What happened to dForce hair?
Leonides02
Posts: 1,379
in The Commons
Big announcement months ago, and we got a couple dForce hairs and then... Notta.
There's less than a dozen in the store.
I feel like this is much different from the adoption of dForce clothing, which (to my perception) had a lot more support from PA's.
Are the PA's just not able to make them? Does DAZ need to do something to encourage their creation?
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not enough people are adventurous enough to use the dforce wind node in renders
it is hard to make dude
Most PAs who seem interested in it are creature artists. (Even then, I have few hopes that PAs will make normal long haired dog breeds.) I've seen only one regular human hairstyles PA do a few more after the initial release.
If the dForce hair is anything like the static-hair, it's difficult to make like cimenroller2 said. PAs would rather model it like they've been doing. Probably can't afford to experiment much.
its one of those things IMO one wants to use on existing stuff for animation but DAZ has decided to make it PA exclusive for sales
its their choice, I did buy a couple but then went back to Carrara where I can simulate my own hairs
Although we clearly don't know what's in the pipeline from PA's who may be working on this type of content, I have to wonder how long dForce enabled strand hair will remain a PA only feature. There is a history of other tools that were previously only available to PAs (or cost extra) working their way into the general release.
I've tried and the results are mixed.
Just my own reasons: I've been dying to learn to use the strand-based hair editor and eventually produce dforce hair. But I'm dealing with other deadlines for other things and still learning to use the strand-based hair system, so haven't come up with anything I feel is good enough quality to offer in the store yet. I'm still learning. Also, my old computer struggles with dforce simulations in most cases (dforce hair is a definite improvement for it over cloth, but it's still slow) and so developing and testing a dforced hair style will be painfully slow when I eventually get to that point. It's still a new and unfamiliar way to make content for me.
I'm impressed with the PAs who have really dug into the new hair system and already gotten it so well figured out and produced products with it.
Yes, this is my impression. I understood from the get-go that dForce hairs are harder to create, and so the hair-focused PA's are sticking to their older methods. Why shouldn't they? They work all right and we buy the hair. Also, experimentation = time, and time = money! Why experiment with your livelihood?
I understand we're no longer debating the decision to make dForce hair a PA-only feature, but I suppose I'm just disappointed this potentially revolutionary tool is now languishing because the PAs understanably don't have time or motivation to experiment.
Thanks for chiming in, Quixotry. This basically matches the assumption that the tools are hard to master and many of the PAs simply don't have the time to learn. Now, if this were a public DAZ feauture, we could all experiment and maybe even create a bunch of new PAs along the way.
But I digress.
Strand-based hair is a public Daz feature, nothing stops you to exeriment with it... Before thinking of setting up dForce Hair parameters you need to know how create the actual hair first.
Yes, but the "dForce" part of the "dForce Hair" has a lot of intimidating and not-at-all-explained parameters. So making the strand-based hair--while fun--doesn't really help you make dForce hair. It's only the very basic first step to a complicated learning experience.
Also, the store isn't selling just strand-based hair, so there's little motivation for people to learn when they don't (and won't) have access to the tools to go to the next level.
That's why we're reliant on PA's but (as demonstrated by the lack of dForce hair in the store), they seem just as reluctant to pour a lot of time into learning.
Mixed? It completely breaks every time I try.
Daz made a 5-minute video on how to start using dForce hair and strand-based hair, and WP Guru made a 1.5 hour video on strand-based hair (starting at 10:50). I watched the first and it covered a few settings to get the hair to look flat from being wet, and also applying hair to arms and chest. Didn't watch the longer video.
As a consumer, I like the dforce hair in theory, but it's just not as usable for me. The simulations take a lot of time to complete as compared to cloth.
Dforce cloth already can be problematic (looks good... Looks good... Explosion!), and waiting longer for strand hair without total confidence in the simulation? I'm just not into that. Ain't got time fo dat.
You can explore the dGForce simulation settings with the existing dForce hairs, all you lack is the tool to go from strand-based to dForce.
As someone who has been working on doing a good dForce hair wolf-fur using Oso's Pooka, I'd say there are a few issues with dForce hair that really make it harder to work with.
1. For Dog8, you need to create wholly different UVs for each breed to have their fur work. LAMH doesn't have that, it only focuses on the figure.
2. Doing anything custom with UV maps can be hard as there is no preview. You have to do a lot of guesswork.
3. If you use fur, say goodbye to ANY of your cool hair shaders, you have to deal with exactly one shader that is a bit mystifying so far (why does anisotropy make the fur match the texture better?!)
4. The dForce....does very little so far. I have thrown at it different types of fur but it generally matters little if you simulate the fur or not. In fact, often your dog having its mouth open results in the dForce fur bugging out OR it gets stuck on the ground object.
5. It has TWO sets of settings that are similar but apparently do different things. PreSimulation and PreRender and I have no idea how they differ, even with their names.
That's a fair point, Richard, but how you make dForce hair vs simple strand-based hair is different because the dForce hair needs to simulate.
That is, when you're making regular SBH, you're essentially doing the draping / sculpting of the hair in "real time." When you make dForce SBH, the hair has to be able to simulate / drape naturally and so you need to style it in a different way (like what PhilW does) and won't be able to test if the style works without the tool. That's a problem.
I mean, the relative lack of dForce hair in the store makes it evident there's a problem. Maybe Daz could find a way to marry dForce with the way PA's are used to making hair. That's why we got dForce clothing so quickly: The PA only needed to learn how to simulate, not how to make clothing all over again.
Personally I'm far from impressed with any of the dforce strand hairs already released, and the creatures animals that have been I find disapointing as I would rather just have editable strand based hair than the rather useless dynamic strand based fur which is entering the store at higher than usual prices.
The dForce hair on the cat looked much better around the face if I did NOT simulate it. After simulation, it kind of poked straight out and covered most of the mouth. That was kind of disappointing. With some of Oso3d's tips and without simulating, I got it looking acceptable for poses that don't cause collision of the hair with the ground or other objects. I applaud Oso3D for stepping up and giving us hair for the cat at such a reasonable price with the promotion, so we have something to play with other than the mohawk.
I haven't purchased any human dForce hair yet. The long ones looked a little strange at the scalp end to me, and the short ones didn't seem like something that would benefit from dForce. I thought I'd wait for an offering that appealed to me more. I thought the store would be flooded with dForce hair and that many choices would be available, but that hasn't happened yet. The technology is still young and totally undocumented, as far as I can see. Maybe improvements are still being developed. I hope we see more and better dForce hair choices as time goes on. I want to love it; I can't yet.
Is there a list of all available dForce hairs in the store?
I'd like to try one, and am interested in both figures and animals (not hair with a cloth sim dForce modifier, but actual dForce hair).
- Greg
I'm not sure if these are all the dForce hair products, but here's at least some of them:
https://www.daz3d.com/daz-house-cat-with-dforce-hair
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-kay-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-females
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-bristol-hair-for-genesis-8
https://www.daz3d.com/mrl-dforce-long-hair-for-genesis-8-females
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-oso-pooka-for-daz-dog-8
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-lea-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-femaless
https://www.daz3d.com/lancy-character-with-dforce-hair-and-expressions-for-genesis-8-female
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-longdrape-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-females
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-eddie-hair-and-goatee-for-genesis-8-males
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-femme-fatale-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-females
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-hair-elyssa-ponytail-for-genesis-8-female-s
https://www.daz3d.com/drago-hair-and-beard-with-dforce-for-genesis-3-and-genesis-8-males
https://www.daz3d.com/ape-world-orangutan-with-dforce-hair-for-genesis-8-male
https://www.daz3d.com/ape-world-gorilla-for-genesis-8-male
https://www.daz3d.com/ape-world-chimp-with-dforce-hair-for-genesis-8-male
https://www.daz3d.com/foreground-blends
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-sasquatch-for-genesis-8-male
Sweet - thank you, Diva!
- Greg
ETA: Wow . . . that Lancy hair is dForce hair? Incredible.
The Drago hair is fantastic, too. Never would have guessed it was possible for dForce hair to have those curls at the ends. I'd like to pick it up, along with the Lancy hair:
Never would have guessed that either of those were dForced in a million years!
I also like all the monkeys (non-technical term). I've also been following along with @RawArt's thread - amazing how expressive they are:
There are other users who have been playing with making the Orangutan's hair really long in the thread, too. It's been interesting to follow along with the progress:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4800976/#Comment_4800976
- Greg
A minor note, I think Drago hair is hair that has dforce cloth setting applied, not "Dforce Hair" referring to the new Studio feature. It is confusing since they used the same name, and I may be wrong but from what I can see it looks like Drago isn't strand based. I don't recall if it came out before the 4.11 update was live.
Strand Based Hair should not care about UVs, other than their being reasonably flat.
Since you are not a PA you can't create dForce Hair (you can use the cloth dForce system on strand based hair) so I'm not sure what you mean here - are you using fur sets from the store? Yes, short fur may not show a lot of effect.
Thanks - think I'll pick it up anyway as I really like the style regardless.
- Greg
Hair is VERY different from clothing, though, and strand-based hair is different still. The difference between dForce clothing and non-dForce clothing is pretty small in terms of mesh construction, and a lot of clothing that wasn’t designed for dForce works perfectly with no modification necessary.
There's already physics software that works quite well on 90% of the current DAZ hair.
I like the dForce SBH and I think it's a definite improvement, but if the PA's aren't able to support it, what's the point?
I use it very often. It's a pain in the ass, results are inconsistent.
But when it DOES work? It's quite nice :D
I've noticed also that I can't use the same simulation settings for clothes and hair in the same render - what makes hair drape and look well tends to explode the clothing with the same wind speed from the wind node. It's still fun though - that just means I can do more nudes :P
I'm sticking with ye olde hairs. Just anything simulation or drape related has always failed for my complex shapes or been too slow. Rather have the old hair with a lot of custom movement options and reliable shaders.