Look at my Hair: official thread [Commercial] RELEASED!

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Comments

  • Kendall SearsKendall Sears Posts: 2,995
    edited January 2013

    Gone said:

    So, since you installed a new version of Garibaldi, your tooltips are now showing correctly and the other "issues" are resolved? If so, then this is not a good thing. That one plugin's bugs can sabotage another plugin, that's... interesting. :-/

    We try to keep LAMH's foot print on the system down by not having it loaded when not necessary, but it seems that other software isn't playing so nicely.

    Kendall

    Before this conversation goes too far, I just want to point out that I have both Garibaldi and LAMH installed on my machine. I have been using Garibaldi since the first beta and LAMH was on my machine when I updated Garibaldi from beta 10 to beta 11.

    I have seen no evidence of interference between the two. Both installed without issue. Both run without issue. The only "conflict" I have encountered is trying to use BOTH Garibaldi and LAMH hair in the same scene. In that case DS crashes.

    I'm running an Intel Core2 quad, 6GB RAM with Windows Vista 64 bit and nVidia 8500.

    Hope this helps.

    Thanks for the report, that's good to know. I do not have GH here. I can only work from customer reports. It was truly a worry if 2 plugins could interfere with each other's signals.

    Kendall

    Post edited by Kendall Sears on
  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    lokanbull said:
    I want to thank you for this product. I'm recently new to the 3D rendering world and been using a lot of my free time letting my creativity go :)
    One thing I've been wondering how to deal with are hairy and fully furred characters, and Look at my Hair looks like it will fit that purpose perfectly.

    However, I seem to be having issues getting the fur to render out correctly. To keep things simple, I've used the gorilla preset (I'm assuming it Gorilla for Genesis) from your site, but the final render is no where close to the sample picture provided. I seem to get a very thin and sparse fur texture. I've noticed someone else had the issue (with a wolfman), and tried those suggestions. However, even with a base root of 350, tip of 200, and using over 5000000 hairs to be exported, it comes out like this when using Renderman. I do have UE2 (set to medium), with a distant light (and a matching with specular) and camera in the scene. I've set the rendering settings to those similar in the tutorial, and using 3Delight. As well, Look at my Hair is running in the background during rendering.

    I've even experimented with making my own furred body, and I get the same effect. At this stage, I'm not sure what I'm missing.

    Any suggestion and help would be welcomed.

    I have tried exporting it as an obj and loading that in Daz Studio, and that seems to have better results (i.e. I get full body covering). However, your manual says Renderman should give better texture overall, so I want to get it working through that if possible.

    I'm using Win7 Home Premium 64bit OS, with 64bit Daz Studio with 16GB of memory.

    Thanks in advance,
    Jason

    Hi Jason, I loaded the Gorilla preset that we have available at: http://www.furrythings.com/presets_depot/DAZ-Gorilla.zip

    I used root/tip width = 350/200 (be careful to apply those settings clicking on the update button, as shown in the attached screenshot), and exported 1,000,000.
    Attached also a quick render done in Studio with 1 UE2, mid settings. I made the fur purple so that hair would show better.
    Could you please try again? Thanks

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  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    Luca never stops to amaze me: take a look at this magnificent render, a furred TRex harassing a heard of Triceratops. Love also the landscape he was able to achieve.
    Luca styled the TRex fur in Look at my Hair, exported it to .OBJ and rendered the whole scene in Vue with Global Illumination in about 2 hours!

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  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Posts: 376
    edited December 1969

    Awww, he looks very huggable! :p

  • lokanbulllokanbull Posts: 24
    edited December 1969


    Hi Jason, I loaded the Gorilla preset that we have available at: http://www.furrythings.com/presets_depot/DAZ-Gorilla.zip

    I used root/tip width = 350/200 (be careful to apply those settings clicking on the update button, as shown in the attached screenshot), and exported 1,000,000.
    Attached also a quick render done in Studio with 1 UE2, mid settings. I made the fur purple so that hair would show better.
    Could you please try again? Thanks


    Hi Alex,

    Thanks for getting back to me. I double checked the settings and ensured I clicked on the update button, and even with that, I don't get anything close to what you are getting. My renders just seem to look like wispy still.

    It works if I export to an obj and load that in Daz (but I have to use a low hair count since using 1M hair will bog down my system), but exporting with Renderman does not seem to give the final result. I have a question though, what textures should be set on each group? Right now when I look at the texture that LAMH generates for the fur, it uses the same texture as the gorilla skin texture. Shouldn't it have a different texture? Mind you, even changing the texture doesn't seem to affect much except make the few fur strands that I can see more visible.

    Tomorrow, I can try and see if I can get Daz installed on my old Mac laptop and see if there are any differences, but my Windows system is my more powerful system right now.

    Jason

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited January 2013

    lokanbull said:

    Hi Jason, I loaded the Gorilla preset that we have available at: http://www.furrythings.com/presets_depot/DAZ-Gorilla.zip

    I used root/tip width = 350/200 (be careful to apply those settings clicking on the update button, as shown in the attached screenshot), and exported 1,000,000.
    Attached also a quick render done in Studio with 1 UE2, mid settings. I made the fur purple so that hair would show better.
    Could you please try again? Thanks


    Hi Alex,

    Thanks for getting back to me. I double checked the settings and ensured I clicked on the update button, and even with that, I don't get anything close to what you are getting. My renders just seem to look like wispy still.

    It works if I export to an obj and load that in Daz (but I have to use a low hair count since using 1M hair will bog down my system), but exporting with Renderman does not seem to give the final result. I have a question though, what textures should be set on each group? Right now when I look at the texture that LAMH generates for the fur, it uses the same texture as the gorilla skin texture. Shouldn't it have a different texture? Mind you, even changing the texture doesn't seem to affect much except make the few fur strands that I can see more visible.

    Tomorrow, I can try and see if I can get Daz installed on my old Mac laptop and see if there are any differences, but my Windows system is my more powerful system right now.

    Jason

    Hi Jason, the textures listed in the setup material window are the ones that will be used to compute fur color, and are gathered from the underlying model (the Gorilla in this case).
    I'm puzzled that you are not able to replicate this example, it seems like for some reasons your 3Delight engine is not able to render the full hair population (I'm talking about RenderMan curves).
    Are you sure you are not closing LAMH when you render (meaning that LAMH needs to stay open during render) ?
    Could you please send me the Studio logfile and LAMH logfile (this last is in Documents/DAZ 3D/Studio/lookatmyhairAM/logfile.txt).

    My email is: info_at_alessandromastronardi.com (replace _at_ with @)

    Thanks,
    Alex

    Post edited by Alessandro Mastronardi on
  • Norse GraphicsNorse Graphics Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Awww, he looks very huggable! :p

    To him you look tasty...

    It's indeed a high-quality render, and in just 2 hours???

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    Awww, he looks very huggable! :p

    To him you look tasty...

    It's indeed a high-quality render, and in just 2 hours???

    Yes, only 2 hours and a few minutes, and if I remember correctly the output resolution that Luca chose was 2560x1440. Again, render done in Vue Infinite.

  • commorancycommorancy Posts: 39
    edited December 1969

    A new character 'Aquerian' with a flattop

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  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    I am working on my first real attempt at using LAMH, and am running into a problem that is super frustrating: what I get in Studio is NOT what I see in LAMH when I turn on the density preview with max density specified. For example, I am seeing a hard, angular ridge line in the top of the hair coming from something when the OBJ is loaded in Studio, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what is causing it from with the LAMH preview, since it doesn't show the angular ridge (which is quite long, easily 1.5-2 inches in length). So I've had to resort to randomly pushing things around, re-export, see if it made any different, repeat.

    The other thing that has been really annoying is the tolerance between the brush moving the hair and moving the viewport. I find a lot of the time I end up changing the viewport because it didn't think I was close enough to the hair. I much prefer the way DAZ's viewport works, where the mouse only controls the viewport when you click down over one of the viewport manipulators. (Of course, LAMH also needs to do what Studio does, and capture the mouse on mouse-down for these so you can infinate-scroll and not stop when the mouse moves into the edge of the window.)

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    I am working on my first real attempt at using LAMH, and am running into a problem that is super frustrating: what I get in Studio is NOT what I see in LAMH when I turn on the density preview with max density specified. For example, I am seeing a hard, angular ridge line in the top of the hair coming from something when the OBJ is loaded in Studio, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what is causing it from with the LAMH preview, since it doesn't show the angular ridge (which is quite long, easily 1.5-2 inches in length). So I've had to resort to randomly pushing things around, re-export, see if it made any different, repeat.

    The other thing that has been really annoying is the tolerance between the brush moving the hair and moving the viewport. I find a lot of the time I end up changing the viewport because it didn't think I was close enough to the hair. I much prefer the way DAZ's viewport works, where the mouse only controls the viewport when you click down over one of the viewport manipulators. (Of course, LAMH also needs to do what Studio does, and capture the mouse on mouse-down for these so you can infinate-scroll and not stop when the mouse moves into the edge of the window.)

    HI cwichura, about the first issue, that happens when exporting to OBJ right? Could you please email me a screenshot of what is in LAMH preview and what's being exported in Studio? My email is info_at_alessandromastronardi.com (replace "_at_" with "@").

    About the 2nd annoyance, we are planning on changing the way the camera controls work. Kendall and I are on it.

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    A new character 'Aquerian' with a flattop

    Awesome render, and ubercool lighting!

  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    Another VERY annoying thing, that will potentially result in many wasted hours of render time if people aren't very careful to check things before starting the render: LAMH changes the figure to base resolution in the Studio project. I get you want the low resolution, that's fine. But after you've imported the geometry into LAMH, set Studio back to the user's specified settings. I bet a lot of folks will render LAMH figures with Genesis reduced to base because they're not even aware LAMH has changed the mesh resolution on them.

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    Another VERY annoying thing, that will potentially result in many wasted hours of render time if people aren't very careful to check things before starting the render: LAMH changes the figure to base resolution in the Studio project. I get you want the low resolution, that's fine. But after you've imported the geometry into LAMH, set Studio back to the user's specified settings. I bet a lot of folks will render LAMH figures with Genesis reduced to base because they're not even aware LAMH has changed the mesh resolution on them.

    That is a bug that I introduced just before producing the final product files. The normal procedure (i.e. LAMH not affecting TriAx figure resolution) will be restored in upcoming update.
    However, I always do a quick render in Studio without lighting to be sure that camera, and all the objects are placed as I want, and then crank up lighting and render settings, and do the final render.

  • lokanbulllokanbull Posts: 24
    edited December 1969


    Hi Jason, the textures listed in the setup material window are the ones that will be used to compute fur color, and are gathered from the underlying model (the Gorilla in this case).
    I'm puzzled that you are not able to replicate this example, it seems like for some reasons your 3Delight engine is not able to render the full hair population (I'm talking about RenderMan curves).
    Are you sure you are not closing LAMH when you render (meaning that LAMH needs to stay open during render) ?
    Could you please send me the Studio logfile and LAMH logfile (this last is in Documents/DAZ 3D/Studio/lookatmyhairAM/logfile.txt).

    My email is: info_at_alessandromastronardi.com (replace _at_ with @)

    Thanks,
    Alex

    Hi Alex,

    I figured out what the problem is, and it seem to be more a usability issue. What was happening was the number I put in the "hair quantity" in the export options dialog was not being registered. Though I typed in 1M, the dialog did not register it. The way I used it was as follows:
    1. Click on the Export button in the main LAMH Window
    2. Type in 1000000 in 'hair quantity'
    3. Press the export button.

    Using it this way, the 1M wasn't being registered because the focus was still on that control, so the dialog was still thinking I was entering a number, even after I press the export button.

    The way to make it work is like this:
    1. Click on the Export button in the main LAMH Window
    2. Type in 1000000 in 'hair quantity'
    3. Press the return key (or change the value in another control)
    3. Press the export button.

    This is probably a usability issue for Windows only (I haven't tried on Mac). I would suggest you consider making the control friendly to the first use case I mentioned above. Especially since that control is last, so many users may enter the hair quantity and press the export button right after.

    So, for you Windows users out there, if you are having similar issues, press the 'Enter' key after entering the hair quantity value :)

    Thank you for your help, Alex :)

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    lokanbull said:

    Hi Jason, the textures listed in the setup material window are the ones that will be used to compute fur color, and are gathered from the underlying model (the Gorilla in this case).
    I'm puzzled that you are not able to replicate this example, it seems like for some reasons your 3Delight engine is not able to render the full hair population (I'm talking about RenderMan curves).
    Are you sure you are not closing LAMH when you render (meaning that LAMH needs to stay open during render) ?
    Could you please send me the Studio logfile and LAMH logfile (this last is in Documents/DAZ 3D/Studio/lookatmyhairAM/logfile.txt).

    My email is: info_at_alessandromastronardi.com (replace _at_ with @)

    Thanks,
    Alex

    Hi Alex,

    I figured out what the problem is, and it seem to be more a usability issue. What was happening was the number I put in the "hair quantity" in the export options dialog was not being registered. Though I typed in 1M, the dialog did not register it. The way I used it was as follows:
    1. Click on the Export button in the main LAMH Window
    2. Type in 1000000 in 'hair quantity'
    3. Press the export button.

    Using it this way, the 1M wasn't being registered because the focus was still on that control, so the dialog was still thinking I was entering a number, even after I press the export button.

    The way to make it work is like this:
    1. Click on the Export button in the main LAMH Window
    2. Type in 1000000 in 'hair quantity'
    3. Press the return key (or change the value in another control)
    3. Press the export button.

    This is probably a usability issue for Windows only (I haven't tried on Mac). I would suggest you consider making the control friendly to the first use case I mentioned above. Especially since that control is last, so many users may enter the hair quantity and press the export button right after.

    So, for you Windows users out there, if you are having similar issues, press the 'Enter' key after entering the hair quantity value :)

    Thank you for your help, Alex :)

    Noted! This can be considered a bug and will be issued in the upcoming update. Sorry for the trouble.

  • lokanbulllokanbull Posts: 24
    edited December 1969


    Noted! This can be considered a bug and will be issued in the upcoming update. Sorry for the trouble.

    It's OK :) I don't mind helping improve products like this. I'm glad there is a workaround for now, and it's only a minor thing to deal with.
  • commorancycommorancy Posts: 39
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    Another VERY annoying thing, that will potentially result in many wasted hours of render time if people aren't very careful to check things before starting the render: LAMH changes the figure to base resolution in the Studio project. I get you want the low resolution, that's fine. But after you've imported the geometry into LAMH, set Studio back to the user's specified settings. I bet a lot of folks will render LAMH figures with Genesis reduced to base because they're not even aware LAMH has changed the mesh resolution on them.

    That is a bug that I introduced just before producing the final product files. The normal procedure (i.e. LAMH not affecting TriAx figure resolution) will be restored in upcoming update.
    However, I always do a quick render in Studio without lighting to be sure that camera, and all the objects are placed as I want, and then crank up lighting and render settings, and do the final render.

    The workaround for this issue is to create a duplicate of your figure. Use one of the figures as the hair reference and which the figure is hidden. Use the second for rendering with hair in place. All of my renders have been done this way. It's not optimal, But, it allows me to create the hair on a figure, then import it back to the base resolution figure. Then, hide that figure and let the hair sit on the higher res figure. Granted, it's not optimal because to repose the figure requires reposing both figures.

    Anyway, that's how I worked around the low resolution issue for my renders.

    Thanks.

  • DisparateDreamerDisparateDreamer Posts: 2,487
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    Another VERY annoying thing, that will potentially result in many wasted hours of render time if people aren't very careful to check things before starting the render: LAMH changes the figure to base resolution in the Studio project. I get you want the low resolution, that's fine. But after you've imported the geometry into LAMH, set Studio back to the user's specified settings. I bet a lot of folks will render LAMH figures with Genesis reduced to base because they're not even aware LAMH has changed the mesh resolution on them.

    That is a bug that I introduced just before producing the final product files. The normal procedure (i.e. LAMH not affecting TriAx figure resolution) will be restored in upcoming update.
    However, I always do a quick render in Studio without lighting to be sure that camera, and all the objects are placed as I want, and then crank up lighting and render settings, and do the final render.

    The workaround for this issue is to create a duplicate of your figure. Use one of the figures as the hair reference and which the figure is hidden. Use the second for rendering with hair in place. All of my renders have been done this way. It's not optimal, But, it allows me to create the hair on a figure, then import it back to the base resolution figure. Then, hide that figure and let the hair sit on the higher res figure. Granted, it's not optimal because to repose the figure requires reposing both figures.

    Anyway, that's how I worked around the low resolution issue for my renders.

    Thanks.

    After you finalize the scene you should be able to change Genesis' resolution back to high.

  • alanb11alanb11 Posts: 0
    edited January 2013

    Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

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    Post edited by alanb11 on
  • shaaeliashaaelia Posts: 613
    edited December 1969

    Oh, that is cool. Love the expression. He looks almost liked someone dunked him in water and he's half dry. Brilliant.

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    Another Lux render done with latest Genesis preset available, courtesy of Shadaliza.
    Exported 120,000 hair to .OBJ, and let Lux run for about 2 hours.
    I never had much time to play with Lux, so I'm still dealing to find out how to tweak shaders. Also, it seems like I am not able to apply ACSEL shaders... will ask Paolo...

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  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    alanb11 said:
    Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

    Cute critter! :)

  • thd777thd777 Posts: 931
    edited December 1969

    Here, Kitty, Kitty... A quick test with the tiger preset. Setup of the hair in Studio with LAMH, converted to .obj and exported as Collada. Imported, scene setup, lighting and rendering in Vue 11 Infinite. The fur had 8.5 million polygons and the scene used about 9 Gb of ram at peak.
    Thanks for this great tool! Love how it looks in Vue.
    TD

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  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    Cool render TD, I'm glad you are enjoying using LAMH. :)

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,133
    edited December 1969

    This looks great is there any way to use this in poser with out having to use daz 4.5?

  • Alessandro MastronardiAlessandro Mastronardi Posts: 2,593
    edited December 1969

    Ivy said:
    This looks great is there any way to use this in poser with out having to use daz 4.5?

    Unfortunately not (yet), since it's a plugin based on Studio.

  • cwichuracwichura Posts: 1,042
    edited December 1969

    Here's my first go at using LAMH, rendered with LuxRender: Pool Shark

    LAMH will take some time to really learn to make good hair with, I think; not something one can just load up and instantly have a great hair prop. Same is true for all powerful tools, though. It will also be a lot easier once some of the updates that have been mentioned are released, like the collision detection.

  • Kendall SearsKendall Sears Posts: 2,995
    edited December 1969

    cwichura said:
    Here's my first go at using LAMH, rendered with LuxRender: Pool Shark

    LAMH will take some time to really learn to make good hair with, I think; not something one can just load up and instantly have a great hair prop. Same is true for all powerful tools, though. It will also be a lot easier once some of the updates that have been mentioned are released, like the collision detection.

    Based on a lot of useful user input (thank you guys and gals) we're adding a LOT of "ease of use" options.

    We really do listen to our users, and appreciate the input greatly.

    Kendall

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,142
    edited December 1969

    Speaking of ease of use.... is there ANY WAY at all for those of us that want to export exe's to create conformer hair to have an auto export at a reduced poly count like that plugin on DAZ Studio that destructs the meshes to lower poly count? I've never used that and don't know if it's safe or not for this sort of thing.

This discussion has been closed.