Look at my Hair (LAMH) Official Thread: update 1.6.0.2 released

Skiriki · May 2013

Note -- it is hair on HEAD that has count of 100-120K. :)

Beards etc are extra.

And when you are in scene tab, after exporting the hair, pick the corresponding hair object, and head over to surfaces tab.

Nice lights: definitely want something with shadows and one for specular; turning down bias in shadow settings from 1.0 (usual default) to 0.2 will let the hair do some shadowing of its own. (Bias = how small an item can be before system even considers calculating shadows for it, I've understood.)

I'll attach a picture to this post in a mo', hold on.

Example: A hairy ball with Gemologica's "Niobium-M" shader. Lights used, Lantios Lights 2 set, with raytraced instead of shadowmapped shadows.

acocq_0801c2dc51 · May 2013

Skiriki said:
Note -- it is hair on HEAD that has count of 100-120K. :)
Beards etc are extra.

Yeah, I understood that ... the beard has 15k, the headhair 50k.

Thanks for taking the time to help me ! I noticed on your screen shot that the adjustments (Glossiness, Specular Strength) look very different from the ones I see. Is that a function of the shader you used ?

I've done some tests with added lights ... that seems to improve the result quite a bit. Still got some smudging, but better than before.

I do not understand all the sliders/adjustments for the shader ... sooooo many options, sooo little time :)

Can you give me a screen shot of the render settings you have ? Maybe that is also affecting it.

In addition, right now I am getting intermittent crashes when working with LAMH & DAZ 4.6 ... think I'll call it a night and try again tomorrow.

Cheers,
Andreas

acocq_0801c2dc51 · May 2013

OK, here is finally something that remotely looks like real hair ... I proudly present: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown ... still not completely satisfied, but certainly a lot more so than before ...

One thing I ran right smack into was the fact that LAMH set up the surface for the hair with the texture maps for the various regions of the figure (e.g. the SkinHead, SkinFace) and I did not think of deleting them in the Hair Group ... this caused frustration to no end, because instead of the color presets I selected, the hair kept turning out the "wrong" color.

I noticed this only when I looked at the shader for the LAMH object and found that the color settings for Root/Tip/Specular all had the Genesis character textures assigned ... OK, maybe to everyone else in the LAMH universe this was obvious (and maybe even documented), but I was not aware of it :red:

Cheers,
Andrea

Skiriki · May 2013

Practise makes perfect. Or at least better -- trust me, when I got into the testing crew, it sure was interesting times. :D But that's a great start!

cwichura · May 2013

So I have debated asking about this for a while now, as I realize it's a long shot. But in the end, it can't hurt to at least pitch the idea...

LuxRender has added support for cyHair files in Lux 1.3, allowing Lux to load hair strands defined as curves. This has several benefits: first, the hair files are significantly smaller than OBJ files, load much faster, and don't bring the composing application (e.g., Studio) to its knees supporting millions of polys in the viewport. Lux can use the cyHair file segments exactly as defined, or use Catmull-Rom curve fitting to add/remove points from the strands as desired (e.g., you might lower the segment count for a figure in the background). Lux has options to tessellate the curves either as ribbons or solids (with the number of sides to the solid specified by the user). In addition to the thickness of each point in the hair strand, cyHair files can specify colour, alpha and UV coordinates (a Lux extension to the file format, primarily to drive the hair colour from the underlying shape's UV mapping such as for the pelt on an animal), or any combination of the above. This gives a lot of flexibility for how hair colour is supported, more than the current OBJ export supports.

There are a couple issues, of course. First, this is obviously a niche use case, as it applies only to folks using LuxRender (or 3DS Max users with the Hair Mesh plugin). Second, DAZ itself doesn't know anything about cyHair files, so how to handle it in Studio becomes problematic, and third, the LuxRender exporters for Studio would need to add support for cyHair files to make this seamless to end users (e.g., not have to edit the generated scene files by hand to hack in the hairfile Shape loading). However, I think a reasonable approach if LAMH was to support exporting cyHair files is the following: In addition to exporting the cyHair file, LAMH would also export a low resolution OBJ file. The OBJ would allow Studio to display the hair in scene setup, but because it's low resolution, would not have an impact on viewport performance. The OBJ, of course, would not be suitable for final renders. The OBJ in Studio also serves another important function: it would have the same local origin as the cyHair file, allowing exporters to generate the proper transforms in Lux to correctly place the cyHair file in world space when it is loaded. The OBJ file could have a custom property added to its object node in Studio with the filepath to the cyHair file. This custom property would allow exporters to recognize the OBJ as a hairfile instead of a standard mesh, so the exporter can include the hairfile Shape reference in the generated export, rather than the low resolution hair mesh.

The cyHair file is very simple in structure. Lux's version of the cyHair utility for loading and saving cyHair files can be found at http://src.luxrender.net/lux/file/68ff7779d02e/shapes/cyhair/cyHairFile.h (I give the Lux version, since it has the extensions for reading UV coordinates that the original cyHair file does not have).

Thanks

Scott Livingston · May 2013

Andreas_C said:
Any recommendation for "nice lights" ?
When I increase the haircount to 120K, I get extreme smudging ... and I am also confused because Scott-Livingston said that he only used a hair count of some 3k ... there's definitely something I don't understand !

Sorry...missed that until just now. My 3k hair count was for the facial hair ONLY. I didn't use Look At My Hair for the head hair in those renders I posted.

I am working on a full-body project now...starting with 200k as a hair count (although realistically it should be higher, I'd expect...perhaps a lot higher).

Oh, thanks to everyone who commented! :)

Kendall Sears · May 2013

I keep up with the progress of these things. There's no reason that LAMH can't support cyHair. I won't comment, at the moment, on our future plans other than to say that the future is bright for LAMH users in many aspects.

Kendall

cwichura said:
So I have debated asking about this for a while now, as I realize it's a long shot. But in the end, it can't hurt to at least pitch the idea...
LuxRender has added support for cyHair files in Lux 1.3, allowing Lux to load hair strands defined as curves. This has several benefits: first, the hair files are significantly smaller than OBJ files, load much faster, and don't bring the composing application (e.g., Studio) to its knees supporting millions of polys in the viewport. Lux can use the cyHair file segments exactly as defined, or use Catmull-Rom curve fitting to add/remove points from the strands as desired (e.g., you might lower the segment count for a figure in the background). Lux has options to tessellate the curves either as ribbons or solids (with the number of sides to the solid specified by the user). In addition to the thickness of each point in the hair strand, cyHair files can specify colour, alpha and UV coordinates (a Lux extension to the file format, primarily to drive the hair colour from the underlying shape's UV mapping such as for the pelt on an animal), or any combination of the above. This gives a lot of flexibility for how hair colour is supported, more than the current OBJ export supports.

There are a couple issues, of course. First, this is obviously a niche use case, as it applies only to folks using LuxRender (or 3DS Max users with the Hair Mesh plugin). Second, DAZ itself doesn't know anything about cyHair files, so how to handle it in Studio becomes problematic, and third, the LuxRender exporters for Studio would need to add support for cyHair files to make this seamless to end users (e.g., not have to edit the generated scene files by hand to hack in the hairfile Shape loading). However, I think a reasonable approach if LAMH was to support exporting cyHair files is the following: In addition to exporting the cyHair file, LAMH would also export a low resolution OBJ file. The OBJ would allow Studio to display the hair in scene setup, but because it's low resolution, would not have an impact on viewport performance. The OBJ, of course, would not be suitable for final renders. The OBJ in Studio also serves another important function: it would have the same local origin as the cyHair file, allowing exporters to generate the proper transforms in Lux to correctly place the cyHair file in world space when it is loaded. The OBJ file could have a custom property added to its object node in Studio with the filepath to the cyHair file. This custom property would allow exporters to recognize the OBJ as a hairfile instead of a standard mesh, so the exporter can include the hairfile Shape reference in the generated export, rather than the low resolution hair mesh.

The cyHair file is very simple in structure. Lux's version of the cyHair utility for loading and saving cyHair files can be found at http://src.luxrender.net/lux/file/68ff7779d02e/shapes/cyhair/cyHairFile.h (I give the Lux version, since it has the extensions for reading UV coordinates that the original cyHair file does not have).

Thanks

Dkgoose · May 2013

Hello, I am still learning how things work with LAMH, I watched the videos and read the tutorial. I am trying to make fur on the Millennum Puppy, the preset makes Studio crash and haven't tried other presets yet to see if they do the same thing, but want to see if it crashes with one I make myself. Anyway, I am confused as to what they use on the ears and the snout, it looks like a brush tool is being used. I am also curious if there is way to use the textures from the dog on the hair. Sorry for so many questions, I just have one more for right now, is there an undo shortcut key, sometimes when trying to brush the hair down, it ends up going down into the sculp and I have to start all over again, but if I can just figure out how to make fur, and some of the other things I read in the manual, I'd be fine now doing human hair. Overall I do like the program so far, it's interesting.

Alessandro Mastronardi · May 2013

dkgoose said:
Hello, I am still learning how things work with LAMH, I watched the videos and read the tutorial. I am trying to make fur on the Millennum Puppy, the preset makes Studio crash and haven't tried other presets yet to see if they do the same thing, but want to see if it crashes with one I make myself. Anyway, I am confused as to what they use on the ears and the snout, it looks like a brush tool is being used. I am also curious if there is way to use the textures from the dog on the hair. Sorry for so many questions, I just have one more for right now, is there an undo shortcut key, sometimes when trying to brush the hair down, it ends up going down into the sculp and I have to start all over again, but if I can just figure out how to make fur, and some of the other things I read in the manual, I'd be fine now doing human hair. Overall I do like the program so far, it's interesting.

Hi dkgoose, be sure you got also latest PDF manual here: LAMH manual
you can undo actions using
About creating your own preset, the first step is selecting the follicles where you will want guides to grow. If you have followed the tutorials, for the Puppy (as for most animal creatures), you may want to select all the 'skin' follicles at once (see manual page 8): that will be much faster than selecting those manually.
Once done that, you may create the guides and style the fur. Be sure to read also pages 10-13.
As styling is done, you may turn the preview on and see how hair would look like with higher densities: at this point, you might want to use '3D paint' to remove hairs or reduce their density from specific areas (manual page 14).

Please let me know if the above makes sense and don't hesitate to ask for hints and suggestions...

Alessandro Mastronardi · May 2013

Andreas_C said:
OK, here is finally something that remotely looks like real hair ... I proudly present: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown ... still not completely satisfied, but certainly a lot more so than before ...
One thing I ran right smack into was the fact that LAMH set up the surface for the hair with the texture maps for the various regions of the figure (e.g. the SkinHead, SkinFace) and I did not think of deleting them in the Hair Group ... this caused frustration to no end, because instead of the color presets I selected, the hair kept turning out the "wrong" color.

I noticed this only when I looked at the shader for the LAMH object and found that the color settings for Root/Tip/Specular all had the Genesis character textures assigned ... OK, maybe to everyone else in the LAMH universe this was obvious (and maybe even documented), but I was not aware of it :red:

Cheers,
Andrea

Very nice render Andreas. You may want to check that the 'Random Roots' slider value is increased a bit more, so that the hair don't show blocky patterns, and maybe also to increase the 'Random length' slider value will help to give a more diversified look.
As for lights, I usually deal with the Lantios ones and I'd say that a UE2 is mandatory to give a fair look.

cwichura · May 2013

Kendall Sears said:
I keep up with the progress of these things. There's no reason that LAMH can't support cyHair.

Can other plugins access the RiCurves data in Studio when that is used as the export from LAMH to Studio? If so, another possibility is for the export plugins to read the RiCurves and write a cyHair themselves. Kind of like the LuxBlend exporter does for hair particle systems in Blender.

However, native export of cyHair from LAMH would allow you more control over how the colour/alpha/uv channels in the cyHair file are used. Unless the RiCurves hold this kind of information on a per-point basis as well in Studio?

acocq_0801c2dc51 · May 2013

Scott-Livingston said:

Sorry...missed that until just now. My 3k hair count was for the facial hair ONLY. I didn't use Look At My Hair for the head hair in those renders I posted.

I am working on a full-body project now...starting with 200k as a hair count (although realistically it should be higher, I'd expect...perhaps a lot higher).

Oh ... ok ... so I can now stop beating my head against the wall :-)

Good luck on your Full-Body Hairyness ... ;-)

acocq_0801c2dc51 · May 2013

Alessandro_AM said:

Very nice render Andreas. You may want to check that the 'Random Roots' slider value is increased a bit more, so that the hair don't show blocky patterns, and maybe also to increase the 'Random length' slider value will help to give a more diversified look.
As for lights, I usually deal with the Lantios ones and I'd say that a UE2 is mandatory to give a fair look.

Thanks for the comment !

I'll give it a whirl ... and yes, UE2 is a "must have" when rendering. It makes such a difference, almost as if one is using a different rendering engine ...

I am certainly looking forward to the new release - when I looked at the player, I could see a much smoother integration with DAZ as compared to version 1.0.

Keep up the good work !

Cheers,
Andreas

acocq_0801c2dc51 · May 2013

And here is a quick render (Leroy's brother Lamar ;-P) ... I increased the random roots (quite a bit) and the random lengths (a little) and definitely see a marked improvement. Though I do believe, that Lamar is still having one of those "bad hair days" :roll:

Cheers,
Andreas

kyoto kid · May 2013

Andreas_C said:

And here is a quick render (Leroy's brother Lamar ;-P) ... I increased the random roots (quite a bit) and the random lengths (a little) and definitely see a marked improvement. Though I do believe, that Lamar is still having one of those "bad hair days" :roll:
Cheers,
Andreas

...nice, looks a bit like Lee Marvin.

acocq_0801c2dc51 · May 2013

Kyoto Kid said:

...nice, looks a bit like Lee Marvin.

Now that you mention it ... yeah ... definitely ... :-)

BWSman · May 2013

I just got and installed Look At My Hair. After activating it & Clicking on Create>New 'Look at my Hair' object; I get the following screen with none of the button icons showing. This is on Windows7 63 bit with DAZ Studio installed on my C drive but outside the 'Program Files" folder.

Solved: After closing DS & re-opening it; the icons showed up as normal.

RAMWolff · May 2013

Looking forward to the big update. Waiting patiently!

Scott Livingston · June 2013

Here's the result of the full-body setup I was working on...it's intended to be Australopithecus fur/body hair for a specific custom character, but could probably be used by a variety of humanoid creatures. It isn't perfect (certainly not as good as RawArt's Sasquatch) but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I've used a hair count of 200,000-300,000 depending on the camera angle. Some fairly minor postwork on the second image.

If anyone's interested, I'll release it as a freebie preset...

swordkensia · June 2013

Yes please.!!!!..

Will it work on the Genesis Daz Gorilla.???

S.K.

richardvmn_b9053009d9 · June 2013

awesome, I would love to use it!

Kendall Sears · June 2013

Scott-Livingston said:
Here's the result of the full-body setup I was working on...it's intended to be Australopithecus fur/body hair for a specific custom character, but could probably be used by a variety of humanoid creatures. It isn't perfect (certainly not as good as RawArt's Sasquatch) but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I've used a hair count of 200,000-300,000 depending on the camera angle. Some fairly minor postwork on the second image.
If anyone's interested, I'll release it as a freebie preset...

Is this a Genesis preset? Or is it for a certain figure in the store?

Kendall

Szark · June 2013

Kendall http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23100/P90/#343651 for Genesis using V4 uvmapping

Kendall Sears · June 2013

Szark said:
Kendall http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/23100/P90/#343651 for Genesis using V4 uvmapping

Excellent work.

Kendall

Scott Livingston · June 2013

Kendall Sears said:
Scott-Livingston said:
Here's the result of the full-body setup I was working on...it's intended to be Australopithecus fur/body hair for a specific custom character, but could probably be used by a variety of humanoid creatures. It isn't perfect (certainly not as good as RawArt's Sasquatch) but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I've used a hair count of 200,000-300,000 depending on the camera angle. Some fairly minor postwork on the second image.
If anyone's interested, I'll release it as a freebie preset...

Is this a Genesis preset? Or is it for a certain figure in the store?

Kendall
It's a Genesis preset. (The morph formula for the character shown can be found here) It should work on any Genesis character, I think...though I'd expect results will vary depending on the character. I don't have the Genesis Gorilla to test it out, unfortunately.

BWSman · June 2013

I'd like to see something like that for the Homo Erectus figures.

Scott Livingston · June 2013

I'm making a few changes that should make the preset more generally useful. The Australopithecus character is quite small, and when I loaded the hair on a regular-sized Genesis, I noticed some problem areas. It's looking better now...even tried it on Troll and that looked pretty good. I'll finish it up tonight and send it off.

@BWSman: My character actually uses the V4 Homo Erectus skin. Don't want to make any promises, but I'll see about creating something similar for the 4th Gen Homo Erectus people. Probably won't be very soon, though...got a few projects lined up.

Scott Livingston · June 2013

Update: running into some technical difficulties (fixed it up, saved to a new file, but the new file won't load). Still working on it...

atozed · June 2013

Okay. Getting frustrated here. I'm trying to use the free player, version 1.05, on DAZ Studio 4.6.0.18. I want to export a fur preset as an OBJ file using the following procedure:

- Start DAZ Studio 4.6 (64-bit, running on Windows 7 Ultimate with 8 GM RAM)
- Load the target figure (dog, big cat, etc.)
- Apply material preset to target product
- Apply the fur preset to the target figure using the Attach LAMH Preset button
- Export to an object file using the LAMH to OBJ button (I answer yes to the export prompt)

Some time later, I get prompted to save the .OBJ file. After pressing Save at the prompt, I get the message shown below. After pressing OK, DAZ Studio crashes, every single time!

Is there a problem with the export to OBJ function? If yes, is it fixed with the new LAMH release? If no, then what could I possibly be doing wrong?

Alessandro Mastronardi · June 2013

atozed said:
Okay. Getting frustrated here. I'm trying to use the free player, version 1.05, on DAZ Studio 4.6.0.18. I want to export a fur preset as an OBJ file using the following procedure:
- Start DAZ Studio 4.6 (64-bit, running on Windows 7 Ultimate with 8 GM RAM)
- Load the target figure (dog, big cat, etc.)
- Apply material preset to target product
- Apply the fur preset to the target figure using the Attach LAMH Preset button
- Export to an object file using the LAMH to OBJ button (I answer yes to the export prompt)

Some time later, I get prompted to save the .OBJ file. After pressing Save at the prompt, I get the message shown below. After pressing OK, DAZ Studio crashes, every single time!

Is there a problem with the export to OBJ function? If yes, is it fixed with the new LAMH release? If no, then what could I possibly be doing wrong?

Hi, please check that the folder: C:/Users/shadowfax/Dcouments/DAZ 3D/Studio/lookatmyhairAM/geometry actually exists.
If it doesn't, please create it manually. Also, you didn't mention how many hairs you tried to export and your computer specs: if you are on a 32bit system and you try to export to OBJ a large amount of hair, say more than 200000, that would most likely drain resources and possibly lead to a crash.
We have optimized several routines on the upcoming 1.06 version (should be out in the next days as DAZ put it in the store) and we also fixed the missing 'geometry' path issue that probably is the reason for your crash.

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Look at my Hair (LAMH) Official Thread: update 1.6.0.2 released

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