*Released* dforce Soft Curls {Commercial}
chevybabe25
Posts: 1,320
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-soft-curls-for-genesis-8-and-genesis-3-females
YAY for Strand Based Hair!!!
I'd like to include some general information and helpful tips for you to use my new sets in the store :)
What is the difference between strand based hair and fibermesh?
Strand Based Hair is generated inside Daz Studio. Fibermesh is actual mesh generated within Zbrush. Fibermesh can bring even the nicest computers to a painful crawl once it is imported into Daz Studio. Strand Based Hair is so much lighter!! There are a lot less hairs in your viewport, and the rest are generated during the render. I don't know all the magic behind that part, but its really awesome.
SBH ( Strand Based Hair ) is DYNAMIC! - Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!. As an artist that has been working with Daz Studio and Poser for almost 20 years, this is what I always dreamed of!!!!!! Well I have also dreamed of being a millionaire too, but I'll settle for this 
.
But what if I don't want to run a simulation? With the ones currently in the store, you do not need to run a simulation unless you want to. There are morphs that will move the hairs around like a traditional hair model too! The coolest part is that you can use the morphs before a simulation, without a simulation, and/ or after a simulation.
How do I use it? Select your figure and load the model like you normally would. Make sure that you do not have the geometry editor tool or the awesome Mesh Grabber Tool selected, pose your figure and render.
How do I use the morphs? These SBH hair models are currently in pieces to add more versatility. Selecting it in the scene tab will make the morphs appear in the parameters tab ( They are parented to the head) . Keep in mid that because these hairs are separate pieces they are grouped. So you will have to expand the options in the scene tab to find the individual pieces. Then just play with the sliders to your liking!
How do I simulate the hair? Welll there are several ways to do this, but the easiest way is to click on the simulate tab and click simulate. No extra settings needed. You can also use a timeline animation, or use the settings provided to use just gravity.
There will be so much versatility!! I have added a ton of separate surfaces so you will be able to easily kitbash these. Shut off certain surfaces to combine them with other SBH hairs orrrr maybe even combine them with some of the regular 3d hair models in the store and make a hybrid!
Technical Stuff:
Line Start With & Line End Width - This is how thick your hair is and how it tapers. I kept mine slightly thicker @ .09. and .03 to keep the amount of generated hairs to a minimum. If you want the hair to be thinner or taper more, you can turn this amount down, but oviously you will have to add more hairs.
Root Radius - This is the mode I have chosen to favor. It doesn't require painted maps or interpolation algorithms ( where hairs can go off in crazy directions for almost no good reason) and it is much more predictable for me when I import my hair from outside programs. With that said, there are no options for the cool stuff like frizz. Sorry guys :(
PS Points (per hair) - for those of you that model this is similar to CVS in a curve. It can control how smooth the hair will look. If you do a simulation and the hair just turns to a straight mess, try turning this down. The lower the setting, the more stiff the hair itself will behave and keep it's shape. Too low and you may end up with some jaggy edges. I feel like 20 to 30 is a good start for these stiffer styles.
PS Hairs (Per guide)- This is fairly self explanatory. If you want a fuller look, you can try adding more hairs. More hairs will probably require more computing power. But feel free to play with the setting.
PS Hair Tip Separation - This is a clumping option. Positive direction moves the hair away from the tip. Negative direction forms a clump at the tip.
Bias and Gain - This also has to do with clumping.
Bias is where along the hair shaft the clumping/non clumping starts. The lower the number the higher up the hair shaft the tip separation starts and vice versa.
Gain is how the bias transitions along the hair shaft.
I don't bother messing with these too much, but feel free to play with them.
PS Hairs and PR Hairs - PS hairs are supposed to be more accurate when simming than PR hairs. Also, I have found that PS hairs have a more delicate, natural look to them. PR hairs are great for adding a little extra bulk or frizz depending on how you use it. To get hair more dense looking, you can add PR hairs one or two at a time. I like to think of PR hairs as a multiplier, so you don't need to add a whole lot. If you want to make the hair appear a little more frizzy, you can play with the distribution radius and the tip separation for the PR hairs.
More Technical Questions * This will be added to as questions come up so all info can be placed in one convenient place
I want a certain section of my hair to drape more. Is there a way to do that? Yes! There are a few options you can use to adjust the draping so it suits your particular scene better. You can adjust the PS Points on the surface you select to something higher. The double dutch braids in particular are kept fairly low around 20. This keeps the whole hairstyle fairly stiff. I would start fairly high at maybe 60 and see what results you get and what you are exactly looking for. If it drapes better but its lost too much of your shape you can adjust other options as well.
You can also adjust the Local Shape Constraint Stiffness. Turning this down lower will also make the hair drape more while keeping the shape of the hair more in tact.
You can also adjust the tips of the hair with Local Shape Constraint Tip Stiffness. This will loosen up how the tips drape more. A lower number will spread those tips out more during a simulation.
All of this is a process of trial and error and what exactly you are looking for in an end result.
I want to simulate hair on a figure that is on a floor. When I sim the hair it makes an explosive mess. Help! This wasn't a question posed here yet but I know it's on the way :) You have a few options to handle this situation. If you are on an older computer that doesn't do so well with simulations, try keeping the model's head height as the same level the default figure loads in. I hope that makes sense. When a simulation is going it is essentially pulling those hairs to the end pose. Further away from default equals more pulling.
If you have a decent computer and you don't have an issue with simulations then you can simply change the simulation settings - Pose Transition Time to something higher than 1. The promos I did with Victoria on the floor all had a pose transition time of 3 - but I believe 2 probably would have done just fine.
Now go have some fun and be creative already!
I will be here checking this thread as often as I can to help, should you get stuck, have questions, or just wanna show off pretty pictures :
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Comments
I like that hair. But what I missing is a behind the ears morph. Would be such a morph possible?
I included a lot of morphs with this hair... but no behind the ear morphs. This hair style was just not having it. I did try though.
It doesn't look like it stay behind the ears in real life anyways. So to me, it seems realistic that it doesn't go that way.
The hair looks gorgeous! Looking forward to trying it and thanks for all the tech info!
Glad you like it!!! I can't wait to see pretty pictures too :)
Can't wait to try this hair. Hey are you making a thread for your Real Hair Shaders for dForce and Strand-Based Hairs product? I want to get this as well but I don't know much about dforce or strand based hairs Are the shadrers only for dforce and strand based hair or can they be used on other hairs as well? Can regular hair shaders be used on dforce and strand hairs?
I have not started a thread for the shaders. I figured we could combine them in this thread since they are all related.
Strand Based hair can technically use any hair shader and vice versa with mixed results. I tried my backlight hair shaders on the strand based hair and it looked awful. Too dark, too heavy, and took way too long to render. Didn't look very natural at all.
The dual lobe shader appears to be set up similar to the backlight.. in that they are refractive and allow depth.. but without a whole ton of extra computing power.. at least not in my opinion. Also because strand based hair is small.. you also don't need gigantic texture maps and can get a nice look with a little tweaking. It's another tool in the toolbox.
I already have MMX's shader kit which does exactly that and has the shine presets and of course the color maps. Your set looks good, but if I mainly get natural hair colors then I feel I have already all the colors I need.
These have custom maps and settings specifically for the dual lobe shader. These maps create the striated, indiviual tones that you can see in the promos. They are very different from whats available so far.
You are very welcome :) Enjoy!!
That is excellent! I would love to know how these perform on the non strand based :)
This is the best looking dforce hair I've seen yet (in addition to April's). I dunno how you managed to make it look real and not like it's yarn chopped off at the bottom ;) Looks great.
Laurie
Thanks Laurie, that means a lot to me!!
@chevybabe25 "I tried my backlight hair shaders on the strand based hair and it looked awful"
Thanks, that was a question I had. Anyway, bought this and the Double Dutch hair immediately. Very lovely, the promos are also excellent.
You are very welcome and thanks for the kind words fastbike :)
The hair looks stunning! Gorgeous work, chevybabe25! I definitely plan on picking it up along with those fantastic new hair shaders of yours. I use your other hair shaders quite a bit so this is a no-brainer for me. Excellent looking products - I'm looking forward to rendering with them! :)
Thanks Diva :) Can't wait to see what you come up with!
Soft curls in sunkissed red (I was going to explore the shader set but coudl not work out how to colour the tips!)
Simon if you picked up the shaders - Apply your color, then apply apply your tip color. Then you can apply your length and blend. :)
Edited to add.. FYI the dual color blending is only in the shaders.. not with the hair model.
I could not seem to find any tip colours, unless I am missing something fundamental!
Just had another look and whilst theer are tip color blend settings, and tip color lenght, there are no actual tip colors, 'just' 50 base colours
hmm looking at my folder structure:
Gloss
Hair
Tiling
Tip Blending
Tip Color Length
Tips Color
Ill go check my downloads and double check what ended up in the final zip.
Can I make the hair upside dwn Or rather the head upside down and the hair falling naturally, preferably without having to go through a simulation?
In the laying down situation you discussed, would I rotate my figure and transtate so that it ia at the origin height, then move it after the sim or would mving mess up the whole thing?
If I go in via Smart Content the tip colors do not get shown, but if I go in via content library I see the Tips Color directrory
Beautiful hair indeed. Wonderful product Chevybabe!
Can I make the hair upside dwn Or rather the head upside down and the hair falling naturally, preferably without having to go through a simulation?
I didn't include any morphs to schieve that without a simulation, so, no. You can place your model upside down though and run your simulation and get teh hair to hang like that.
In the laying down situation you discussed, would I rotate my figure and transtate so that it ia at the origin height, then move it after the sim or would mving mess up the whole thing?
You can absolutely move the figures afterwards without losing your work. If you want hair to act as though it is hitting the floor, dont forget to move a plane in place as well before doing the sim.
If you plan on doing more simulations, you may want to freeze the hair.
Smart content is not very smart sometimes. I'll shoot an email and ask to have them look at this.
Wow. Absolutely stunning!
Don't commercial threads need to be labeled as such? I thought that was a rule for the forums here.
Fixed.
OK and I wasn't trying to nitpick. The forum TOS doesn't require a commercial tag but it's nice if we all follow accepted practise.