I guess I don't understand what the advantage is to "transmapped" hair for models. It is no advantage to the user, who must try to figure out what a scene will look like without the hair until rendering. Makes it much harder to see the outcome to have to render, then change, then render again, then . . . and so on. Is there some really worth-while advantage in creating a hair object to do it transmapped? It's quite a nuisance to the user.

Transmapped hair looks much more realistic than "solid" hair. As an example, you can see the difference between Kozaburos hair and the default Poser 4 "plastic" hairdos. The transmap makes the edges of the hair look like they do in real life: like an edge that gradually turns from solid hair to thin air. As an example you can try to render Kozaburos hair with and without the transparency map loaded. The different is obvious. I agree that the transmapped hair is difficult to work with, since it looks like a cloud of tiny dots until rendered. You can make it easier by turning transparency off in the material settings while working with it. Just remember to turn it on again before rendering :-)

Here is a very quick render of Kozaburos Kyoko hair with the transmap in place as it should be.

...and here is the same scene without transmap. Quite a difference IMHO.

Okay, but I have hair objects by both Koz and Kyoko that look (to me) quite realistic, without being transmapped. I guess it just depends on what you're doing your art for. I find the Kyoko hair really quite realistic, especially since it comes with a lot of morphs to change the style, etc. Thanks for your answer and the pics.

The Kyoko hair is a transmapped hair, as are all of Kozaburo's hair objects. Check your material settings. If you want to be able to see the transmapped hair without having to mess with material settings, simply select the hair, the go to the document style menu, there are submenus there for element and figure styles as well. Choose element style, and click cartoon with lines. You will be able to see the hair as a flat shaded object, but it will render normally.

big differences between the two in some instances tho, the untextured,untransmapped model looks pretty cool. But to get all those extra strands and such seen in reality, it is pretty much a requirement in the poser world to use transmapping. this is a hair style Im working on and its all transmapped. I just got started on it, so it has a long way to go until Im happy, but you could be able to understand that the raw render of transmapped hair is far superior that what would be achieved if it were just a texture with no transmap. :) luck BT

Okay, I will concede that the transmapped hair has more of a realistic look, certainly better by far than the original hair objects offered. Which leads me to a question, which I almost hate to ask, but I'm curious. I understand that the "old" hair was a "solid" object with texture and the better the texture, the more realistic look. But the transmapped is obviously not a "solid" object. Very briefly, how is it constructed? (No long details, just a layman's description, if that is possible.)

the short answer is that it is usually made of layers of meshes so that the upper layer will show part of whats beneath, and the next layer will show whats beneath that and so on and so on. The long answer is much more in depth and also depends on the mesh and the knowledge of the person making it. I mean, some people actually make 'helmet hair' models look pretty decent. :)

The transmapped hair can be a solid object, but it is equipped with a transparency map that makes part of it transparent. The transmap is a grey scale image where black is totally transparent and white is totally solid. If you take a look at the transparency map for any transmapped hair, you will understand the concept. It's the various degrees of transparency in the hair that makes it look realistic, since that is the way real hair works.

I see what you're saying about the transparencies, but I have compared two Koz hair objects and am confused about the difference between two transmapped hairs. The pics are of the UNrendered hair with transparency set to zero. This difference is the basis of my original question. Are there settings somewhere that I have missed? I cannot find any difference in either the Poser settings or in the general look of the textures and transparencies.

The image on the left, the hair is set at transparency zero, figure or element style "textured"; the image on the right appears to have its style set to "Wire". These are some screencaps to illustrate hair viewing possibilities with the transparency at full. Hope this helps some.

Styles menu

Different styles: "Line"

Whoops! The above (Post 14) is styled as "Wire", not "Line" This one is "Cartoon". This is the easiest one I find to work with, because you can see it while you're posing, but you don't have to change any material settings.

No matter the figure or element (use for props or individual parts of figures), your image will render normallly unless you change the actual render settings.

Thanks, Momcat, for the excellent tutorial. It helped me to understand some things I had not gotten into in about two years of using Poser.