Dear Hair PA's, can you innovate?
Xeni88
Posts: 51
Here's my plea to all Hair PA's. It's 2026, almost 2027 now. Can you all start being a bit more innovative? If you are making long or medium hair assets then please include a bun or tied-up version of that hair in a single product. There are times when I would like to render a character with long hair in one scene and another scene with tied-up or bun style hair. Unfortunately, I can't do that even if I stick with products from one vendor, there are barely any matching long and short versions. Long/medium hairs come in gazillion styles; messy style, middle partion, right sided parition, left sided partition, right swept, left swept, backward swept. Try finding a bun/tie-up or short version match to that. And don't even get me started with trying to match colors, blends, shine, gloss....that's another layer of can of worms to deal with. I understand you want to maximize your profits by making seperate assets but we as a user/consumer, we are getting the sticky end of the stick. It is my humble request, moving forward please consider including long/medium "plus" tied-up/bun style as a "single product". Thank you for your consideration!

Comments
You didn't indicate how much you would pay extra for this extra hair since it is more work to include two products rather than one and there might be a loss of sales for those who prefer to buy only an updo or hair down and don't want to pay extra for the combo.
Can/will you pay twice as much for the product? Having different hairstyles using the same hairline etc., so that they look like the same person with different styles, is a common request but it does add complexity which will slow the PA down; that means it probably needs to be more than one product or to cost more. That said, there are a few multi-style products in the store (most of which did cost more than the PA's single styles, as I recall).
Yes, happy to pay double. I understand this requires additional work and PA's effort should be reflected in price. I would consider this as win-win situation. Personally for me the real value is in the quality oif asset and convenience of use. While some may not want a combo, so they could be even sold as seperate assets and tagged to each othe as add-on products without essentials tag. I am only looking for some unformity. But nobody is offering that either
I haven't found any. Which one's do you recommend?
I would hope they would continue to offer the hair styles separately. I've been able to come pretty close to matching some hair models in different styles.
I find it odd that this request is framed in terms of innovation.
When I'm changing a character's hairstyle, I can only guess that the style is reasonable given the character's hair length and volume. It would be great if the artist could clearly indicate which hair products belong to the same person, or even design several different hairlines. This could be multiple products rather than one large, single product.
Most of the products here lack this consistent design. For example, many artists create products with a first or second floor, but they are completely different houses, and it's impossible to find a matching floor or room. I really hope that more consistency can be considered when making products.
I thought it was a given most people would want the same cut and colour of hair consistently for an original character in different styles
I myself have a couple characters I reuse the same vertical diffuse textures on to achieve this and am always looking for complimentary hairs for them
most common cuts this achievable but I myself am challenged finding matches for one of mine as it's a less common style
Since the age of Poser 3 I never find realistic hairs even the latest in Daz.
Something like Hair Generator would be a great addon.
I agree. Even if you stick one vendor there is still lack a consistency. If you do mange to find something that aligns then you have deal with texture maps.....
There have been a number of PAs who've released multiple verison hairs in the past, the most recent I can think of being https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-strand-based-build-your-updo-mega-hair-pack-for-genesis-9. The fact that it's not become a standard thing should probably demonstrate that doing so hasn't really sold enough additional units to offset the extra time and cost and, ultimately, this is a business for the PAs. That said, you can always just combine elements from different hairstyles, even ones made for different figures and generations, and match them with shaders if you can't find exactly what you want pre-built..
I agree with the original post. Just sell add-ons, like what is often done for colors. A bun, wet hair versions, hair ornamentation (tiara?), fit for hats... I want to tell a story not do one pretty render.
one I use often is https://www.daz3d.com/eloiny-hair-plus-for-victoria-4-and-genesis-2-female-s
it is in sections
this is partly there, but it need not even be that complicated
just the different hairs sharing the same UV mapping would help enormously
so many hairs I want to interchange have crazy UV maps not compatible with vertical diffuse/albedo textures
as though PAs are deliberately making their hairs only compatible with their own textures
which I kind of understand as it's their livelihood
You're assuming most people have recurring characters they use in various scenes, rather than just create independant scenes with different characters each time.
I made a post like this once. It didn't get much traction.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/646911/request-for-linday-and-other-hair-artists
It would be fine if the hair veriations were sold as indevidual products and then also included together in a more expansive bundle. I would hope they would sell well for the PAs, but if they don't, then we might not see something like this become a regular thing.
That would be the best case scenario
It should've received more attention back then. We wouldn't be in this situation otherwise
I wouldn't bet on that. First, because it has become over the years I've noted that what's posted in these forums doesn't necessarily reflect/or affect the attention of a large percentage of DAZ customers, second, because a huge part of this equation is a purely financial one on the part of the PAs, the details of which are obviously not available to any of us, and third, because, given what many of the PAs are now producing, it seems clear that many believe that price is the main focus in the minds of a lot of buyers rather than versatility, hence the current glut of hairs that are extremely cheap but don't even have movement morphs.. Years ago one of the PAs at Renderosity released a series of products that I thought was the perfect solution: several packages that each contained individual parts of hairstyles that could be combined together or with other hairstyles to modify the look... I thought they should have sold like gangbusters and still use them to this day, yet the PA quickly dropped that line and refocused on making complete hairstyles again, so despite being exactly what I wanted, it apparently didn't make enough to justify the effort involved.
There's also the fact that most people viewing an image or series aren't likely to notice. Unless you're making facial portraits or focusing specifically on hair-centered renders, most people aren't going to be looking that closely at the hairstyle of the character.
If someone did question a hair change, you can always claim the character had a her hair styled.
I don't understand why since there are products to convert hair for different generations, but I have never had a hair product that didn't work fine on any character, unless is is a 2 gen product, like for Gen 8, 8.1, and 9 in which case it may mess up it I don't figure out which gen goes with which button.
This. Perfection is the enemy of good (enough). As long as you match the color close enough and the general length, no one will care. In fact, do this with your characters as soon as possible so your readers are used to the character with more than one hair style.
The first time I had a character step out of a pool with soaking wet (and different) hair, the color barely matched. No one said anything about her hair being a different style/color. Did I worry about it? You bet. For nothing? Yep.
Wet hair is supposed to be a different color from the same hair dry, as moisteure changes the way hair absorbs light.
Here are some that I have:
https://www.daz3d.com/3-in-1-low-ponytails-hair-for-genesis-8-and-81-females
https://www.daz3d.com/mega-updo-2-hair-for-genesis-8-and-81-females
https://www.daz3d.com/willa-hair-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/reyna-hair-for-genesis-3-female-s
https://www.daz3d.com/tree-hair-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/mrl-dutch-braided-ponytails-with-bonus-presets-for-genesis-9 and https://www.daz3d.com/mrl-dutch-braids-for-genesis-9 work together
The Soft Curls & matching options:
https://www.daz3d.com/soft-curls-long-hair-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/soft-curls-ponytail-for-genesis-9-and-victoria-9
https://www.daz3d.com/curly-top-updo-hair-for-genesis-9
I do use it on other generations, just shared it as an example of what more PAs could do
If you get the biweekly freebies, you may already have the Reyna hair. I got it a year or so ago as a freebie. (Currently $1.99/99¢ Quick Grab) It's marketed as a horror/Halloween hair (part of the old Anneka Demon G3F pro bundle). However I've found that leaving off the weird crown and what look like Quills, and adding an Iray hair shader, makes it a pretty decent long hair.
Oooh, I have Reyna hair as well, it's really excellent for the long & open / done up conversion! I would love to see more of that kind, I think OP is on to something here. And yes, of course a product including two or more styles would have to be more expensive, that's just reasonable.
I wish dForce had more abilities so we could make our own updos from long hairs we have. It's a pity it's reduced to things falling down, not wrapping or such motions. I've been wanting to have or create a typical 19th century women's shawl crossed over the chest for ages now, it would be so cool if dForce could be made to sort of change directions.