Hairlike texturing

[Paul Hartsuyker]

I have a polygon model of some "hair" which is just the general shape. I want to texture the surface to look like hair, along with generating a normal/displacement/bump map of the refined detail to use in Lightwave/Blender with the lower polygon mesh. I have tried several of the brushes, changing various parameters, but can't seem to get a "rake" like effect like I was able to do in ZBrush, (with more difficulty, that's why I am using 3D-Coat now) which creates a closely spaced set of ridges that can effectively look like hair, once painted. Being a "noobie" with this program, maybe it's easy and I am not looking in the right place. I tried several searches without helpful results, but if I can be directed somewhere, thanks for the directions.

Paul

[akira]

I have a polygon model of some "hair" which is just the general shape. I want to texture the surface to look like hair, along with generating a normal/displacement/bump map of the refined detail to use in Lightwave/Blender with the lower polygon mesh. I have tried several of the brushes, changing various parameters, but can't seem to get a "rake" like effect like I was able to do in ZBrush, (with more difficulty, that's why I am using 3D-Coat now) which creates a closely spaced set of ridges that can effectively look like hair, once painted. Being a "noobie" with this program, maybe it's easy and I am not looking in the right place. I tried several searches without helpful results, but if I can be directed somewhere, thanks for the directions.

Paul

Try those settings pointed by red arrows in the attached screenshot,

and paint "slowly" on your model.

Hope it helps.

akira.

[lc8b105]

You can import your own brushes, 3DC even support .abr format brushes from Photoshop.

[wailingmonkey]

another handy ability is choosing 'Use random color between two' for color variation.

[Paul Hartsuyker]

Thank you for the responses, I will give them a try. Great for the "color" aspect of trying to get the model to look like hair, but what I want to do is create actual surface ridges, either at the same time, or separately. It is these ridges that would be exported in normal/displacement and bump. The color will be used also to help "sell" the look, but I need the ridges of the actual surface to catch light. Thank you for any responses.

EDIT: I tried the settings out, they do sort of work. I am getting raised surfaces, but the bumpy aspect did not seem to change as I modified the Rotation and other parameters. I will continue to play. Thanks again.

Paul

[akira]

Thank you for the responses, I will give them a try. Great for the "color" aspect of trying to get the model to look like hair, but what I want to do is create actual surface ridges, either at the same time, or separately. It is these ridges that would be exported in normal/displacement and bump. The color will be used also to help "sell" the look, but I need the ridges of the actual surface to catch light. Thank you for any responses.

EDIT: I tried the settings out, they do sort of work. I am getting raised surfaces, but the bumpy aspect did not seem to change as I modified the Rotation and other parameters. I will continue to play. Thanks again.

Paul

Your texture resolution is too low, try higher value, and higher polycount helps too.

For the default sphere, at least 2048 for texture size with 2.5mil poly.

akira.

[akira]

I found a better workflow for this kind of situation:

"Paint with mask"

try this mask file i attached, and the other one contains some pre-made hair brushes for PS and 3DC.

Hope they help.

akira.

Hair_Brushes.rar

[Paul Hartsuyker]

I found a better workflow for this kind of situation: "Paint with mask" try this mask file i attached, and the other one contains some pre-made hair brushes for PS and 3DC. Hope they help.

akira.

Thank you Akira for the assist. I have been playing with the mask file, and several others that I downloaded. What I was hoping to do is more of a "rake" effect to create hair. I have done so in ZBrush, but the interface annoyed me when moving back and forth to other 3D programs (Lightwave, modo, Blender). I am including an ObjPen (link) Hair.obj that I created, but it still creates too many "dots" rather than a strand-like aspect, and also, the center of the affected area with the brush is more raised than the edges, which distracts from my intent, so I will play with it some more.

Paul

[akira]

Hi Paul,

Could you share how you made it in ZB?

I tested it in ZB with the brush shape you provided and here is the result i got.

regards,

akira.

[Paul Hartsuyker]

Hi Paul, Could you share how you made it in ZB? I tested it in ZB with the brush shape you provided and here is the result i got.

regards,

akira.

Well,... aren't you a wonder :>) I upload my Obj brush and you get it into ZBrush, how he do dat??!! I can Import Tools into ZBrush, but not sure how to make them into a Brush. The surface you generated is what I am getting in 3D-Coat also, not what I intend. I am including an image of the "Rake" brush from ZBrush, which generates more of the surface that I want, still a bit bumpy, but much better. I have no idea how to Export the Brush from ZBrush to an Obj format, haven't done any research, so it may be possible. In any event, you can see from the example that it can be made to look more hairlike than my fumbling efforts. I left a PM for Andrew Shpagin on this topic as I would imagine others would benefit from such a tool. Thank you again for attending to my questions. Best to you.

Paul

[akira]

Ok, I got it. The problem of your brush is that you made those dots distributed in a 2d area, all that you need is a row of dots.

Try this one, with "Rotate along motion direction" and "Soft Stroke" turned on, other options off (no need to use spacing), and start from a smaller depth value like 0.15.

Hope this helps.

akira.

hairRake01.rar

[Paul Hartsuyker]

Ok, I got it. The problem of your brush is that you made those dots distributed in a 2d area, all that you need is a row of dots. Try this one, with "Rotate along motion direction" and "Soft Stroke" turned on, other options off (no need to use spacing), and start from a smaller depth value like 0.15.

Hope this helps.

akira.

Thank you for your efforts, they look good on screen. I ran into problems in that this is a PSD file and not an ObjPen like I had been trying to develop. I do not know where to put the PSD and how to use it. I will look in the manual so pardon my "noobishness" on this, but the texture that you are creating looks much better. I will try some more tomorrow.

Best to you, and thanks.

Paul

[akira]

Thank you for your efforts, they look good on screen. I ran into problems in that this is a PSD file and not an ObjPen like I had been trying to develop. I do not know where to put the PSD and how to use it. I will look in the manual so pardon my "noobishness" on this, but the texture that you are creating looks much better. I will try some more tomorrow.

Best to you, and thanks.

Paul

No problem, I like to explore new skills.

You can put the psd file anywhere you like, and load it the same way as you load obj pen files in 3DC.

akira.

[Andrew Shpagin]

I am agree with Akira's idea - very good!

Also, you can try the trick: use pen as attached (or less regular, it is just idea), set:

[x] Rotate along motion

[x] Use spacing

Spacing - 6

other sets - turned off

hairs6.bmp