Question about UHT Hair Shaders for Iray

I noticed the 'UHT Hair Shaders for Iray' (http://www.daz3d.com/uht-hair-shaders-for-iray) in the store today and it looks like a very handy product indeed. The blurb says:

"UHT is a set of 24 hand painted highly detailed textures and bump maps that replace the textures, bump, and displacement maps of nearly any hairstyle available on the market."

Its the "nearly any" part of that that gives me pause. Which ones does it not work for then (because sod's law says it'll be all the ones I have)? Does anyone know?

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Comments

  • ScavengerScavenger Posts: 2,664

    I'm curious how this works..All the hair texture packs I've seen tend to be huge because they have multiple copies of hq pngs or jpgs for each color of the specific hair map.

    But this wouldn't have those hair maps, just, in theory, a base texture and then settings for the different colors.

    IS this a thing iray lets happen, or is it just a way of doing things I've not seen done before?

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    The ones who have funky layouts for the hair textures. The vast majority of hair textures are laid out vertically but every so often an artist will get a wild hair and lay one ore more sections horizontally.

  • tl155180tl155180 Posts: 994
    Khory said:

    The ones who have funky layouts for the hair textures. The vast majority of hair textures are laid out vertically but every so often an artist will get a wild hair and lay one ore more sections horizontally.

     Thanks Khory - I'm not sure which hairs you're referring to though. Could you give a "for instance" please?

    I wanna make sure that ones like Birthday Girl Hair, Aubree Hair, Xylia Hair, PixiePerfect Hair etc etc are going to be ok.

  • RenpatsuRenpatsu Posts: 828

    Not sure about these specific hairs you mentioned, but I know that e.g. Leto Hair from 'rosity has got horizontal and vertical layout. It still works somehow with that specific one though, if I simply rotate every texture within a paint application and figure out which material zone needs the horizontal and which the vertical layout. So even rather "straight forward" hair styles (which I would consider Leto Hair to be) may have got some odd layout.

  • KhoryKhory Posts: 3,854

    I have none of the hairs you listed to check but I think April does most if not all of hers verticaly. The exeptions really are odd ducks. Worst case you can always return the product if your hairs are odd.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049
    Khory said:

    I have none of the hairs you listed to check but I think April does most if not all of hers verticaly. The exeptions really are odd ducks. Worst case you can always return the product if your hairs are odd.

    Unfortunately, because of the Summer Savings punch deal, I don't think you can return it, so best to be sure before purchasing.

  • tl155180tl155180 Posts: 994
    Khory said:

    I have none of the hairs you listed to check but I think April does most if not all of hers verticaly. The exeptions really are odd ducks. Worst case you can always return the product if your hairs are odd.

    Can I tell by literally just looking at the hairs in my DS collection and seeing if the textures all run vertically rather than horizontally? Is it that simple?

  • tl155180 said:
    Khory said:

    I have none of the hairs you listed to check but I think April does most if not all of hers verticaly. The exeptions really are odd ducks. Worst case you can always return the product if your hairs are odd.

    Can I tell by literally just looking at the hairs in my DS collection and seeing if the textures all run vertically rather than horizontally? Is it that simple?

    Yes, as I understand it.

  • tl155180tl155180 Posts: 994

    Cool, thanks everyone. Its good to be able to check these things before I buy.

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    tl155180 said:

    I noticed the 'UHT Hair Shaders for Iray' (http://www.daz3d.com/uht-hair-shaders-for-iray) in the store today and it looks like a very handy product indeed. The blurb says:

    "UHT is a set of 24 hand painted highly detailed textures and bump maps that replace the textures, bump, and displacement maps of nearly any hairstyle available on the market."

    Its the "nearly any" part of that that gives me pause. Which ones does it not work for then (because sod's law says it'll be all the ones I have)? Does anyone know?

    Hi!  Thanks for asking this question... "nearly all" is a pretty good estimate.  I do own lots and lots of hairstyles and so far, I've only run into a couple that have some uv issues... they are WildMane and Alanna hair, but as you can see in one of the promos, Alanna hair still looks pretty good with it.  And it's not that the uvs don't run vertically, but that the uvs are actually really out of whack on those two.  Also, most of the Fibermesh hairstyles don't have uvs, so the UHT textures will only show as a solid color rather than looking like individual hairs and highlights, etc.  There are a few fibermesh hairs where the artist has created uvs for the style, but my memory is failing me on which ones (I think Omri hair is one of the uv'ed hairs).  

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049

    Slosh, can you give us some guidelines on how to know when to select the fine tuning options? There are several categories and several settings for each, and I don't know when I should apply them.

    12 Fine Tuning Options:

    • Back Scatter Half
    • Back Scatter Off
    • Back Scatter On
    • Add Displacement
    • Remove Displacement
    • Shine 01
    • Shine 02
    • Shine 03
    • Top Coat Off
    • Translucency 01
    • Translucency 02
    • Translucency 03
  • tl155180tl155180 Posts: 994
    Slosh said:
    tl155180 said:

    I noticed the 'UHT Hair Shaders for Iray' (http://www.daz3d.com/uht-hair-shaders-for-iray) in the store today and it looks like a very handy product indeed. The blurb says:

    "UHT is a set of 24 hand painted highly detailed textures and bump maps that replace the textures, bump, and displacement maps of nearly any hairstyle available on the market."

    Its the "nearly any" part of that that gives me pause. Which ones does it not work for then (because sod's law says it'll be all the ones I have)? Does anyone know?

    Hi!  Thanks for asking this question... "nearly all" is a pretty good estimate.  I do own lots and lots of hairstyles and so far, I've only run into a couple that have some uv issues... they are WildMane and Alanna hair, but as you can see in one of the promos, Alanna hair still looks pretty good with it.  And it's not that the uvs don't run vertically, but that the uvs are actually really out of whack on those two.  Also, most of the Fibermesh hairstyles don't have uvs, so the UHT textures will only show as a solid color rather than looking like individual hairs and highlights, etc.  There are a few fibermesh hairs where the artist has created uvs for the style, but my memory is failing me on which ones (I think Omri hair is one of the uv'ed hairs).  

    Thanks for the response Slosh! Much appreciated laugh.

    It looks like a great product; think I'll definitely be picking this up.

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    Is there a way to reduce the "coarseness" of the hair? From the screenshots, the hair looks a bit thick than what I'm used to. I don't mind fiddling with the shader knobs if it's controllable from there.

     

  • Twilight76Twilight76 Posts: 318
    tl155180 said:
    Khory said:

    The ones who have funky layouts for the hair textures. The vast majority of hair textures are laid out vertically but every so often an artist will get a wild hair and lay one ore more sections horizontally.

     Thanks Khory - I'm not sure which hairs you're referring to though. Could you give a "for instance" please?

    I wanna make sure that ones like Birthday Girl Hair, Aubree Hair, Xylia Hair, PixiePerfect Hair etc etc are going to be ok.

    Ok, here a little Test with the Birthday Hair.

    BG1        Normal Texture Red
    BG2        UHT Crimson TN
    BG3        Normal Texture with another Shader Product (shader only, org. Texture)
    BG4        same as BG3 but with new Textures

    BG_test.png
    1630 x 648 - 1M
  • SpitSpit Posts: 2,342

    If you feel you actually need to see you can take a peek at the actual textures it's not terribly difficult. If you know the vendor's name you can go directly to runtime/textures folder find the vendor's name and look through there.

    Or you can get the location of the textures by looking into the .duf file. They're usually compressed and if you have 7zip all you have to do is right click on the .duf and select under 7zip's entry in the context menu--'extract here'. Out pops a file that looks like a white sheet of paper (windows anyway) with no extension so it won't interfere with anything. Right-click on that and send to your default text editor. The location of the texture file will be not far from the top.

     

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited July 2015
    Tobor said:

    Is there a way to reduce the "coarseness" of the hair? From the screenshots, the hair looks a bit thick than what I'm used to. I don't mind fiddling with the shader knobs if it's controllable from there.

     

    For each color, I provide a wide (WD) and thin (TN) option, the thin would be the finest you can get with the product.  Apart from choosing the TN option, there is no other way to make it more fine.  Repeating the horizontal tiling would be an option, except that it will also make the transparency maps tile, which is not a good result.  I experimented with a thinner hair, but it just didn't seem to work across as many hairstyles as I would have liked.  Depending on how the particular hair product is uv'ed, some uvs stretch the texture making the strands appear "spaghetti" like.  I can't control that, obviously.  I wish I could give you a better answer, but in this case, the TN options are the finest you will be able to get.  Reducing the bump might smooth things out a bit, if you prefer a sleeker look, but I can't guarantee that is what you are looking for. 

    Post edited by Slosh on
  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    barbult said:

     

    Slosh, can you give us some guidelines on how to know when to select the fine tuning options? There are several categories and several settings for each, and I don't know when I should apply them.

    12 Fine Tuning Options:

    • Back Scatter Half
    • Back Scatter Off
    • Back Scatter On
    • Add Displacement
    • Remove Displacement
    • Shine 01
    • Shine 02
    • Shine 03
    • Top Coat Off
    • Translucency 01
    • Translucency 02
    • Translucency 03

    Barbult, these settings were provided mainly to help with overlit or underlit scenes, but also to do a few other things.  The add/remove displacement might be self-explanatory... some styles can end up looking a bit too sleek and "paper like", so I provided a displacement map to add some texture to the hair.  Add will add the custom displacement, where remove will remove it.  It does not affect any original displacement that might have come with the hairstyle you are using.  Those get wiped out when you apply the UHT shaders.

    Translucency 01, 02, 03 basically adjusts the transparency maps by increasing the cutout opacity.  I've noticed that some opacity maps don't go full black/white, which means that they can appear thin and stringy in some renders.  01 sets the cutout opacity to 1.0, 02 goes to 2.0, and 03 goes to 3.0.  As a result, this seems to affect the translucency as well, and seems to make the blonde colors and lighter colors to appear "richer" for lack of a better term.  I really like to use 02 at least on all of the lighter haircolors.  Just a personal preference.

    The shine settings adjust both the Glossy Weight, Glossy Reflectivity, Top Coat Weight, and Top Coat Reflectivity to add more shine to the hair, in 3 stages.  01 is the default shine that you get when loading the shaders the first time, then increases when using 02 and 03.

    The backscatter settings help when you have a strong backlight.  I set the shaders up to take advantage of translucency, which looks really nice with a light behind it, but sometimes that light is too much.  If it is not possible to adjust the light, cutting the backscatter weight in half or turning it off completely can help prevent the white "blown out" look that you can sometimes get in iray.

    It is important to note that you should set your Environment Settings to match your lighting... in other words, if you have only dome lighting, make sure you have Dome Only selected in render settings.  If you have additional lights in the scene, use Dome and Scene.  Otherwise if you use Dome and Scene but have not lights in the scene, your hair will be really bright yellow or white, no matter what color you choose.

    Finally, since I have settings to add shine, I needed to make sure there was a setting to reduce shine in a scene where the lights are just very bright.  So, that is what TopCoat Off does... it removes the top coat settings, but leaves in the Glossy settings, so your hair is not dull, but also not highly specular, resulting in a fake plastic look.

    I hope this helps you understand the additional settings :) 

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited July 2015
    Scavenger said:

    I'm curious how this works..All the hair texture packs I've seen tend to be huge because they have multiple copies of hq pngs or jpgs for each color of the specific hair map.

    But this wouldn't have those hair maps, just, in theory, a base texture and then settings for the different colors.

    IS this a thing iray lets happen, or is it just a way of doing things I've not seen done before?

    Scavenger, this product is like those you mentioned... there are separate hair maps for each color.  The only maps I reused are those for glossiness and bump, which I used in multiple channels. But, I painted the hair in 10 layers in Photoshop, and for each color, I adjusted the tone and brightness of each of those layers to get an interesting blend, rather than just recoloring the same texture 24 times.  I think that tends to look very bad sometimes.

    Post edited by Slosh on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049
    Slosh said:
    barbult said:

     

    Slosh, can you give us some guidelines on how to know when to select the fine tuning options? There are several categories and several settings for each, and I don't know when I should apply them.

    12 Fine Tuning Options:

    • Back Scatter Half
    • Back Scatter Off
    • Back Scatter On
    • Add Displacement
    • Remove Displacement
    • Shine 01
    • Shine 02
    • Shine 03
    • Top Coat Off
    • Translucency 01
    • Translucency 02
    • Translucency 03

    Barbult, these settings were provided mainly to help with overlit or underlit scenes, but also to do a few other things.  The add/remove displacement might be self-explanatory... some styles can end up looking a bit too sleek and "paper like", so I provided a displacement map to add some texture to the hair.  Add will add the custom displacement, where remove will remove it.  It does not affect any original displacement that might have come with the hairstyle you are using.  Those get wiped out when you apply the UHT shaders.

    Translucency 01, 02, 03 basically adjusts the transparency maps by increasing the cutout opacity.  I've noticed that some opacity maps don't go full black/white, which means that they can appear thin and stringy in some renders.  01 sets the cutout opacity to 1.0, 02 goes to 2.0, and 03 goes to 3.0.  As a result, this seems to affect the translucency as well, and seems to make the blonde colors and lighter colors to appear "richer" for lack of a better term.  I really like to use 02 at least on all of the lighter haircolors.  Just a personal preference.

    The shine settings adjust both the Glossy Weight, Glossy Reflectivity, Top Coat Weight, and Top Coat Reflectivity to add more shine to the hair, in 3 stages.  01 is the default shine that you get when loading the shaders the first time, then increases when using 02 and 03.

    The backscatter settings help when you have a strong backlight.  I set the shaders up to take advantage of translucency, which looks really nice with a light behind it, but sometimes that light is too much.  If it is not possible to adjust the light, cutting the backscatter weight in half or turning it off completely can help prevent the white "blown out" look that you can sometimes get in iray.

    It is important to note that you should set your Environment Settings to match your lighting... in other words, if you have only dome lighting, make sure you have Dome Only selected in render settings.  If you have additional lights in the scene, use Dome and Scene.  Otherwise if you use Dome and Scene but have not lights in the scene, your hair will be really bright yellow or white, no matter what color you choose.

    Finally, since I have settings to add shine, I needed to make sure there was a setting to reduce shine in a scene where the lights are just very bright.  So, that is what TopCoat Off does... it removes the top coat settings, but leaves in the Glossy settings, so your hair is not dull, but also not highly specular, resulting in a fake plastic look.

    I hope this helps you understand the additional settings :) 

    Wow, yes, very helpful. Thanks.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049
    Slosh said:
    Tobor said:

    Is there a way to reduce the "coarseness" of the hair? From the screenshots, the hair looks a bit thick than what I'm used to. I don't mind fiddling with the shader knobs if it's controllable from there.

     

    For each color, I provide a wide (WD) and thin (TN) option, the thin would be the finest you can get with the product.  Apart from choosing the TN option, there is no other way to make it more fine.  Repeating the horizontal tiling would be an option, except that it will also make the transparency maps tile, which is not a good result.  I experimented with a thinner hair, but it just didn't seem to work across as many hairstyles as I would have liked.  Depending on how the particular hair product is uv'ed, some uvs stretch the texture making the strands appear "spaghetti" like.  I can't control that, obviously.  I wish I could give you a better answer, but in this case, the TN options are the finest you will be able to get.  Reducing the bump might smooth things out a bit, if you prefer a sleeker look, but I can't guarantee that is what you are looking for. 

    When the Iray Uber Shader is applied, you can tile each map separately. Go to the Surfaces Pane, Editor Tab. Select a surface and Click on an image map, like Base Color. Select Image Editor and then Instance Tiling. Change the Horizontal Tiling value. Wouldn't this work to make the hair texture appear thinner? As long as you don't do this to the maps in the Cutout Opacity channel, those shouldn't tile (as long as they are different images than the basic hair texture images, which I assume they always would be).

  • Three WishesThree Wishes Posts: 471
    edited July 2015

    I bought this today and I've been playing with it for a couple of renders now.  It is imo absolutely worth the money.   

    The hair layers look good, but alas I still can NOT figure out what to do about some of the scalp layers.  

    This isn't Slosh's fault; the directions specifically state that the regular hair texture should be loaded first to get all the maps, and that these shaders are meant for all layers except the skullcap or "scalp" layer.

    I haven't worked through all the things to try yet, but so far, try what I will, I still get shiny or dark artifacts on the scalp.  So close, so close :D

    -- dan

    (PS In case I wasn't clear, the other layers look terrific so far.)

     

     

    Post edited by Three Wishes on
  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    Thanks for the detailed explanation of how the maps work. While the hair is thicker than I usually like, I do believe I'll get the product and make some tweaks. I'll probably look for ways to adapt it to my needs, as I have with OOTs product over on R. I prefer hair with shading variations (unless the color is from a bottle no one has mono-colored hair!), I might repaint some of your textures to add more variation, so I'll play with the maps while I'm at it. I might also try keeping the original textures and apply just the procedural shading settings you've come up with.

  • Steven-VSteven-V Posts: 727
    dhtapp said:

    I bought this today and I've been playing with it for a couple of renders now.  It is imo absolutely worth the money.   

    The hair layers look good, but alas I still can NOT figure out what to do about some of the scalp layers.  

    This isn't Slosh's fault; the directions specifically state that the regular hair texture should be loaded first to get all the maps, and that these shaders are meant for all layers except the skullcap or "scalp" layer.

    I haven't worked through all the things to try yet, but so far, try what I will, I still get shiny or dark artifacts on the scalp.  So close, so close :D

    -- dan

    (PS In case I wasn't clear, the other layers look terrific so far.)

     

     

    Are you converting the skull cap layer to Iray shaders?  If not that could be causing the problem.  Try converting that over with ctrl-click and then using the UHT shader for everything else.

    Note: I have not bought UHT so I am just guessing here. I can't test this suggestion. (I haven't bought it yet but it is on my wish list for sure.) 

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049
    edited July 2015

    This is my first UHT hair render. I think it came out pretty well. Slosh, I think you did a nice job on these shaders!  smileyyes If I run into any trouble, I'll be back for more advice.

    I tried the idea of tiling horizontally by 2. I applied the horizontal tiling to the entire surface and then used the Image Editor to set cutout opacity to .5. It seems to work. Of course, since this is my first UHT render, I have no non-tiling version to compare to.

    Diva Hair UHT Thin H tiling 2.jpg
    1236 x 1600 - 1M
    Post edited by barbult on
  • LyonessLyoness Posts: 1,606

    I use a lot of hair in general.  I've made my own shaders and used other people's hair shaders/textures.

    IMHO, Slosh did an outstanding job on this Daz3d product.  It is my go-to when working with an Iray picture.

    if you do a lot of pics and are converting hair textures over to Iray, I would get this product.

    ---unbiased, unpaid, fellow PA opinion.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049
    edited July 2015

    Here's another one. I used the thin texture and didn't mess with any horizontal tiling. I think it looks great.

    Toulouse UHT Thin

     

    Toulouse Hair UHT Thin.jpg
    1400 x 1600 - 1021K
    Post edited by barbult on
  • Barbult, it looks as if you deleted the attachment so that the in-line image has also vanished. You need to leave the attachment in place if you embed a link into the post so it shows at a decent size.

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391

    Wow, I went to sleep last night and slept for about 10 hours (was exhausted from moving a relative over several days).  It was nice to wake up to the comments this morning.  Barbult, I love the renders you have done.  I never knew about instance tiling and I am looking forward to experimenting with that.  

    Steven-V has it right... converting to iray for the scalp helps quite a bit.  Fortunately, many hairstyles don't show much of the hairline as the artists have done a good job of hiding it in the layers, but for those that do show the scalp or hairline, it does require a bit of playing to get a good match to the hair.  Starting with the IRAY conversion does help.

    Tobor, I'm glad to hear you are giving UHT a chance and I really hope you are able to get results you like.  3d Hair is such an important part of making a good image, and I will continue to try to come up with solutions, including making hair of my own.  As for the look of the hair strands themselves, the aesthetic is up to the taste of the user, and when I made UHT I was pleased with the look of the hair strands, but I completely understand that it might not match everyone's idea of the right look.  I noticed OOT's product, too, which came out the day I was rendering promos for this one.  I was a bit surprised at first, but then realized a good idea is a good idea and it is not uncommon for more than one person to think of it.

    dhtapp, sometimes (and I stress the word sometimes) using UHT on the scalp produces decent enough match and doesn't look "too bad".  It's worth applying it to the scalp just to see if it's workable, and if not "undo" to get it back to normal.  

    Thanks for the endorsement, Lyoness.  It's true, she has been using it for awhile now as it has gone through the various stages of testing.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,049

    Barbult, it looks as if you deleted the attachment so that the in-line image has also vanished. You need to leave the attachment in place if you embed a link into the post so it shows at a decent size.

    I can still see the large images in this thread, Richard. Evidently Slosh could see them. Can you not see them?
  • barbult said:

    Barbult, it looks as if you deleted the attachment so that the in-line image has also vanished. You need to leave the attachment in place if you embed a link into the post so it shows at a decent size.

    I can still see the large images in this thread, Richard. Evidently Slosh could see them. Can you not see them?

    Nope, just a placeholder box.

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