A new hair system is kinda over due. :(
On 12 February 2014 16:54, Luc Girard <l...@shedmtl.com> wrote: > Hi Tim, > > Thanks for the way you mentioned our projects :) . > > I would like to chime in and say that we, at Shed, are also looking at > hair solutions actively. Our solution based on Kristinka does the job but > it is very far from being an out of the box solution and it requires a lot > of RnD to maintain as it not supported by AD. If a problem pops up, with > substeps motion blur per example, we are left to our own devices. We > usually prevail but we end up spending nearly 50% of the time on technical > details vs real look dev. I thought you should know :). > > >From what I've seen around, Yeti seems to be a good contender but I've > yet to do a full production setup with it. > > Good luck in your search ! > > Luc Girard // SHED > VFX artist > 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 > T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM > > > -----Original Message----- > From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: > softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker > Sent: 8 février 2014 07:26 > To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com > Subject: Re: Softimage Hair options? > > Thanks for this in-depth answer! > > Personally, I´m starting to lean towards going for the trial of Yeti, one > reason being that I think I remember Colin Doncaster´s name from another > maya maling list and another because of the really nice sample image of a > bear posted by Yolandi Meiring in a similar thread here: > > (Thread) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/xsi_list/2erKqUcghpI > > (Image) > https://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list/attach/994086131ca9460/bear_still.jpg?part=4&view=1 > > > Another really nice one is a proof of concept of bringing (3dsMax) > hair-farm into Softimage from Lee-Perry Smith, with props to Dani Garcia > and Steven Caron. > That human hairdo and it´s renderings look incredibly awesome. > > http://ir-ltd.net/hair-farm-hair-into-softimage/ > > For a Melena/Kristinka workflow using Anto Matkovic´s tools in those > beautiful shed projects there´s a nice clip posted by/on Lester Banks > > > http://lesterbanks.com/2013/05/workflow-tips-for-creating-and-grooming-hair-in-softimage/ > > -- > > I have only limited amounts of time I can spend on this and need to find > something that has potential to be useable for testing Redshift´s hair > shading approach when applicable but ideally integrates seamlessly into > either Maya/Max/Softimage. > > The combination of Maya+Redshift is allready working very well and it > seems it´ll be easier to successfully migrate from simple hair/fur testing > to something actually looking good (using yeti). Also, yeti has a variety > of licensing options I might find atractive at a later date if tempted to > actually finish something beyond spare-time doodling. > > I´d prefer Softimage but if that stuff works better in Maya, it´ll be Maya. > > I suck with Max, even the fastest and most intuitive plugin can´t > compensate that sad fact. > > Cheers, > > tim > > > > > > > > On 08.02.2014 12:57, Stefan Kubicek wrote: > > Hi Tim, > > > > I've just been dealing with hair an a hamster and used the built-in > hair&fur of Softimage /2014SP2). > > > > A few tips about working with built-in hair: > > > > Avoid too dense meshes. It creates a guide hair for every vertex, > > hence dense meshes make you fiddle with lots and lots of guide hair > strands manually, which can be counter-productive and -intuitive. > > > > If you want to edit hair parameters on a per vertex basis (via vertex > > colors), you need to plan ahead where exactly you want your hair to be > and where you want certain features (transparency, density, kink & frizz) > to change and over which distance/area. This is especially important for > areas like hand and feet, as well as nose & eye lids. > > So, before you move the mesh into skinning/rigging, you better make sure > your topology works not only for animation but also for the hair setup you > have in mind. > > > > Don't rely on the built-in style transfer functionality. It does > > mostly work but has a tendency to "blur" the transferred hair style, > even if your source and target emitter topology are the same. You need to > move in again and reintroduce details in the fur that got lost. > > > > If you want to simulate hair with collision don't use a subd mesh as > > the emitter. The docs say that having hair emitted from a subd mesh > > cannot collide with its own emitter, so you have to duplicate the > > source mesh and subdivide it for real (that is, create more actual > > polygons) and use that as the collision object. That would still be > > acceptable, if it worked, which it does not. What I found after > > tedious testing was that any collision testing fails when your emitter > is a subd mesh, independent of what you have it collide with (itself or > another mesh), which kinda sucks and is the biggest problem I ran into for > which I could not find a solution. Thankfully my fur was rather short and > the character had a lot of secondary motion, so it looks alife enough > (besides some problems when bending arms, which are hardly noticeable in > the animation in my case). From what I can tell it looks like collision is > always computed against a simplified collision sphere representation of the > collision object, no matter what you set for collision accuracy and shape, > deforming shape, etc. It just doesn't work, at least not for me. > > > > Sometimes, when saving and reloading a scene some hair strands (like 1 > > out of 1000) would suddenly stick in some random direction. I had the > impression that it helps to always collapse the modeling stack before > saving, at least it never occurred again in final stages of production when > the fur description was final and not changed anymore. > > > > Next time I will surely look at Kristinka or Melena. AS for > > simulation...I believe there was a Strand Simulation framework with self > collision introduced on softimage.tv some weeks ago that looked > promising, I haven't heard of ne1 using it for hair so far, mayb someone > else can comment on that? Would love to hear some ideas on this as well. > > > > Good luck, > > > > Stefan > > > > > > > > > Hi guys, > >> > >> what would be a convenient way to create,style and control hair in > >> Softimage, with lengths up to 10-12 inches and ideally both a good > >> collision model and dedicated styling tools? > >> > >> Which Softimage version would you suggest, e.g. 2014sp2? > >> > >> I´m a novice with hair and fur but would like to set up a manageable > >> sample/test that ideally works with Arnold and Redshift. > >> > >> Is it possible to work generic or transfer results from, say Yeti > >> into Softimage? > >> > >> Would you recommend actually leaning towards Maya for such a task, > >> either going directly to Yeti or similar? > >> > >> I know those are fuzzy questions, I guess I´m actually looking for a > >> biased answer regarding any of the various hair plugin options for > >> any of the major three apps, e.g. max/maya/softimage. > >> > >> Sofar, I´ve found the following options: > >> > >> hairfarm, yeti, ornatrix, shave&haircut, maya hair, maya xgen "hair" > >> in 2014ext and the cinema4d hair options (shadowmapped). > >> > >> Admittedly, that´s a lot of options and I find it difficult to bet my > >> time-investment onto any of them since I simply know bling about pro´s > or con´s. > >> > >> Cheers, > >> > >> > >> tim > > > > > > >
