug-in for Maya. They are just about to release a Max version imminently. The really great thing about it is the hair styling UI. It's basically a sort of combing/styling toolset which is pretty powerful and quite intuitive. There are other hair systems out there though. I believe Shag Hair for Max is meant to be pretty good.
And yeah, the propietary hair system used by Pixar is amazing. The credits showed an entire 'hair' team.

Weiser_Cain

Well it's like I said I use max but I'll change to the best program if I can get better results(I can already hear my wallet crying).

Daz

Changing your 3D app. of choice just for its hair system seems a bit overkill no? As said, there are plenty of decent plug-in hair systems.

TechSmith

Look in the plug-in thread. There's a link to one called ornatrix or something like that. I tried it, it works, give it a shot. There's also Shag Hair for Max. I'm lazy so you have to google it yourself.

Toomas

Talking about Incredibles hair, did anyone else notice that Pixar used rather cheap looking alpha-hair in some scenes? Or was it just me :S

Weiser_Cain

Which scenes?

Toomas

The boy had it and the redheaded brick had it, i think it was mostly in fast moving scenes. Maybe because it would have taken ages to motion blurr better hair or something.