Like totally! Like doing hair.

oXYnary

My first time creating a 3d hair piece. Any good tutorials out there that focuses on this? Went to archives really quick to the old reference thread (we should start a new one). Didn't see anything specific.

I mean I understand that it should be more sculptural and see the hair as shapes versus strands. And for things like bangs using extruded edges with an alpha.

But then there are things Im unsure of in that do you use it as a 3d piece or connect directly to the hair line? Or is the hair piece the best intermediate step when working on the high poly version? Things like that.

I guess to really drive it home would be to see someones process. Maybe even what they do once they get it into zbrush as far as masks.

And a real quick one is in this day and age with arm hair and such. Is it still just a texture blip on the diffuse? Or are some of the modern engines using shaders to mimick its 3dimensionality?

Eric Chadwick

In my opinion arm hair is too subtle to be worth the extra passes it takes to render in realtime. Unless you have a furry creature, but in any case it totally depends on the hardware you're devloping for, how much framerate/memory latitude you have in any given scene/situation.

Didn't Poopinmymouth have a hair tutorial on his site? There's also the FFX model viewer, which was an excellent way to examine realtime hair that has been done very well.

oXYnary

So just a diffuse and specular blip?

Im looking on pimms site and only see one on texturing which does cover modeling but not advanced enough for what Im seeking. Im looking for one for next gen creating the hair volume. Things like the edge loops and should follow the flow of the combing, or things like over or under emphasizing shift in the hairs volume. Tweaking and adding the hair detail in zbrush.

Do I make extruded edges have two sided polys have separate uvs because otherwise wouldnt the normal map look inverted if I simply use double sided polygones in the engine (looking at ued 3). Or does that mess up the alpha then having two separate alphas one right behind the other?

Eric Chadwick

I don't know precisely how UE3 handles mirrored normalmaps, but I bet they'll look correct on the backfaces. Most problems I've heard of people having are when the seam is out in the open, like right down the middle the character's face. Better to reuse UVs as much as possible.

Again, take a look at the FFX viewer. Loads of useful info to be had, better than any tut I've seen.

For next-gen hair, take a look at more advanced shader options like BRDF, to get that luverly hair specular. I doubt a normalmap is going to help much, unless it's taken all the way down to a detail map, then maybe.

CrazyButcher

the normalmap as Eric said, cant really help you. Think of a single hair as "pipe", now when you move a light in the viewport around the pipe you will see that it doesnt have that shiny look hair has. as you lack anisotropic reflection. that is really the key to hair, that the specular "follows" the strand and is not a single small spot. a normalmap alone wont help you there.

oXYnary

there are a few shader combinations that mimick this. Would creating a separate masked 8 bit alpha to separate the arm and head hair and apply this separate specular shader to them? Or is that going overboard for a realtime engine? I was planning on doing a subsurface texture as was (to show the amount of detail im trying to obtain).

Is ffx viewer that thing in nvidias fx development package? Can I export out the fx file and importmit into ued3 or will I have to remake one in ued3?

Is there any particular masks that people have found productive to use in zbrush for hair detail?

pior

Naaaah, FFX stands for Final Fantasy X You know, that game with ladies as main characters and males looking like ladies.

Also, I don't think you should bother with hair detailling in Zbrush. It can be helpful for things like afro hair wich has a solid quality, or 'gelsculpted' hairstyles, but other than that if you are looking for flowing, silky, smooth female hair its all in the diffuse (ala FFX) or in the shader in my opinion.

Sculpted micro detail will only make it look like these not so mature pencil renderings where hair is drawn ... hair by hair.

I think that if you are going for, say, a Marylin kind of look, you could sculpt the curls in Z and get a decent 'marble sculpt' result. Yet I think that carefuly placed, curly alpha planes would look better ingame, for a realistic look that is.

MoP

The FFX viewer Eric is referring to is the Final Fantasy 10 model viewer.

oXYnary

Im making very short cropped hair with some bangs up front. Like a skaters. So thats why I thought zbrush would help with capturing that jagged flow. How do you handle modern hair pior in zbrush? Simple create the volume and texture it? I just thought it wouldnt be professional to make all these shaders for the skin and simply have the hair being dull.

No shit on final fantasy? I thought you two were joking at first.

Edit: Well since I dont have a ps2, nor know anyone who plays ff series. Anyone who has exported those models to max who would be willing to let look at them, PM me. Though I think the hair Im working with isnt extreme as those developers do (again more interest in sculptural shaping versus layering).

Eric Chadwick

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=77520&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

oXYnary

Yea I looked at that thread. I missed that portion later on to the link to the chinese site hosting the models packages.

Any references to next gen models with normal mapped hair that you recommend I look at since afaik ffx aren't normal mapped?

EDIT: Spoke to soon. I got the models in rar from the chinese site but now I cant view them because the official site... "FFXView (verion 0.2) (unavailable right now...)" Any place else to find it?