Alpha Channel Hair, seeking for help!

RE3456

Hi guys, I'm having major problem with coming up realistic hair tips in alpha channel. Usually what I do is use lasso tool and feather it and let paint white color into the alpha channel, however it doesn't look good at all, the tips of the hair looks really fake and plastic, does anyone have any good tips on how to create a realistic hair tips in alpha channel?

any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Eric Chadwick

Poopinmymouth has a good tutorial on this.
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/hair_tutorial/hair_01.htm

Alvin Sebasitan Hoo has another.
http://www.ordix.com/pfolio/tutorial/hair/transpmap01.htm

...but making believable hair takes some practice and a good eye.

Rick Stirling

I dont paint it on the alpha - I paint it on a layer, then copy it into an alpha channel.

The smudge tool is very useful for alpha hair, and its much better to make big strokes. trying to make 100's of individual strands often looks very bitty.

Ruz

actually I paint strands, but with the airbrush settings on 'fade'. seems to work quite well for me.

there is also a brush in pshop 7 that paint hair like strokes with a bit of tweaking

i also paint more than one alpha , so that you have some variation.



This is a bit it crap 'cause i did it with a mouse in about 2 minutes, but it might give a you few ideas on how to approach it.