Backlight Hair Shaders
Valkeerie
Posts: 163
I've been using the Backlight hair shaders for weeks now and my appreciation has grown and grown. They are simple to use, easy to tinker with, and almost always provide superior results, even with ancient hair going back to V4. The Alchemy product is also excellent but takes more thought and learning. It is great if you want (for example) sun lightening or root regrowth. Before Backlight I used the OOT shaders a lot, but I find I get more dependable and interesting results with Backlight.
The primary difference is that they use refraction to "soften" the often harsh look of many hair shaders and provide a naturalistic finess to hair. There is a strength setting that affects the refraction channel.
There is also a Bump and a Shine option, which I almost always use. For many older hairs I might crank the Bump manually to as much as 20. The refraction softens the look, and the bump provides specular graininess on flat planes - it is a case of trying out various settings.
Because the materials are applied to selected hair surfaces rather than the whole hair, it is simple to apply different shades to different parts of the hair. Because of refraction you may find they are more expensive in render time than other shaders (I am using a 2080 Ti and dont care :-))
The render I have attached includes Nydo Hair. I was just messing when I decided to write this post. It didn't especially require the shaders, but I like the look.
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Comments
It's a nice picture, I'm interested in the backlight shaders, but need to wait for paycheck etc, and maybe manage to catch it on sale too if I'm lucky *smiles* I am curious, what is the jacket you have on the character in that picture?
@Valkeerie - I am so happy to hear you are enjoying these :)
Yes, I have been able to "rescue" lots of hair that wasn't working. A lot depends on the light, how the planes of the hair interact with the incident light, and sometimes Backlight isn't the right thing, but it is great to have another, very different approach to fix hair that isn't working out with a given set of lights.
So thanks :-)
Hi, the jacket is by Rhiannon and can be found at The Store that Must Not Be Named.
Hiya! *waves*
I purchased the Backlight Hair Shaders, and they seem like a wonderful product. So far I've gotten really great results for realistic-looking hair in single colors using the shaders provided in the set.
What I'm wondering is, is it possible to use this shader system to make other hairs look more realistic as well, while still retaining the same hair colors? I'm running into a problem where the character I'm using has a more streaked/blended look in her hair, and would love to have the more realism that the Backlight shaders provide, but I'm having issues trying to get the blended look.
Any help would be wonderful, and thanks ahead of time.
Lots of hugs,
~LQ
Hi LQ :)
You can selct the surfaces on the hair model that you would like to use this shader set on, and then hit the CTRL key while clicking on your shader of choice. At the dropdown menu, select ignore images. For a streakier look, I quite often will use Forbiddenwhisper's Alchemy for the backlight shaders, alternating/ selecting different overlays for different sections of hair. I used this method and textures in the promo's for Oshun.
Also with blended hair, you will probably need to turn down the amount of refraction to keep the streakiness there.
I hope this helps!
Alchemy (https://www.daz3d.com/alchemy-for-backlight-hair-shaders-for-iray) really leverages the power (and awesomeness) of the Backlight Hair Shaders. Well worth purchasing.
I use Backlight (and Alchemy) near exclusively since buying them.
Would just like to say that the trick of using the CTRL + clicking on the shader worked wonders to maked the hair work the way I needed it to! Thanks SO much Chevybabe25 for that useful information! :D I also picked up the Alchemy shader set to go along with the normal set, and it is now my main go-to hair shaders! Great job folks! (Sorry for the slow response!)
Lots of hugs!
~LQ
Glad I could help :)
I have both backlight and alchemy and use them more than any other shaders, hands down! I even made a bookmark specifically to the shader presets/chevybabe folder so I can pop right to it. (Bookmarked using ManFriday's bookmark product). Using Backlight I always get the results I WISHED I was getting with other shaders. It saves me a lot of time to just use them first. THANK YOU!
Every time I see this thread, I read it as "Backhair Shaders" and giggle.
Carry on.