How do you create custom hair?
chibakuroki27
Posts: 3
in New Users
I want to create a male hairstyle from a reference but I don't know where to start... do I make them in other applications such as Blender, Maya, Zbrush and then export them to DAZ?
I am so envious of people who are able to make hairstyles and sell them on the shop...
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It depends what kind of hair you want to create.
DS includes the strand-based haïr editor, so you could try using that.
"Classic" hair is made from transmapped ribbons of polygons. You can create that in most modeling applications. Once the mesh is created and UV mapped you export it as obj and import it in DS, then rig it if you want conforming hair with moving parts. And if course you'll need to texture it. Usually hair creators UV map each "hair strip" so it can use a simple image with vertical hair strands as the texture.
There's also fibermesh hair, which can be created in Zbrush. Again, once created you export it then import it in DS.
You select your figure and click on Create -> New Strand-Based Hair
There are several types of hair. Transmapp (transparancy mapped), fibermesh, and strand-based hair. Transmapped hair would be modeled as polygon strips or cards in a 3rd party modeling program (Blender, 3DS Max, Maya, Houdini, Hexagon, Carrara, etc.). A transparancy map and texture map is applied to the polygon strips to give the illusion of hair. If you look at a hair model in wireframe view or with the geometry editor you can get an idea of how they are constructed. There is usually a skullcap that the polygons are attached to so that the morphs of the figure project into the skullcap, like conforming clothing. Some 3d modeling packages have a native hair system that understands things like gravity/collisions and can be used to create a groom and then bake the groom into polygons and transparancy maps that could then be imported into DAZ Studio. Once imported you would use the transfer tool to rig the hair and make it a conforming item for the figure.
Fibermesh hair, is hair that is similar to transmapped hair, but it is instead many polygon tubes exported from zBrush. Fibermesh, due to it's reliance on geometry is more "heavy" and requires more resources to be loaded in the viewport and to render than traditional transparancy mapped hair.
A strand-based hair tutorial is here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/335676/strand-based-hair-mini-tutorial/p1