Hair Tutorial for DS4 Users

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  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited December 1969

    And one last scene...back to the first scene, actually, but with Orion Hair in place of Timeless Male Hair (David's also had a change of wardrobe, but that's beside the point). Orion does qualify, I believe as a more geometrically complex hair, and as I had guessed, I'm seeing more of an impact of the phantom shielding. Still not much difference between applying the materials or using an untextured shell though...so, as far as I'm concerned, save yourself the extra effort and just use an untextured geometry shell for the fantom occlusion.

    A few final thoughts...

    - Why does fantom occlusion work? I believe my research supports the reason I've heard from others: that it is faster for a computer to calculate the effects of transmaps on one surface and occlusion on another, than the effects of both occlusion and transmaps on the same surface.

    - What is "occlusion," anyway? Turning the "occlusion" setting on or off controls whether the surface is affected by ambient occlusion. What is "ambient occlusion?" A layman's definition (and probably a very incomplete one) is that it is the way light bounces between nearby objects and surfaces. Hair, particularly a very complex hair model, will involve lots of calculations if occlusion is on...which slows renders down.

    - Keep in mind that default spotlights, point lights, and distant lights don't have ambient occlusion to begin with, but Uber lights do. So this whole discussion is less relevant for folks who mainly use default lights only in their scenes.

    - My recommendation to turn Accept Shadows off isn't a good idea if the character is positioned where another object should be casting shadows on the hair! If you turn Accept Shadows on on the hair, though, make sure that the geometry shell is not casting shadows on the hair itself.

    - Geometry shells can be useful for more than just phantom shielding. You can keep fantom off, apply the hair materials to the shell, and set the opacity at somewhere perhaps between 50% and 90% or so, for hair with more detail and volume. I haven't experimented with this too much yet, but I know others have used this technique. They can also come in handy to improve fitting/layering of clothing, and there are other uses as well...

    The render times for this last scene:

    1. over two hours! (sadly I didn't record the exact time)
    7. 19m 35s
    8. 19m 24s
    9. 14m 0s

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  • BusterBuster Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I'm very thankful to have experts such as yourself willing to share their knowledge. I've been wondering how to convert Sapphire Fox Hair for V3 & A3 to Genesis. This should get me on my way.

    Many, many thanks,

  • cyberspeed1cyberspeed1 Posts: 18
    edited December 1969

    Hello.
    Is there any tutorial on the forum, that explain how to use your own hair, you import the .obj hair, and make it work with genesis, I think you have to use the Transfer Utility option, is there any information on that? id really appreciate any info, thank you in advance.

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    Sorry for cross posting. I originally posted this in Scott's other thread about US in general.

    I don’t think it’s the number of polygon that causes problem with occlusion. From what I know, it’s basically the burden of calculating occlusion between each layer of hair (or clumps of hair), with each layer having opacity maps.

    I generally turn off AO for the skull cap, but enable it for the strands (with Shading Rate set to override with a value 16 or upwards).

    As for volume and layering, I’ve recently experimented with opacity color to allow a little bit bleedthrough. Haven’t got the transluency right though. Below you can see the difference between having AO for the strands (the upper image) and turning off AO completely (the bottom one).

    Render time is 1 minute 53 seconds with AO and 1 minute 12 seconds without AO..

    Test2.jpg
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    Test.jpg
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  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    After a bit of tweaking, I think I've found a workable preset for having some translucence in the hair that doesn't look too different from the normal shades indifferent of textures. I haven't tested it on other hair though

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    19.jpg
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  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited December 1969

    Looking good! Which hair is that? Is it the new one that comes with Genesis 2 Female Starter Essentials (Toulouse)?

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited November 2013

    Looking good! Which hair is that? Is it the new one that comes with Genesis 2 Female Starter Essentials (Toulouse)?

    Yes. It's Toulouse. Quite nice, I should say. It doesn't have that many layers so it generally render faster than say, Pyrit Hair and comes with a lot of different color textures.

    Most of the 'highlights' comes from specular and velvet (with the diffuse texture controlling strength). Technically, it should be usable on other hair as well.

    edit
    Added some renders with different hair (Pyrit and Duke). Generally looks fine. Specular may need so more tweaking to avoid that uniform look.

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    Pyrit.jpg
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    Post edited by wowie on
  • SorelSorel Posts: 1,389
    edited December 1969

    I've actually been experimenting with AoA's SSS shader for hair. I'm trying to get my materials to look realistic as possible. Unfortunately I never get the desired effects I want. May I ask what your settings are for the US in your hairs?

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited November 2013

    Sorel said:
    I've actually been experimenting with AoA's SSS shader for hair. I'm trying to get my materials to look realistic as possible. Unfortunately I never get the desired effects I want. May I ask what your settings are for the US in your hairs?

    Still fiddling with it myself.

    This is my preset after more tweaking.

    I use a low diffuse strength and use velvet to get some highlights on the hair, with the diffuse texture slotted to control velvet strength. Then I use a little bit of transluency so it picks up more backlight. To give it depth, I turn on occlusion with a shading override of 16 or larger (mainly to keep render time low). It works pretty well with hair which have decent amount of layered strands, but for single objects, transluency is way off if viewed from the back (the angle of the backlight).

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    Hair1.jpg
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    AnnaLow.jpg
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    Post edited by wowie on
  • SorelSorel Posts: 1,389
    edited December 1969

    Thank you very much for the reply. I'll test the US settings tomorrow. (well today I guess lol)

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    Sorel said:
    Thank you very much for the reply. I'll test the US settings tomorrow. (well today I guess lol)

    Btw, you should probably aim to get a workable settings with really light blonde hair. That's the most difficult shade to get right. Once you do, the darker shades will work with the same preset (more or less).

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    My latest attempt.

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  • Chopperking1967Chopperking1967 Posts: 11
    edited December 1969

    Wow ScottL, thanks so much for your time in sharing all this!
    -Trent (Chopperking1967)

  • ThunderCrewThunderCrew Posts: 0
    edited August 2014

    Great tut and worked for speeding up my render... Mirror issue ?
    Started something as testing and learning still...
    Cropped this to just show the bald headed mirror lol :^)
    See she has hair but in the mirrors she is bald :ahhh:

    Edit ... All I did was select all the hair and apply the uber surface base choose ignore form drop box instead of replace.
    Went into the shader editor and turned off occlusion raytrace etc ...... Hmmm while editing this wonder if raytrace is why since need raytrace for reflections? going to try it now

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    Post edited by ThunderCrew on
  • ThunderCrewThunderCrew Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yup that was it. I obviously have some hair morphing etc to do now and light adjustments but turning off the raytrace option took away reflect ability lol Thanx again for the tut.

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  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,331
    edited December 1969

    Yup that was it. I obviously have some hair morphing etc to do now and light adjustments but turning off the raytrace option took away reflect ability lol Thanx again for the tut.

    Glad you got it working...that's actually a very good thing to know, in case you ever want to have a reflection that doesn't match what is being reflected. The Fantom setting, by the way, kind of does the opposite: with Fantom on, it will be invisible except in reflections (and shadows, etc.). :)
  • ThunderCrewThunderCrew Posts: 0
    edited December 1969


    Glad you got it working...that's actually a very good thing to know, in case you ever want to have a reflection that doesn't match what is being reflected. The Fantom setting, by the way, kind of does the opposite: with Fantom on, it will be invisible except in reflections (and shadows, etc.). :)
    Yeah I found that out too ;)
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