Garibaldi Express: Hair and Fur Plugin [Commercial]

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Comments

  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    What kind of red are you looking for?

    With these renders, I used base/tip colour as 16,8,0/28.14.0. In the shader, the TRT intensity is set to 0.7 and the colour is 122.0.0 - only the blend value is changed. In order of appearance they are 0.9, 0.7, 0.5 and 0.2. As you can see, you can get a lot of variety just changing the blend value of the TRT. Changing the blend colour will give you a wide variety of colours without ever changing the base/tip colour.

    As for lights, I'm pretty much exclusive to AoA's advanced lights (ambient, spot and distant) these days. These lights allow for surface flagging and have a flag specifically for Garibaldi that I use religiously. Just using the Garibaldi flag alone reduces the render time on my old jalopy by about 50%. Using additional flagging only makes renders faster.

    Red3.jpg
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    Red2.jpg
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    Red1.jpg
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    Red4.jpg
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  • SimonWMSimonWM Posts: 924
    edited December 1969

    Gone said:
    What kind of red are you looking for?

    With these renders, I used base/tip colour as 16,8,0/28.14.0. In the shader, the TRT intensity is set to 0.7 and the colour is 122.0.0 - only the blend value is changed. In order of appearance they are 0.9, 0.7, 0.5 and 0.2. As you can see, you can get a lot of variety just changing the blend value of the TRT. Changing the blend colour will give you a wide variety of colours without ever changing the base/tip colour.

    As for lights, I'm pretty much exclusive to AoA's advanced lights (ambient, spot and distant) these days. These lights allow for surface flagging and have a flag specifically for Garibaldi that I use religiously. Just using the Garibaldi flag alone reduces the render time on my old jalopy by about 50%. Using additional flagging only makes renders faster.

    Those are great! That last red would work with my image. Can you give more details as to how to setup the AoA lights with the Garibaldi flag. This is the first time I hear of this.

  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    All the advanced lights have a lighting control group. There are drop downs that let you choose a variety of flagging options and a drop down of what to do with the flagged surface.

    If all you are flagging is Garibaldi, then this is what I use. Alt samples for the spot and distant light defaults to 2 - the ambient defaults to 16 but I change it to 2 as well since you don't need a lot of samples for the hair.

    Most scenes can be lit well with just the ambient and a spot light for shadows. I tend to use 1 ambient and 2 spot lights - 1 strong with good shadows and 1 weak on the opposite side but, like all scenes, how you set up the light depends on the environment and mood you are trying to achieve. The ambient light provides overall light as well as occlusion shadows. Unless you are using HDI images with uberenvironment, the ambient light makes an excellent replacement.

    For the images in my last post, I used an ambient light at 35% with light blue colour; scene left has a spot at 100%, light yellow and shadow softness of 500% and samples at 48; scene right has a spot at 20%, light yellow and shadow softness at 1000%.

    AoALights.jpg
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  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Gone said:

    @Szark - Sorry to see you go.
    .

    yeah me too. Thanks Gone. Shame as I like the plug-in but I don't like slack customer service.
  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,878
    edited December 1969

    Szark said:
    Gone said:

    @Szark - Sorry to see you go.
    .

    yeah me too. Thanks Gone. Shame as I like the plug-in but I don't like slack customer service.


    While I understand your concern, not every PA is full time. Futurebiscuit, who is James Leaning, is a professional who has done a lot of work in films - http://www.jamesleaning.co.uk/ - and may not have the time to give.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    I know but that doesn't excuse a lack of acknowledgement of my concerns. It only takes one minute to do and yes I realise that I may not be the only email. But customer service is customer service. You can't just ignore people. If I knew this from the off I would have spent my money on LAMH, instead I tried to support him by buying this product when LAMH was out on sale.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,219
    edited December 1969

    One of the benefits of selling through DAZ 3D is that DAZ provides the first line customer services and support. Many PAs are active in support, but it isn't a requirement.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    That we agree on Richard

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    I am sort of sorry I did this in a open forum but when I hit brick walls I go on one.

  • jthackerjthacker Posts: 5
    edited May 2014

    It's been months and months and still no tutorials? I have combed through these threads and I'm not getting anywhere. It's just frustrating to spend this much money on something when I was led to believe there would be more support available by now. I truly wish I had gone with Look At My Hair. Maybe I'd have something to show for the money I've spent.

    Are there any tutorials out there that I'm missing (besides what little is available on the Garibaldi site)? I have Googled my eyes out. Maybe by someone else? I have seen so much amazing work so far and all I can churn out is garbage. I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I'm just desperate!

    Post edited by jthacker on
  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited May 2014

    There is a lot of information here:

    http://www.garibaldiexpress.com/wiki/index.php?title=Garibaldi_Express_Documentation

    Have you looked at it yet?

    Post edited by Kevin Sanderson on
  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    While I haven't read every word in the wiki, it looks like it covers pretty much everything about how to use the tools.

    If you are having problems with something specific, then just ask.

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,878
    edited December 1969

    There is a lot of information here:

    http://www.garibaldiexpress.com/wiki/index.php?title=Garibaldi_Express_Documentation

    Have you looked at it yet?


    Thank you Kevin. I dont recall seeing that before.

  • DaremoK3DaremoK3 Posts: 798
    edited May 2014

    Yes, thank you, Kevin. I did not know about the Wiki either.

    It also led me to another download page with some of Gone's work for download. Thank you, Gone, for the downloads:

    http://www.garibaldiexpress.com/downloadsNew.php

    I finally signed up for the beta, and downloaded the Free Basic, and Express 1.1 (supposedly SOON to be released to us in the DAZ store, as noted by a January 2014 statement), so I could use the hair downloads.

    One question. Has anyone successfully downloaded the Lion's mane for the DAZ Big Cat LE on that page?

    I keep getting it is not available on that server (Apache Server Port 80 error). Everything else downloads fine, except for "Gone's Wild Male Hair" image (also not available when clicked to enlarge).

    Post edited by DaremoK3 on
  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    DaremoK3 said:
    ...
    One question. Has anyone successfully downloaded the Lion's mane for the DAZ Big Cat LE on that page?
    ....

    Not me ...

  • Swawa3DSwawa3D Posts: 231
    edited December 1969

    DaremoK3 said:

    One question. Has anyone successfully downloaded the Lion's mane for the DAZ Big Cat LE on that page?

    They forgot to add the "-" after lion. I figured it out by analyzing the other links. Try this:

    http://www.garibaldiexpress.com/content/Lion-MilleniumBigCatLE-ExampleScene-01.zip

  • DaremoK3DaremoK3 Posts: 798
    edited December 1969

    Thank you, Swawa3D!

    I checked that, and did a comparison as well, but it was late, and my eyes were a bit crosseyed, so I completely missed it. Thanks again for the solution. Downloading now...

  • KeryaKerya Posts: 10,943
    edited December 1969

    Thank you for the corrected link! :)

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited June 2014

    Stupid question...

    Somehow, some random guide hairs got their lengths cut to 0.
    No, they are not just very very short - their tip == their root. Their length truly is zero, resulting in hairless patches.

    How do i reset their length? None of the styling tools work.
    I can't select the hair either as there is no hair to select (yes, i've tried disabling Mask Hidden by Surfaces).
    And no, they aren't buried beneath the surface - in fact, the single-point tip/root is hovering above the surface.

    The reset options in the Edit menu appear to be missing, so no luck there either.
    I am using 1.1c from the beta forum.

    Post edited by orcadude on
  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    Unfortunately, when it's gone - it's gone. There is no way to recover it that I've found.

    This has happened to me a few times when I used the scissors too close to the surface. Now I only use the scissors near the tips of long hair and use negative values of the extrude tool for shorter hairs.

    At this point, you will either need to start over or create a second node to "fill in" the bald spots.

    Those floating dots are just fond memories of what once was. I've never found a way to select them and restore the hair.

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited December 1969

    Ha! Never give up!
    I think i've figured it out.

    Step 1: select the Extend tool and extend via the slider to +1 - the stub hair should regain its segments (quite probably facing a completely wrong way, that's just fine)
    Step 2: select the restored guide hair
    Step 3: Shift + drag to select whole figure - the result will be intersection of both selections, i.e. everything except the restored guide hair
    Step 4: select the Extend tool again and un-extend via slider to -1

    Only thing that remains now is to reselect the wonky restored guide hair and comb it back where it belongs.
    Using slider to extend instead of dragging in the viewport should ensure all the other hairs remain intact and unchanged.

    If Step 1 doesn't manage to restore the stub hair, repeat the extend a few times.

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited June 2014

    Eyup, that seems to do the trick. Other lengths seem to have been retained fine, will see for sure after the (extremely lengthy) render.

    Another potentially stupid question: am i missing something or is there really no way to use a texture map to adjust the hair lengths?
    Edit: i know about the Random Length Max Length texture channel, but that's not quite the same thing.

    Post edited by orcadude on
  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    If you can get the stubs to grow, then you should be able to select the offending guides with the base select tool and grow only the selected guides.

    If you need to go higher than 1 with the slider, you can always click in the number box and enter a value directly instead of reselecting the extend tool several times. You should also be able to use the scale tool to grow the stubs if the extend tool works.

    Don't know if this is what you are after, but you can use a grey scale map in the extrude settings in the style pane. These settings are supposed to override the interpolation settings. Never used it myself so I don't know what effect it has.

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited June 2014

    If you can get the stubs to grow, then you should be able to select the offending guides with the base select tool and grow only the selected guides.

    Nope. They're unselectable until grown.
    That's the core of the problem :)

    You can select the single floating node, but you can't manipulate it because it's the root node. There are no segments to drag or move. And single node selection does not persist in the Extend tool. You can't select it with the Select Curves tool, it does not work on single nodes.

    Like i've said, the trick is to extend all, then unselect the offending (now extended) guide and un-extend the rest.

    If you need to go higher than 1 with the slider, you can always click in the number box and enter a value directly instead of reselecting the extend tool several times.

    Yup, that works too. Haven't really needed more than 1, that was just a NB.

    You should also be able to use the scale tool to grow the stubs if the extend tool works.

    Nope, that doesn't work. Scale scales the existing segments, then re-interpolates according to new length.
    There is nothing to scale in this case, there are no segments. Extend tool, on the other hand, extends new segments from the last node.

    Don’t know if this is what you are after, but you can use a grey scale map in the extrude settings in the style pane. These settings are supposed to override the interpolation settings. Never used it myself so I don’t know what effect it has.

    Thanks, will give it a try. From the description in the wiki, it doesn't seem to influence hair length, but maybe i misread something (would not be the first time).

    Post edited by orcadude on
  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    Interesting observation about the extend vs scale tools. I'll have to try and keep it in mind the next time I lose a guide hair.

    So, are you going to show us your masterpiece when it's done?

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited June 2014

    Not exactly a masterpiece, just playing with the shader for now.
    But here goes...

    1.jpg
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    Post edited by orcadude on
  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    Looks good.

    Personally, I would give the hair a bit more volume, though.

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited December 1969

    I think you're right.

    I'm trying to nail a smooth-coat look.
    Balancing between volume and smoothness / transparency is pretty hard.

    This was approx. 5 mil. hairs, by the way.
    LAMH artifacts-up around 3-4 on this particular figure due to using low-res, non-subdivided mesh to grow hairs out of (basically, the thicker the coat, the blockier the figure becomes). Garibaldi's shader sure is CPU expensive, but at least there are no artifacts and the editor doesn't crash.

  • GoneGone Posts: 833
    edited December 1969

    5 mil is quite a bit. Sometimes, too much hair can be a problem because it is packed so tightly it makes it difficult to look like hair rather than a map with hair texture. The lion I posted a few pages back only has about 1.5 mil hairs.

    If you use the figures texture to drive the hair colour, you can often get away with much less hair since you will only need the hair to provide the 3d look while the map provides the smooth coat look. It can be a tricky balance but will save a lot of render time if you get it right. It may also be worthwhile to make a second node for stray hairs so the coat doesn't look too slick.

    For fur, I usually use a base/tip setting of 0.04/0.02. Thicker settings can also help reduce the number of hairs generated but, again, you need to find the right balance for the hair to look good.

    Keep in mind that Garibaldi also builds hair on the base mesh. It just happens to be more polite about keeping DS resolution settings when moving in and out of the editor.

    Have you tried AoA's advanced lights? They have a flag specifically for Garibaldi hair. These lights can dramatically reduce the render time on the hair.

  • orcadudeorcadude Posts: 24
    edited June 2014

    Tried AoA, didn't like it. I prefer Omnifreaker lights, AoA seems too... Cartoonish.
    I've got the same reservations about thick, low hair-count fur and painted on (texture-based) fur.

    The latter makes the highlights and anisotropy never turn out quite right (unless it's baked in), the former makes things look like a synthetic fur carpet or tinsel. What i did, on the other hand, looks too cottonny, so it's really all about the balance... I believe I was using thickness values similar to yours, but it turned out more fuzzy/cottonny due to low opacity and added TT at the time i rendered this.

    Will deal with that when i'm done playing wih the shader settings. Thing is, the higher the hair count, the smoother the highlights. But, the higher the hair count, the thinner the hair has to be to prevent the fur from completely blocking out the underlying texture and prevent it from looking too clumpy. However, the thinner the hair, the more it looks like haze from oblique angles and the more texture-like the appearance when viewed straight on. I don't mind the textured look (if you look at smooth coats in real life, they usually look precisely like that - like a higly and very irregularly anisotropic texture, more than visible bundles of hair), but yeah... Balance :)

    Render times... I don't mind them, really. I'm experimenting with the shader anyway (only rendered the full image to post it here) and i don't mind leaving a render running on one machine while i do work on the other.

    And yeah, both LAMH and Garibaldi use the base mesh, but the point is, LAMH doesn't use the interpolated version nor does it seem to interpolate itself, while Garibaldi does precisely what you've said - respects the subdiv / smoothing settings. Make a shiny, short fur in LAMH, pleave the hairs facing perpendicularly from the surface (don't comb), pump the hair count to 4-5 million and do a render and it should be fairly obvious - polygon galore :)

    Post edited by orcadude on
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