[beginner head] hair advice (please help!)

vavavoom

Hello,

got to the point now where i am happy with the head, i think.. (crits/advice on this still greatly appreciated and wanted),

but i have no idea now how to begin modeling the hair.

i looked at various other examples of heads on this site, but most seemed to be either a) too high-poly or b) low poly but with the hair covering the hairline, hats, helmets or no hair (making the hairline not visible or difficult to see entirely).

the problem i am having is where to begin the hairline, where to extrude polys out from, i hope this makes sense?

should i change some quads into triangles to achieve the hairline?

this model is my attempt at an 'animatable' low-poly game character, so i am trying to keep polys to a minimum.

as always, thanks for any advice, crits, etc. greatly appreciated



i am thinking the back of the head needs to be further out?









just out of interest, clicked the 'mesh smooth' button, this was the result:

LRoy

I would check out this post by hazardous. Tons of helpful tips

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1423494&postcount=69

vavavoom

thanks LRoy.

the problem i am having is knowing where and how to start the hairline.

i guess i need to extrude polys from the hairline to begin shaping the hair? but i'm not sure how to do this and i don't want to mess up the mesh too much in the process.

i cant find any good examples of how to achieve this. all low-poly models seem to have hair covering the hairline, no hair, hats, masks etc.. so it is difficult to see a good technique.

is it OK to make some quads into triangles along the hairline to achieve the shape?

LRoy

I suppose you could, but you may be overthinking. Just start extruding edges and play around with the positioning until you get the general shape. It will give you a better idea of what you want to do.

here's some examples showing what you're looking for.

http://wiki.polycount.com/HairTechnique

Jason Young

You don't necessarily need to cut it out of the original head mesh. Create a separate object(s) for the hair, get it how you want it to look, and then either leave it separate or cut and merge it into the head mesh.

vavavoom

will having the hair as a separate object be OK for animation?

my problem is, this is my first attempt at character modeling and i really want to be able to animate it and make it into an interesting pose later.

i apologize if asking these questions may seem like i am too lazy to look it up on the net, but i assure you i have spent hours trawling the net looking up tips, techniques, tutorials and there are so many different ones out there, i am lost as to which is best for what i want to achieve.

being able to seek advice from people who know on forums like this is a godsend and is what made me want to 'have a go' at modeling, so i really appreciate everyone's advice and crits.

could anyone advise me which approach i should take, a 'separate object' or 'cut from original mesh'? which is preferred when modeling for games?

p.s. i would like to add that this forum is by far the best of all the 3d forums out there. i have put my progress up on a few other sites, but this forums users have been quick and more plentiful to critique and advise. a big thanks to all! please keep it coming, it really helps keep up the enthusiasm and is so greatly appreciated

and p.p.s: from one noob to others out there, here's my attempt at passing on some useful advice; check out the 'joan of arc' tutorial (just google it to find no problem). i started this model from that tutorial and found it to be really useful to follow and then adapt it to make it into what you want.

Lord McMutton

I always have my characters split up into a number of separate pieces; I've yet to have any animation issues. In fact, I find it makes the rigging process far easier.

vavavoom

Thanks mr. banana. do i have to mold the separate object around the base mesh where it joins or 'touches' or just have it going into the base mesh and only worry about what can be seen 'coming out' of the base mesh? i hope that makes sense.

if anyone has any links on tutorials how to make hair as a separate object, that would be great

Dagon

I tend to have the same questions and issues as you do Vavavoom I'm sure it's fine with the hair clipping with the head itself as long as you can't see the head poking out of the hair then it should be fine good luck with your first character and hope you succeed in finishing it. Also about the eyes maybe for later on if you're going to have them animated as well I think the best approach would be to have the eyes as separate objects as well and also mind hidden geometry for example you wouldn't need the eyes as a complete sphere you could have them as half a sphere instead as you will never see the backend of the eyeball. Also about the hair too if you model the hair like a a box upside down where there are no faces underneath. That way you won't be wasting polygons and you will improve performance. I hope this little knowledge I have may help you in this project and many others to come! See you around!


And to answer your question about "molding/merging" the edges of that cube (assuming it is acting as hair) You don't need to do that you can but it's not always necessary as I stated above you can have it as a separate object even if it is intersecting with the head. So no worries

Btw if you plan on modelling the hair as long hair planes may help it look better take this for example: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqRifjr5AdY&feature=related"]Blenderella: Posed with swords - 4K - YouTube[/ame]



Check these too:
http://www.boogotti.com/root/female_bust/female_bust.html
http://www.sintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/sintel-paintover-wip01.jpeg

vavavoom

Thanks Dagon, very helpful.

i will have a play today and see what i can come up with, then i guess it will be better for folks to be able to advise more if i am going in the right direction

just a note: i went back to look at the 'joan of arc' tutorial to see the technique used there and couldn't make out how the hair is 'attached' to the head exactly. it's modeled around it, but no detailed description of how and at which points it is attached. maybe i am missing something..

oh, and crits, advice, comments on the head mesh still wanted and appreciated

haikai

From what you describe, the "helmet" method is what you might want to try for hair. It's probably not much different from what you've already surmised: You make a shape that matches the hairstyle and use alpha on the ends, and use additional alpha planes for a more layered look. Whether or not all this is welded together or not really depends on how you imagine it to be animated, but since most games with the specs you mention don't have fully dynamic hair it shouldn't be much of an issue.

Some old examples of helmet hair I did back on Guild Wars 1: http://haikai.net/gallery/nightfall_hairstyles.jpg

I'd give you wireframe screenshots, but I don't have access to 3DS Max these days. Note: we used a rather expensive alpha blending in GW1, using the full range of the alpha for smooth and soft blends. However, it came with the caveat that it was VERY tricky to make without running into sorting problems (you can see some in that image if you look closely), and there were times when it would simply break in the environments depending on what was behind it. And I'd show you some examples of Guild Wars 2 hair, but I really disagree with their usage of dithered alpha... Regardless of the tech, the theory remains the same (even Final Fantasy games, which have some of the best real-time hair, use a version of the helmet technique).

Anyway, the tricky part, as you say is the hair line. First of all, you could always just model the hair into the head. This seems to be rarely done in games these days, but could be the best option for really low spec models where you're not using alpha.

Or you could do what you started to with drawing where you want the hair line to be, duplicate those faces, and use that as a starting point for your hair (using alpha on the edges). To further sell the illusion you could paint some hair on the scalp mesh itself to soften the edge even more. You could keep the edge verts of the hair on top of the scalp's verts, but I wouldn't weld them to avoid smoothing errors. You could also offset the hair slightly above the scalp so that you don't have to conform to the geometry of the head so strictly (BTW, don't worry about triangles- they're perfectly fine in most cases).

Experiment with different approaches and ideas. Try one method and take it to the end, and don't worry too much about the "right way." Some solutions look better, but may require more work or be less flexible. It depends on your needs, and you'll soon find something that works for you on your own. :thumbup:

Selaznog

Yeah, what haikai said. Experimenting is key!