Garibaldi Express: Hair and Fur Plugin Beta [Commercial]

Joe Cotter

For a benchmark for what to make solid mesh and what to have as individual fibers I thought of future use where hairs would be able to react to actuator forces like wind etc... Items that would stay solid in the face of those (or be moved with bones) would be a good candidate for a solid mesh with a hair 'skin.' Areas where the hair would blow around would be better left as fibers. Ofc, this is just a concept I'm playing with at this point, everything is subject to change ;)

MangeyDesigner

Spyro said:

My first Garibaldi hairstyle. After much trial and error, and lots of surfacing dabbling I have a render :)

I modified the secondary specular, a little adjustment on the diffuse strength and assigned a respective colour to both specular channels, eventually everything started to blend the way I wanted. No crashes, and I will say it was to my surprise that the hair actually rendered 2/3 faster than Spartacus short trans-mapped hair (With NO Bump or displacement applied!) 15 mins it took to render.

Now I need to find a way to stop the hair sticking up at the crown (No node is sticking up btw so I cant cut it) And work out how to make his que.

Great looking hair :)

try turning the salt off altogether and increasing the pepper for a stronger darker colour.... and then increasing the salt just very slightly and decreasing the peper until you get the right blend you are after.

Also I like the crown tuft as it does add to the realism but the previous advice about lowering the parting value will help with this.

Looking forward to seeing more of your efforts with GH... and yes it really does push the barriers for realism with human hair :)

foleypro

Yes the more I work with GH the more I like it...So easy...Now that I know how to make Presets I am looking to do an animation with the hair and Puppeteer..We will see...

SpyroRue

Thanks very much Mangey! I have to say it was quite enjoyable to make overall (Once I got a grasp of the hair shader, things fell into place) I just need more time to make many more lol Xmas tends to leave us all with minimal time to do things haha. I did play with autopart, but it seemed to stick more hair up. But overall, I think it's not to bad having a few loose strands sticking up :)

Question to Foley - How do you go about saving GH presets? (Also, how do presets go with UV's on a character that has different UV's?) The kid I just made hair for is M4 UV's with M5 eyes. Older characters alternate between M4 and M5.

nieman151_516f901a4a

Spyro said:

But overall, I think it's not to bad having a few loose strands sticking up :)

I agree with others that the little bit of hair sticking up where it is on your model, is very natural for that hair style. It is very charming. :)
Also, good work on the shader, it's looking really good. I need to work on a good black -- I keep getting a greyish, washed out black or a deep black (like on my mane) with too few highlights.

SpyroRue

fivecat said:

Spyro said:

But overall, I think it's not to bad having a few loose strands sticking up :)

I agree with others that the little bit of hair sticking up where it is on your model, is very natural for that hair style. It is very charming. :)
Also, good work on the shader, it's looking really good. I need to work on a good black -- I keep getting a greyish, washed out black or a deep black (like on my mane) with too few highlights.

That was my problem to begin with. I altered both specular colors and lowered secondary specular intensity (All in Surfaces tab). All the values are really dependent on the exact colour of the hair.

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So I gave clippered hair a go. I found it more difficult to create than the boys hair. While I'm not fully happy with it, its a start. I'm assuming this kind of hairstyle requires multiple sets of nodes/paint layers.

Joe Cotter

Clipper Styles are usually tapered around the ear and hairline, They also show the variations in density all people have around the hairline, especially at the nape of the neck. Also, a swirl or two at the crown, some change in direction of hair growth in places... Basically, dirtying it up a little will make it look more realistic. Of course, if we wanted total realism we'd just take a picture usually, so it's whatever balance we like artistically.

nieman151_516f901a4a

This plug-in gives you the ability to do a lot with maps, but I haven't done anything other than the usual hair density. Hair does tend to twirl in certain areas, and fur does the same.

I wish there were more selection tool options, like painting a selection, and selecting all the curves not in a selection group.

MEC4D

The human hair have actually 3 areas of different density, 150% hair density on the back of the head , around 80% on the temples and around 100% on the front top , with the pressure you can create the exact density while painting the map on the model , then selecting 150K hair and the rest get automatic , the genesis head topology will not create the natural swirl om the back top and the style brushes can do that for you as well ., also the frontal line and back nape have much thinner hair as the main hair so called baby hair , I believe creating a correct topology hair cap will make it work even better and that will allow to get the swirl effect automatic as the hair seeds follow the topology , especially for the shorter style that need more attention in design as any other. it is like with real hair cut if you cut the hair wrong you get steps in place of correctly layered hair

SpyroRue

Thanks very much Mec! I can see what you mean about different areas with different densities. I'd love to create a correct generic male hair density texture in paint tab for import for any male hairstyle I make. I'm a little baffled as to how I paint at 150% when the value maxes at 1.0 as does the opacity. (I have much to learn with Garibaldi) Right now both hairstyles I've posted renders of are painted only at a solid 1.0 Value and opacity. I have been saving their painted textures for use with other hairstyles, but especially when the hair is very short, it certainly dont look right.

So when I'm painting the three areas of density (In paint tab), what values should I be using (Is it 150%=1.0, 80%=0.53, 100%=0.66 as 'opacity'???) And 150K would be 150 thousand hair strands? (So that's the distribution value? 150.0) Sorry Mec, I understand the concept what your talking about with the density, but I'm lost as to how the values are in decimal which Garibaldi uses lol

(Also, could you please post a sample screen cap of the your paint map on genesis head? Just to give me an Idea of how it should look :) I'm assuming from your info that it basically is supposed to be a smoothed shaded digital painted texture Pure white at the back, darkening at the sides and hairline.)

Edit to attach a screen cap of my existing Hair density texture. (As you can see, mine is solid 1.0)

MEC4D

If you don;t use pen with pressure you can change the value to 80% how darker the area how minder hair density , the white would be 100% the black base would be 0%
use the same amouth of hair later the map should place them regarding to what you paint on the map , I would start with a new map ( black, start from the back with value 100% then use on the temple 75-80% of the value actually it is very simple , you need also blend the edges between the different density deceasing slowly the value by 5 % until 80% crating smooth strokes . For the final front line use 65-70 % of the value and finish the edges around the finished map .

later use 100-150 hair and the density map will do the trick , try to use little clumping effect at the tips to bring them into harmony also you can use the curve to change the direction so they not stick out as on cactus :) practice ...practice.. practice ..
after you are happy with the base use some touch for the little asymmetrical effect

Spyro said:

Thanks very much Mec! I can see what you mean about different areas with different densities. I'd love to create a correct generic male hair density texture in paint tab for import for any male hairstyle I make. I'm a little baffled as to how I paint at 150% when the value maxes at 1.0 as does the opacity. (I have much to learn with Garibaldi) Right now both hairstyles I've posted renders of are painted only at a solid 1.0 Value and opacity. I have been saving their painted textures for use with other hairstyles, but especially when the hair is very short, it certainly dont look right.

So when I'm painting the three areas of density (In paint tab), what values should I be using (Is it 150%=1.0, 80%=0.53, 100%=0.66 as 'opacity'???) And 150K would be 150 thousand hair strands? (So that's the distribution value? 150.0) Sorry Mec, I understand the concept what your talking about with the density, but I'm lost as to how the values are in decimal which Garibaldi uses lol

(Also, could you please post a sample screen cap of the your paint map on genesis head? Just to give me an Idea of how it should look :) I'm assuming from your info that it basically is supposed to be a smoothed shaded digital painted texture Pure white at the back, darkening at the sides and hairline.)

Edit to attach a screen cap of my existing Hair density texture. (As you can see, mine is solid 1.0)

SpyroRue

Thanks so much for your help Mec!! I think I now understand everything you're getting at :) I'll give a go and report back with the results :cheese:

Cheers!

SpyroRue

So here is the density map I painted... Is this what you were describing?

I painted it in Garibaldi then touched it up in photoshop to get a nice edge and to help blend it all together.

I'm about to test it with the actual hair and see how it goes :)

MEC4D

yes exactly, you need to test with hair and see if the density on the temples are enough or to much , but the base you did is nice
you got it right ..

Spyro said:

So here is the density map I painted... Is this what you were describing?

I painted it in Garibaldi then touched it up in photoshop to get a nice edge and to help blend it all together.

I'm about to test it with the actual hair and see how it goes :)

SpyroRue

Thanks so much for your help Mec :) I'm adding hair now .

SpyroRue

Here is my recent results. I edited and refined the distribution texture to work better for this character, darkened the temples.

I'm thinking this is a good improvement over my last attempt at this hairstyle. There is still some improvement that can be made and I might trim the neck a little to taper the length as suggested to me the other day. I think, to truly get this hairstyle to be at its fullest, I may need to create a colour texture so that the temples and edges can be lighter and less prominent and more transparent in appearance.

I found that scraggle was really helpful along with subtle clumping.

Joe Cotter

Mm, like the one before this one better.... Hair can be hard...

SpyroRue

Tell me about it. :down: clippered hair just cant be done with Trans mapped hair, and it proves just as mind boggling to do in Garibaldi. Like I mentioned earlier, I found it much easier to do the kids hair than this guys.

SpyroRue

fivecat said:

This plug-in gives you the ability to do a lot with maps, but I haven't done anything other than the usual hair density. Hair does tend to twirl in certain areas, and fur does the same.

I wish there were more selection tool options, like painting a selection, and selecting all the curves not in a selection group.

Select all and inverse selection would be a welcome addition too :)

Is the hair length in distribution supposed to affect the hair when you go into styling tab? I'm finding 'Hair length' has no effect once to progress to stying. And when you make a selection of hair and use extend/extrude it still affects the hair that isn't selected.

MEC4D

you need to pull them down a little bit more with the tool , all of them so you don't have bald spot effect , use at last 125 K hair
it getting a lot better just need some final touch up , use the curl tool to pull them down just a little bit , the areas around the neck and ears looks really nice

Spyro said:

Here is my recent results. I edited and refined the distribution texture to work better for this character, darkened the temples.

I'm thinking this is a good improvement over my last attempt at this hairstyle. There is still some improvement that can be made and I might trim the neck a little to taper the length as suggested to me the other day. I think, to truly get this hairstyle to be at its fullest, I may need to create a colour texture so that the temples and edges can be lighter and less prominent and more transparent in appearance.

I found that scraggle was really helpful along with subtle clumping.

SpyroRue

Mec4D said:

you need to pull them down a little bit more with the tool , all of them so you don't have bald spot effect , use at last 125 K hair
it getting a lot better just need some final touch up , use the curl tool to pull them down just a little bit , the areas around the neck and ears looks really nice

Spyro said:

Here is my recent results. I edited and refined the distribution texture to work better for this character, darkened the temples.

I'm thinking this is a good improvement over my last attempt at this hairstyle. There is still some improvement that can be made and I might trim the neck a little to taper the length as suggested to me the other day. I think, to truly get this hairstyle to be at its fullest, I may need to create a colour texture so that the temples and edges can be lighter and less prominent and more transparent in appearance.

I found that scraggle was really helpful along with subtle clumping.

Here's my results following your advice. I used the curl tool to it's max and had to go further by using the brush tool. I'm now using 300.0 Amount under distribution tab.

What do you think? :)

EDIT: also reduced both salting and peppering. I still need to make a colour texture for it to relieve the predominance of the hairline and temples.

MEC4D

Very nice I like it , when I shot pictures for textures by guy with short hair like that it was almost the same effect, we looking straight into the hair direction , I would add some light on the left side just a bit to bring the dimension out even more , hair need light AO or deep shadow maps , I think adding some light on the right side will lite up the tips of the hair making them more translucent ( no transparent ) so you will not need any extra maps for light tips , play with light

I see the light coming from the left side creating nice affect there but it is missed on the middle and the right side , that why it looks little flat with just Global light in this area , but I like the style you created , it is far from anything we see and add a lot of realism

MEC4D

P.S next time try to get closer to the face on the temple area , it will bring the face more in balance
from nature the line with the end of the eyebrows are ,where the hair are most closer to the face especially in younger people , the hair recede back slowly with the time

SpyroRue

Thanks so much for you pointers on this :) I'd be still pulling out my own hair wondering what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it lol

I did a render of angled on the front of the face... I have a balding affect there, But with some more brush tooling I'll be able to clean it up. The other side of his head is looking good though, just the front. I'll play with the lighting soon too :)

Thanks again, and have a wonderful Christmas :)

SpyroRue

Mec4D said:

P.S next time try to get closer to the face on the temple area , it will bring the face more in balance
from nature the line with the end of the eyebrows are ,where the hair are most closer to the face especially in younger people , the hair recede back slowly with the time

Oh wow, I see what you mean, that definitely flows more realistically. A simple adjustment to the distribution map should refine that, I'll fix that now :) You certainly know your hair, Cheers!

MEC4D

you welcome , as I mentioned before creating a tight hair cap for the hair will do it better, and the hair will flow with the topology, right now you have high resolution temple and the top and back is low the distribution get different if you not use enough hair , try to play with the seeds , add little more hair , and move with the coursor on screen to add higher value of the curl to get the hair falter, the hair growing in directions as on the body , from the top to the front , from the top to the end and on the temple from the front backwards starting to blend with the back hair on the line with the ear. .. but you are on your way and so far so good

Merry Christmas to you as well and everyone else ..

Spyro said:

Mec4D said:

P.S next time try to get closer to the face on the temple area , it will bring the face more in balance
from nature the line with the end of the eyebrows are ,where the hair are most closer to the face especially in younger people , the hair recede back slowly with the time

Oh wow, I see what you mean, that definitely flows more realistically. A simple adjustment to the distribution map should refine that, I'll fix that now :) You certainly know your hair, Cheers!

SpyroRue

Here I refined the temples and Sideburns.

Attached Comparison between the most recent with the Edited/Refined one

MEC4D

so much better ... i like it

Spyro said:

Here I refined the temples and Sideburns.

Attached Comparison between the most recent with the Edited/Refined one

SpyroRue

Mec4D said:

so much better ... i like it

Spyro said:

Here I refined the temples and Sideburns.

Attached Comparison between the most recent with the Edited/Refined one

Thanks Mec!! - Sometimes ones art needs to be looked on with fresh eyes to help with the improvement. Amazing difference that realignment of the temples makes. :)

MangeyDesigner

@Spyro, It's awesome to see the progress on this and it sure is looking very realistic. :) Great job!

Would you consider sharing your distribution map once you have finished it as it has a lot going for it . I could imagine it being a really good starting point for lots of styles. I have one I did myself that I use as my regular starting point but I don't think it is as good as yours :)

btw Merry Christmas to all the GHers out there. I am in Oz so about to go to bed soon and let Santa visit. Happy holidays one and all and maybe I will have something to post tomorrow night as I am working on a render with a Unicorn and fae that is using GH. :)